Fitness tests are a thing of the past. Whether you train indoors, outside, or a mix of both, AI FTP Detection automatically analyzes every ride to detect your FTP—no tests or all-out efforts required. It’s available now for every TrainerRoad athlete.
VO2 max is not fixed, and structured training can significantly improve this key factor, especially if maintained consistently over the long-term. Let’s take a look at how.
With over 100 million workouts completed during the last ten years, TrainerRoad athletes have gained an incredible amount of experience, so we asked what useful tips they’d learned along the way.
Power-based training is without a doubt the best way to structure training for cycling, and FTP serves as a way to scale every workout to your current fitness level. But what is a good FTP, and how can you be sure that your FTP is accurate?
Training Stress Score (TSS), Intensity Factor (IF), and Workout Levels are useful ways to quantify the challenge and effect of a workout. Taken together, these 3 metrics help tell the story of your training, but it’s important to understand the differences of each. What does each metric mean, and how can you use them to get faster?
FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power and estimates the highest average power can sustain for one hour, measured in watts. For cycling, FTP is a measure of fitness and an important metric that indicates the amount of work you can sustain for long durations. Additionally, it’s used to determine power zones that are used in training.
There are many ways to quantify performance in cycling, but two of the most commonly-cited data points are VO2 max and FTP. These metrics are related but distinct, and the connection between them is easy to misunderstand. So what’s the link between VO2 max and FTP, and what role do they play in determining your fitness?
No matter what your goals are—you should be doing threshold intervals. Spending time close to your functional threshold power (FTP) offers extraordinary benefits to your aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, mental stamina, and sustained power capabilities. Not to mention, doing threshold intervals will help to increase your FTP!
Anaerobic training is important for many athletes, but does its high-sugar burning nature lower your FTP? We’ll dig into the science of anaerobic training, lactate threshold, glycolysis, meal timing and much more in Episode 326 of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast!
Cross-training is not usually considered as necessary for cyclists, but should it be? We’ll cover the science of cross-training, how to raise power while dropping weight and much more in this episode of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast!