Advise on training plan : 276w to 300w before 2024!

Training
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Hi everybody,

I trained alone for the past 15 months on my Home Trainer and I’m looking for critics on :
(i) What my progress have been like
(ii) What I should do in the following year to make good progress and hold 300w for an hour.

Age : 30
Weight : 152lbs or 69kg
Current FTP : 4.0w/kg, or 276w
Objective : 300w, because it starts with a “3” before jan24.

Home Trainer only :
First training date : 27/10/2021
Number of minutes trained since that date : 17 046 min.
Minutes / day : 40min
Number of trainings : 282
Average length of training : 60min

I also do a little bit of running and swimming on the side, i might do approximatively 8 to 9 hours of training per week.

My starting FTP in oct21 might have been around 245w.
I held 276w for an hour in September 2022 for the mythical 4.0w / kg.

For the past 2 or 3 months, I did between 5 to 6 trainings per week on HomeTrainer, 2 being “tough”, and the other ones being always the same “Easy” workout :
Easy : 60min to 90min at 70/75% FTP with a 5min warm-up.
Tough #1 : 5min at 115% FTP and 5min at 60% FTP, 5 times in a row. 60min total with warming up.
Tough #2 : 5min at 95% FTP and 5min at 87% FTP, 10 times in a row (100minutes total). There is 2 little break of 5 minutes in between those 10 sets. 130min in total with warming up and breaks.

Those 2 toughs work-outs drains me mentally and are usually pretty tough to complete, stress me before, especially Tough #1,.

After good progress in October I saw a decrease in my performance…

Others training (running / swimming) were easy because i was injured.

Is my trainings to polarized ? What would you do advise me to do to :
(i) Keep progressing
(ii) Reducing the nervous fatigue / stress induce by those tough work-outs

I noted that the past weeks, my fatigue has increased.
My resting heart rate was at 40 or below, and i see it at 45 to even 50 which is alarming to me…

Thanks for your help !

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Clarifying questions:

  • How often are you taking a recovery week?
  • You say you are training 5 - 6 / wk, but then say 2 are tough and the 3rd is easy. So what are the other 2 - 3 workouts / wk?
  • On your “Tough #2”: is the 2 - 50 minute intervals where each of the 50 minute intervals consists of 5x(5min at 95% FTP and 5min at 87% FTP)?
  • What does “HT” mean?

For suggestions:

  • If you want to keep progressing you need to give your body new / different stimulus. Eventually just doing the same thing week after week will stop providing any novel stimulus, your body adapts to the load / stimulus it is getting, and you will plateau.
  • For your question “is my training too polarized”? No, it isn’t. Actually if you were doing a polarized plan your “easy” day would be between 50% - 60% or 65% of FTP and not 70% / 75%. Your easy day isn’t easy enough given that your two hard days are really hard. I would work on extending the length of this ride if you have the time, but dropping the wattage

If you held an hour at 276 watts back in September, have you tested (or used something like TR’s AI FTP detection) to see what your FTP is today?

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Answer in the quote

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Some long zone 2 outside 3 hours+@60-70% FTP

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Train for an Olympic triathlon.

The 40km TT bike leg is a good target for an effort around an hour.

Use Plan Builder, set your target date, select olympic triathlon and you’ll do great.

January 2024 is too far away, I’d choose June and reassess if you haven’t got to 300 then.

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There are lots of different philosophies on rest weeks:

  1. Shorten the total time and do just endurance type rides at an “easy-ish” pace - this is what TR does. For examples, look at TR plans for the rest weeks
  2. Reduce the overall volume, but keep doing the same type of intensity. So in your case that might mean dropping your Tough #1 to something more like 1x (5min 95% / 5min 87%) + 5min recovery + 1x (5min 95% / 5min 87%) + 5min recovery + 1x (5min 95% / 5min 87%) + cooldown
    Figuring out what is best is something of trial and error, and “best” can vary by they type of workouts you are doing. For example, if you were in a long endurance block, then the recovery week might just look like dropping the volume of each endurance ride.

For how often you should take a recovery week, again you need to experiment. But I would recommend starting with a 3/1 or 4/1 ratio. That is: either 3 or 4 weeks of work followed by 1 week of recovery.

So i switch my easy which is currently at 210w for 60 min for a 90min at 185w. seems good to you ?
Yes. Or if you have the time go longer than 90 minutes at least once per week.

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And that makes complete sense to me. You cannot train successfully without periodization.

If what you wrote about your training, yeah, you’ve been training yourself into the ground. So the fatigue you feel is completely obvious. You also wrote you never took a recovery week.

Here’s what I would recommend: take some time off the bike now. You need to rest. We get faster during rest, and you have abused your body in the last few months. It needs time to heal. I’d say you need at least 2 weeks, perhaps 4. When you get off the bike, you will be slower, and you might think this was a stupid idea. But this is part of periodization. You cannot be on top all the time.

Secondly, I would follow a training plan designed by someone who knows how to create training plans. It doesn’t seem that you are currently using TrainerRoad. Ideally, you’d join and do a training plan. Or you could hire a coach. But importantly, get a training plan for an entire year. Because what you are doing is not structured training. Learn about periodization and progressive overload. And most importantly, learn about the importance of rest weeks. Note that rest weeks are different from being off the bike. Typically you only do endurance work and cut your TSS to about half. Rest weeks is when you get faster. Let me repeat that: having rest weeks is when your body repairs itself more strongly, this is when you get faster.

When you choose a plan, do not go for what you think comes out to about the same number of hours. The limiting factor will be recovery, i. e. we can all do a lot for 2–4 weeks. But if we don’t recover, we crumble and cannot sustain the load. Since you don’t seem to have a lot of experience (no offense), you don’t know where that line is. Start low. If you want to do more, add easy endurance rides. And I don’t mean at 70–75 % FTP, more like 60–63 % FTP.

Thirdly, sleep more. I’m serious. If you aren’t getting 8 hours of sleep, your training will be compromised.

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Fwiw, I have pretty similar stats to you and have found that 300w is very achievable. For me, I tend to sit around 280 on 6 hours of training per week. Every time I bump time to 10 hours per week consistently my FTP hits 300. I don’t even mix up my training plan, I just stick to Low Volume regardless of how many hours I plan to ride. I just fill in everything above and beyond the three scheduled workouts with Z2 work.

For me that works out to something like this:

  • Monday: Rest
  • Tuesday: TR Scheduled Workout + 30 minutes Z2
  • Wednesday: 60 minutes Z2
  • Thursday: TR Scheduled Workout + 30 minutes Z2
  • Friday: 60 minutes Z2
  • Saturday: TR scheduled workout + 30 minutes Z2
  • Sunday: 180 minutes Z2

I also don’t hesitate to go above and beyond on Sunday or Saturday if there’s a fun group ride or race to hit up.

I think a lot of times we have a tendency to overthink these things, but really a few solid workouts a week and lots of hours seems to be the key to improving fitness.

As always, this is different for everyone… listen to your body.

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lots of great replies here already! So I’ll just echo:

REST WEEK!!

Go more polarized: easier should be easy (I walk instead of ride on easy days), and the hard should be harder. Harder vo2max or longer SupraThreshold. Your Tough #2 workout is kind of just in the middle. Switch it up for sure IMO.

If you can ride longer outside, add those in if they don’t create too much fatigue. 2-3h endurance rides would be awesome.

Tough workouts might always create a bit of anxiety, no matter how long you’ve trained for. We get anxious for things we want to do well at. Just remind yourself: I’m at where I’m at today, it’s just a bike ride, and I’m going to give it all that I’ve got. It’s going to be painful at times, but nothing I can’t push through for a bit!

Good luck!

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Are these indoor rides? If so how are you adding the extras 30 min Z2?

Thanks!

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I’d sign up for TR. just get a year subscription as it’s cheaper. It’ll take all the thinking out for you. You’ll become way stronger in areas you didn’t think you needed to strengthen and your ftp will also go up.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t differentiate between indoor and outdoor as far as what I do. I really only ride indoors during the winter tbh.

Adding 30 minutes of Z2 is easy indoors though. After completing your scheduled workout just open up train now and pick out a 30 minute z2 workout.

Alternatively sometimes I use workout alternatives to change my scheduled workout from 60 minutes to 90 minutes.

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Just increase this with Z2, this will push your FTP from below. 40 mins/day isn’t even 5 hours per week, but you say average length of training is 60 mins per day. So looks like there is scope is increase volume.

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IMHO you should, at least if you want to keep track of “equivalent doses” of training. I love riding outdoors, but it involves stops at traffic lights, me needing to get in and out of the city, etc. Plus, like you wrote, you can’t just tack on 30 minutes (or get off in the middle of the ride, you have to limp home).

I’m also tend to be more disciplined indoors.

That’s a big advantage. Even if I had a lot of free time, I’d probably still do quite a bit of training indoors.

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Depends on where you live, for me, I don’t live in the city. So outdoor rides are often nearly identical. I plan my routes clockwise so there’s nearly no opportunity to actually stop.

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Everyone has pretty much said everything, but it looks like you need to go easier on your easy days and then vary your tough days more. Honestly, some of your tough ones need to be easier too. FWIW I was probably lower than you started at the end of 2020 and am currently at 303. (I’ve done 30 minutes at 320 outside but its not what I keep my FTP at for training purposes on TrainerRoad.) Sometimes you need that hour ride at 175w. It is building fitness and its getting you fresh for the tough workouts. I think honestly the target even on tough workouts is to be physically drained but not mentally drained. Come off the bike thinking “well that was hard but I did it pretty well”. If you are going to the mental well too much to finish off workouts then you risk putting yourself in that state where you feel like your numbers decreased (because they do). You want to try to ride that line of providing enough stimulus to adapt but not so much that you can’t recover.

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Even then, in almost all circumstances it won’t have the same effect. E. g. if you have undulations, wind or climbs and descents, then you cannot pedal as evenly. On descents you may need to stop pedaling altogether. Other times, it is more efficient overall to e. g. try to keep your cadence/speed steady rather than adapting your power output to the wind conditions.

Don’t get me wrong, cycling outdoors isn’t bad. In fact, it is a whole lot of fun, so just for that it might be worth it alone. :smiley:

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Sorry if I miss this information but, I’d like to know what and how much you consume whilst you’re on the bike/trainer.

Rest, recovery and nutrition have proven to be key for me. Making sure that my body has the fuel to not only get the work done but also recover and build during the easier days.

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I would drop #2 (It causes a lot of fatigue, for little benefit) and maybe do some strength training instead.

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Correct me if I’m wrong but is there absolutely no progression or variation in your training from week to week? If that’s the case, then no wonder your fitness has platoued.

To me, it seems like you have a one solid training week figured out (nothing really wrong with the example you gave) but you’re missing the big picture. You should include at least:

  • different macro cycles (for example: base, build, taper and recovery phases)
  • progressive overload from week to week followed by a adequate recovery period

And it sounds like a recovery phase would be a good place to start right now for you.

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