Another anecdote: a friend has been doing a lot of Zwift last few months. Her power numbers and FTP look good. She went outdoors for 3 hours yesterday and she said she felt weak with no endurance.
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I did last year. I know Z2 is a big talking point this year and Iām experimenting with it. But last winter, I did almost the opposite and did nothing but Sweet Spot pretty much for like 2-3 months and had my best year both in terms of power numbers (new PRs in peak power, 30s, 1 min, and FTP) and on the road racing. From January to early March I extended time in zone at 90% up to 120 minutes. Then I did a Threshold/Over-Under block and a 3-week VO2 max block. Very little Z2, and none really until it warmed up and I did some longer outdoor Z2 rides.
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One of the strongest masters athletes I know does it on 5-6 hours per week and only 3-5 hours of cycling.
I sketched out his schedule on Strava because nobody else I follow on Strava trains like him.
His winter off season is like:
Mon - 1 hour swim or run
Tues - trainer 1 hr - 21 minutes @ FTP usually 3x7min
Wed
Thur - trainer 1 hr - 21 minutes @ FTP usually 3x7min
Fri - gym weights 1 hour
Sat
Sun - bike trainer - 60-90 minutes endurance
He changes it up a little but not much. Sometimes he runs more than he swims. He does weights once a week. Occasionally twice a week. Bike is like 3-3.5 hours per week all winter.
I asked him on a ride one time why he always does 21 minutes of intervals. He laughed and had no answer. He read it in a book or something and made it up at some point.
During the riding season he still does the gym and running or swimming and does the weekend group ride and mid-week group ride.
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That sounds familiar to me too @GoLongThenGoHome. Transiting from exclusively outdoors to indoors, or from exclusively indoors to outdoors always really really sucks for me the first few rides. Usually normalizes within a handful of rides though, for me at leastā¦
But is he getting faster or standing still? How much has he improved over the last decade?
Improving takes a lot more work than maintaining where youāve got to via previous years / decades of work.
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Maybe different training modalities have different impacts on individual people? Depending on genetics, training history over the years, recent training accents, recovery modalities, life stressā¦
But I would bet people that really focussed on intensity respond more to Z2 as opposed to more intensity; and people who are reaaly good at Z2 get a bigger boost from adding more intensity. But I have no science to back this up 
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Totally. If you train the parts youāre weak at then your gains there will be comparatively better then if you train the areas where youāre already strong.
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I have no idea Phil. Iāve only know him for a couple of years. I just know that none of the other group ride hard hitters train like him and heās stronger than most on minimal, but consistent threshold and cross training.
The problem is if everyone just tries to keep up with him through winter they arenāt going to get stronger than him. Theyāll just be suckered into his game, that makes him look strong.
Mind looking at what you posted, he doesnāt do group rides in the winter.
None of them do regular group rides in the winter unless the whether turns warm for a minute and an ad-hoc ride happens.
As a masters athlete myself I can say that if you are āstanding stillā rather than slowing down you are winning. No matter how much training I do I will never be as fast as I was in my 20ās.
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If you maxxed out your cycle training in your 20s thst is true. If your cycling was mostly utility (cycling to work / shopping etc) in your 20s maybe not.
Once you get strong, a z2 ride becomes very metabolically demanding. Pros end up doing more z1 due to this (and their z1 is fast).
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Correct but unless your LT1 is north of 300 watts not something to be too concerned about as a punter.
Iād be happy to have that problem 
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Uh, yeah you do.
I donāt know his category. I know he raced masters but heās not a former elite. Heās a 45 year engineer at a national lab.
I only find him fascinating because he maintains a high level of fitness (275 FTP) on an extremely minimal no-nonsense training plan of a few hours of cycling, some swimming or running, and some weight training.
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Sounds to me like heās one of those people like Jonathan who can kick most of our butts just coming off the couch.
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Circling back on this thread Iāve done 2 winters of high vol z2 and (with the right breakfast) LT1 can be approaching 300 (Iāll do 270-300 for 2h on the trainer at steady 155 HR) Then I do a polarized build on top of that and pretty much jump into fast group rides and drop the trainer volume for outdoor commutes.
Last two seasons Iāve had issues doing enough of a build, especially this year where it felt like it took way too long to raise my VLAmax. Too much chance doing a large polarized base, I got sick at the end of april and probably lost 2-3 weeks of training not being able to time the build right after base.
This year I think I will start with a specialization phase with my ftp set to easy mode around 30w lower then do a couple of key weeks of base hit some polarized workouts and start build much much earlier, maybe 5 weeks out from the start of all outdoor riding.
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