Just for fun, what’s the highest ftp you guys have seen on low volume. I got to 270 two years ago and this year I started out at 263 and ended at 255ish. I tried to add petit On Wednesday’s this year only to see my power start dropping quickly. This coming year I was thinking about trying 1.5 hr ride on on Tuesdays, aerobic hour on Thursday’s, and a 2 hr ride on Saturday. I might even try to skip the Thursday ride but I wasn’t sure if this would be enough stimulus.
Following & I’ll let you know how my n=1 experiment goes. I’m shifting from MV to LV this year. Hoping this frees up some bandwidth to add strength training and short runs to improve overall health and fitness. I ended this yr, first yr of structured training, at 4.52 w/kg (285/63) and I’m hoping I can still get to 300 with consistency. I like to ride 6x week so I’ll be filling in the LV gaps with 3x weekly one hr endurance rides. So I guess you could say I’m doing MV w/ low(er) intensity.
I got to 307 last year on low volume plan, swapping out one of the rides for a fast outdoor chaingang most weeks. I’ve been hovering around 290 to 300 for a few years on low volume triathlon plans. Last year I was still running. This year I’m going to ditch the running and stick to the 3 indoor workouts of low volume and supplement with addditional outdoor rides. I reckon I can get above 320 faily easy by adding in 1 moderate and 1 easy ride to the low volume. I’m 77kg right now but normally 74kg in race season and plan to get down to 70 - 72kg next season.
307 was my magic number as well last year (off 59kg). LV plan but mainly only Tuesday / Thursday TR rides with Saturday on road group / bunch rides, solo off road rides etc. Using commute every day for recovery.
Is this based on strict adherence to the TR plans? If not, I’m at 317 FTP @71kg.
This year I’ve added 15 minutes endurance to the end of most session and swapped out maybe 2 or 3 during SSB 1 & 2.
Consistency and genetics will be your biggest allies. The thing with Low Volume is there are no ‘easy’ sessions, only more recovery days.
I peaked at 355, 3.7W/kg after 20 weeks of 3-4 hours per week on the trainer.
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Is this you?
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I started from “untrained” at 147 to 263 (3.83W/kg) last year on LV + general build last winter. I can’t spend any more time on the bike, nor would I be able to recover sufficiently to do much more than LV plans.
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I’m interested to know more about your commute.
What’s the distance and how hard do you normally go? Got a power meter on your commuter bike?
This seems like a strange question because generally quality>quantity, and FTP is dependent on so many things outside of how many hours a week someone trains.
I went from an FTP of 189 untrained to an FTP of 283 (3.5 w/kg) in about 9 months of training. I am a triathlete so biking wasn’t the only training stress. I used the olympic and then half ironman low volume plans.
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Yeah I got to 297 FTP with 4.22 w/Kg this year. Probably close to my best over all fitness, LV build and specialty plans with probably too many non-structured trail and road rides thrown in. 5 - 8 hours total per week, 5 was a lot closer to my average. This year I’m going to focus on adherence to LV plans that will allow for more fun rides that I need to keep motivated. That said for base I’m going for a MV SSB1 phase for this time of year since I think the focus will be indoors and I want to nail the base phase this go around.
LV and reached 4.2w/kg with 320w. LV allows me the time and opportunity to ensure I complete my workouts. It also allows me to sprinkle in some outdoor rides, rubs, and strength workouts.
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I don’t know the character but we do look alike 
190cm(6"3) 98 Kg(216 lbs) 
About 10km each way. Usually manage to keep it below 60% so not always strictly recovery but close. I have a left crank arm PM that gets put on whatever bike I’m riding, or if I can’t be bothered swapping it then I use RPE. I’ve done tests where I record but don’t view power on the commute and I can judge it pretty close.
Currently at 312W (4.0W/kg) on 4-6 hours per week. Got a few years of training in my legs though, so it’s mostly maintenance rather than new gains on low volume.
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