I’m wondering which Adaptive Training plan is best for FTP progression?
I’m about to finish my first ever TR plan which is sweet spot low volume 1, using the new Adaptive Training. I can already tell my fitness has increased dramatically, especially the ability to hold sub threshold levels for extended periods of time. I’m excited to do a ramp test and see how much I’ve gone up.
I’ve basically become an indoor only rider now and I do TrainerRoad for health reasons more than anything as I find it’s a good way to maintain & improve my cardiovascular fitness, stay sharp, maintain good blood sugars, etc.
I don’t have any long term goals in mind, whether that be a crit race, gran fondo etc. I want to stick to just the low volume plans as they work best for me & focus on increasing my FTP overtime while improving my progression levels at the same time.
Should I just do sweet spot 1 & 2 low volume back to back as long as my FTP increases or should I throw in other plans? What would you recommend?
Thanks in advance to everyone & a big thanks to the TR team for Adaptive Training, it really does work great
Sustained Power Build is good for FTP development.
You could set up plan builder without a target date (not tried that but it’s an option now) and say the discipline is e.g., Time Trial. That should focus on FTP development.
But if you’re just doing it for general fitness, doing something a bit more rounded might be a good idea - you’ll still get FTP increases (probably) but it will be more varied. General Build etc.
Definitely don’t do plans repeated like SS 1/2 over and over. It helps (a lot) to change up the stimulus.
Sustained Power Build is the best I have seen for pure FTP development. You miss out on some of the other things that make a racer fast like repeatability, sprints, FRC development, but if you just want to hold higher power for longer, that plan is your best bet.
Not trying to dampen your excitement on doing another ramp test, but just to warn you! You likely won’t see major changes to your FTP after sweetspot low volume 1, as all the work you’re currently doing is preparing you for the build stages!
I didn’t see any change in my FTP after sweetspot low volume 1 a few weeks ago, but my level of fitness feels really great!
Best plan of attack is to do your base 1 and 2, then hop into the sustained build as others have suggested.
It is specifically designed to build sustained effort ( ftp etc. ) where base is sort of getting you ready to train.
Then you have the option of either hopping into the 40k tt specialty plan to really hone that specific fitness, or go back to sweet spot base.
If you do a couple cycles of sweet spot and sustained build, you might find if your short power is suffering, then moving over to short power build might provide a vo2 improvement that could raise the ceiling for future sustained builds as well.
It’s easier mentally, and a better cycle for the body to progress through the phases and repeat rather than just doing lots of base.
As mentioned above Sustained Power is usually recommended for increasing FTP.
For some people that are already strong in long, consistent efforts it can be helpful to look at something with a greater short power component. Basically, you might need to work on a weakness.
Since you have no outdoor goals, I’d do what is fun.
In general, you do subthreshold work like sweet spot to extend your TTE (time to exhaustion), and then you do a build block to push the FTP higher. You can’t do build forever so then you circle back to pushing the TTE out farther at a higher power.
Untrained people though get an FTP bump from most any type training so one could potentially cycling through SSB over and over for a while until they plateau.