Heather Fell: After a whole month of no cycling and quite a lot of indulgence over Christmas,
my FTP is probably and hopefully at its lowest, as it's going to be for all of 2021.
As I begin my long return to cycling fitness and ahead of the triathlon season,
I thought it would be fun just to see how much I can improve my FTP in only four weeks.
[music] Just before we broke
up for Christmas, I was actually pretty happy with where I was at with my fitness for both my
cycling and my running. A lot of that was thanks to the Zwift Triathlon Academy workouts which
gave me that structure and also that target. It's a little bit depressing to think that I've
lost all of that fitness but I am hoping that there is a little bit of muscle memory lurking
in there somewhere. Anyway, I probably shouldn't put it off much longer I need to go and find out
exactly what my FTP is now so I know what I'm working with and just how bad the damage is.
In order to know if I'm going to have any improvement, I guess I need to find
out where I'm at now. I know this is going to be painful. It is time for my first FTP test
and I'll see you guys on the other side. [music]
Oh my goodness that was unpleasant, to say the least. Now, before Christmas,
I recorded my equal best FTP of all time at 229 during the 20k TT on the Zwift Academy
and obviously, I've had a long time off the bike. Today, I had dropped all the way down to 201,
which, yes, it's quite some decrease. I'm hoping part of it is due to the fact that I've come back,
I've been in lockdown so I've done quite a bit of cycling. I started running on hills again,
which has taken out quite a lot from my legs. However, I've got a lot of work to do if I
want to get back up to that 229. That's my target and I've got four weeks to do it.
[music] All right. I've looked into this and trying
to work out what I can realistically improve my FTP by, if at all. Apparently, if you're new
to cycling you can expect or hope to actually add 50 watts to your FTP within the first year
and it then drops off by 50% each year thereafter. Obviously, I'm not new to cycling so I'm not
expecting to hit anything like that and I am just covering a month. However, it's not going to stop
me trying and I've got a pretty low base marker. I'm aware that four weeks is a very short period
of time and I wouldn't recommend retesting after four weeks in a normal situation because
you might have actually got stronger but it won't necessarily show as a progression
because your legs might still be tired from that and it can get a little bit demoralizing.
I'm aware that's why I'm going to make sure that I do rest up a few days before my retest.
You're probably asking why then. Why am I going for such a short time scale? Well,
I want that motivation, that target. It's January, it's the new year, and I want something to aim for
and prove to myself. We're in lockdown here in the UK so I can't swim, I can't do as much
running outdoors and cycling is easy to do on the turbo so I'm going to go for it. Obviously,
I understand that strength and fitness doesn't just happen overnight so I'm going to have to work
pretty hard. I've got a structure that I'm aiming for four bike workouts a week, two of
those at threshold intensity so at or around my FTP for slightly longer interval efforts.
Then I'm going to do one that's going to be really high and shorter, sharper really
working on a bit of speed and just spicing things up a little bit. Then the fourth session is going
to be a longer more aerobic effort to try and get those base miles in. I know for cyclists,
they're going to say that's nowhere near enough but I want to be realistic here. I don't want
to set myself a goal that's so big that I'm going to start failing on the first week.
I'm taking off what I know that I can manage and hoping that that's going to be enough.
There's actually someone who's in a similar boat to me although probably going about it slightly
wiser. GTN's Conor Dunne is trying to improve his FTP over eight weeks. Obviously, he's going to be
starting at a much higher base level than I am. However, I think there's probably quite
a lot that I could learn from Conor. I actually caught up with him earlier to pick his brains.
Hi, Conor. Thanks for sparing your time and hopefully your brains on
cycle training. How's it going for you? Conor Dunne: Yes, good thanks. Thanks for
having me as well. Great to talk about the training. I'm two weeks in now
and it's going okay. I’m starting to get there.
Heather: Yes, you've got a sensible period of time, giving yourself, it’s eight weeks
you've got, isn't it? How's your plan looking? Conor: Yes, I've got eight weeks. It's not a
huge amount of volume so I'm doing four rides each week and each ride is probably an hour
long and only two of those are structured. I'm doing two structured rides on Zwift every week
and those sessions are under an hour but they're very intense. They're pretty much just working as
hard as you can in the hour and really trying to squeeze the time available but it's going well so
far. I did a race-- I entered the [unintelligible 00:05:51] qualification race just out of interest
and the power's going in the right direction. Heather: Well, I'm excited that you've just
said you're only doing four sessions a week. I say only because that's my target and I
thought you were going to tell me that I need to be doing way more than that. I know though
I'm aiming for four weeks, which might be a little bit ambitious. Do you think that's a bit crazy,
realistically it's a bit of a short scale? Conor: No. I think four weeks is achievable.
I don't think you need to set your sights super high. I don't think you need to try
and get back to some sort of race fitness. I don't think that needs to be the aim. It's
just I think in four weeks you can definitely make some sort of improvements to your fitness.
Yes, I think the key would be just staying patient with yourself. Personally, I feel you need to give
yourself at least two weeks because when you first start going again, especially if you
had a bit of a break, that first week could be really tough. Then mentally, you start to think,
"I'm not going to make any progress here." That's when you start to doubt yourself and maybe give
up. If you push on through two weeks then you'll start to surprise yourself, you'll be getting in
the right direction pretty quickly. Heather: Cool, that's good to know.
I am surprised you're only doing two key sessions a week. You've obviously got what 16 key sessions?
Are there a couple that you could pick out and suggest to that would be good for me or would be
good for triathletes, in particular? Conor: Yes, definitely. For example,
tomorrow I'm doing a session. It's 52 minutes long to be precise but there's a bit of a warm-up and
then you get straight into session, three times 12-minute climbing efforts. It's based off your
FTPs, your current FTP, which is really important because then you're obviously doing a session
that's so relevant to your own abilities and it will ramp up. The start of the 12 minutes will
be below FTP and then you have that two-minute squeeze at the end, which is a bit above it.
I think those sessions make things a bit more achievable and a bit less mentally taxing,
which is my other piece of recommendation is sweet spot training I think, which is
so good for building FTP. If you're doing threshold efforts to boost your threshold,
it is just so hard and it's so intense. It's so easy to
not quite get the most out of a session. If you just drop below that bit of sweet spot,
you're not quite pushing as hard. It's easier to complete the interval and you just get so much
bang for your buck. You really do. It does work. I use it a lot when I was preparing for races too.
Heather: I think that's awesome and that's good news as well for GTN because I feel like
triathletes love those kinds of sessions. It's something that I feel quite comfortable doing
because that bit’s there. I've done a couple of sessions a bit higher and that's way out
of my comfort zone so yes, great advice there. You mentioned tomorrow. Tell me a bit more.
Conor: Tomorrow I'll be leading a session on Zwift, 9:30 AM so welcome to join me, Heather.
Heather: I think I might have to. Conor: No, you'd be really welcome there.
We're getting a bit of a community going actually. It's great fun because you're in a workout with
other people on Zwift and there's that community spirit and people keep each other going. There's
a bit of banter in the group chat whilst we're doing the workout, and it's just nice to lift the
spirits at the moment as well. Heather: Awesome.
Well, yes, a bit of banter and anything to give me the boost I need. I'll see you there.
It's a gentle squeeze this morning. I am ready for Conor's session. We've actually got
200 people on the start line. One minute to go to see what Conor has in store for us. I have
a little glance at the session and, yes, it looks doable, which is good. It's quite nice not doing a
session really early in the morning. I've actually had breakfast and I'm looking forward to working
out with and keeping up in the way you can on a structured workout with Conor. It should be fun.
I'll probably be looking a little more sweaty when I talk to you next.
As always, look at us we're ready to go. Oh, no, I just realized I am now in GTN kit on there.
Not good. [music]
Session complete. Yes, another one in the bag. Another one closer to the new FTP, fingers
crossed. I’m doing a really great workout, thanks to Conor. Something I wouldn't have normally done
on a day like this, strength workouts that are a bit of a grind, which probably means I should
do more of them. I'm hoping that that strength is going to correlate. I'm just not sure that
my legs will appreciate it when I go for my run later. It's all about gaining for this FTP test,
isn't it? So yes, I'm on track. [music]
All right. I think it's time for an update to let you guys know how I'm getting on. I'm pretty much
halfway through now. Two weeks completed and it’s been quite a mix bag. I'm struggling
on the endurance side of things. The weather outside has just been horrible. It is January,
so what do you expect? I have not ventured outdoors. That means I've
done it all indoors. I always struggle to keep my motivation for anything more than an hour.
I'm super chuffed that I have now got a new record of an hour thirty. I’ve managed 50k on Zwift. This
was thanks to a weekend club ride. Our club at GT put together some group rides and I thought
I'd join in. It was a 75k ride. I managed 50. I’m super chuffed. That’s helped, but it's nothing
like your usual four-hour Sunday ride. I'm going to struggle there I think later down the line.
I'm not going to have that base. However, I've done some really tough work as well.
I did my first ever WTRL racing or WTRL League on Zwift. I raced for the club again. Oh,
my goodness. It absolutely killed me. It was hideous. Might be an hour though because I
probably had about half a week just to mentally and physically recover from that. It was so, so
tough but I'm hoping some strength has come back. You saw me doing Conor's session, and that was
great. It was just the right intensity for me. It was nice to do it with someone I know and
just keep my motivation up. It's been a little bit up and down. I've still got two weeks left to go
so no time to back off. A matter of fact, I'm off to film some more cycling with work
this afternoon. I'm going to count that as training. Surely, it's got to count, isn't
it? It's more work on the bike. It's all good. I'm actually about to do my first ever ramp test.
No, it's not part of my training or testing for my four-week FTP improvement but Mark and I are just
making a video looking at the difference between FTP and ramp. I get the nicer one this time
because I’ll use that FTP as that tester you've already seen. I think it's going to be tough,
but it should be over quicker. [music]
All right. I am aware that an FTP test can actually be trained for to a certain extent.
I'm hoping with all of this recent practice, I might be able to improve partly due to approach
and technique. With just a week left, it's time to get in the last couple of key sessions and then
recover fully and get my head in the game. [music]
Another session completed. I'm being very smug. It's Saturday morning and
I'm still not going to the outdoors. Instead, I thought I'd put in a bit more intense session.
I’d just done 40 seconds above my FTP, 20 seconds below, five times through for five minutes,
five minutes and do it three times and I quite like it. It's a very similar
session to what I use to do in the treadmill when I was training for just a 3k or 5k.
It's quite intense, but I need to do some higher than FTP, otherwise, I can't expect
to suddenly be able to go stronger, if that makes sense. Yes, I quite like it.
This week has been a bit of an easier week. I was struggling. I've been going off of it too hard so
it's quite nice to feel good, yes. I've just done my warm-up and there's no
more time to put off this final test to find out if these four weeks of work had been worth it. I
seriously hope they are. I feel quite terrible at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it's in my head
and my legs don't know it, I'm hoping. I'm just going to give it everything and see what happens.
[music]
[panting] No words to describe that. All right, I have just about got my breath back and sort of
half recovered, but I haven't forgotten just how painful that was. It's probably time
to share the results. I cannot tell you how relieved I am and how happy I am that my FTP
has actually gone up. I have worked so hard these last four weeks. I was really worried
that it wasn't going to be any different and I was going to be a little bit demoralized.
I started four weeks ago and I got 201 as my FTP result. Today, it was 212.
I am delighted with that. I couldn't have given anymore to either of the two FTPs,
so I think it's pretty fair. I did say at the beginning and I didn't want to elaborate on it
because I didn't want to even admit to myself, I just was not there today. I wasn't feeling
good. I just like I was going to have to work and just not dwell on it because I don't want
to do it another day. I gave it everything and yes, there's not much more to say.
I wouldn't say that on a normal time, you would be able to improve your FTP by 11 watts if you're
vaguely fit beforehand. I think the fact that I’d done nothing for four weeks over Christmas,
gave me that capacity to improve. I reckon the next four weeks is probably not going
to see as much of an improvement, but you never know. I can hope and I'm going to
keep working and keep pushing forwards. Hopefully, you guys have enjoyed watching
me suffer and can rejoice in the result with me. If so, do give this video a like. Remember,
you can follow us on social media with GTN to find out what we're up to. You can also
subscribe to us here on YouTube. [00:17:34] [END OF AUDIO]