How to handle FTP bump after a training block?

Hi all,

I’m at the last week of a training block in wich I did the last two weeks of SSBLV1 and the first two of SSB2LV. I am absolutely positive that myI outgrew the workouts prescription.

I nailed Palissade. Did Warlow with intevals at average 5% over prescribed wattage.

I did Kaweah last week at higher wattage. Basically every intervals right at thresold + 30 min at 60-70% of FTP.

Yesterday I did Taylor -2 Nailed every Interval and felt better in the 3rd set than the first.

I don’t know it it has an impact but I supplemented most of the 1 hour workouts with 15 minutes of the “hard part” of Taku: minutes 5 to 20 and added Taku pretty much every Wednesdays and Fridays .

Now I’m very afraid of the FTP bump in two weeks. Last time it happenned I had a very bad experience and couldn’t finish any workout at the new FTP.

The next two workouts scheduled are Donner and Clark. Right after that I have a recovery week. I’m considering giving myself a head start and increase the workout intensity for this week and next week workouts so they better reflect my new FTP. And bump the intensity for whatever I can manage.

Donner interval 1 +2%, if that goes well interval 2 +5%, and maybe plus 7% for the third if I feel I can manage it. Then adjust Clark and the recovery week accordingly.

Is this a good idea? I must say I’m entering a very new territory with the last 4 weeks of SSBLV2 with lots of threshold work and Vo2max which I’m not familiar with.

I did kaweah on zwift with ERG off and kind of realized that I really struggled keeping up with power when climbing compared to flat. I guess this has something to do with flywheel speed. But I also wondered if people really don’t have different sustainable power numbers when they are in the low end (below 80) of cadence spectrum compared to the high end (over 95).

Any advice? Thanks!

If you find yourself raising the intensity consistently for your workouts it’s best to just manually adjust your FTP up that same percentage. Be conservative with these adjustments.

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I almost wrote a post yesterday asking folks how long it takes them to feel they’ve earned their new FTP. I think you need to know your strengths and weaknesses and learn from your past experience, but you also should follow the process. Theoretically, the FTP test should be a good indicator of what you should be using in your workouts. I think it’s really problematic if you let it get too much into your head because your brain will psych you out of things you can actually do successfully with it’s invalid negative assessments. Now if you know the test doesn’t work for you because you are good at VO2, but bad at Sweetspot, then you may need to adjust accordingly, but I would say skip the extra carefulness and go for it. I just took a 9 FTP boost into Build and am successful so far.

I think you’re way overthinking things! If you were halfway through a block and finding it easy I’d say manually bump your FTP up. With 2 workouts to go I would just tick them off, enjoy your recovery week and then do the test and see what comes out. No need to worry about the next block - if you do get a big bump from the test and can’t handle the workouts at that intensity then just dial it back a bit until you can.

Re climbing most people find the opposite, they can push more power on the climbs. Could be a cadence thing, in which case it might be worth doing some training at lower cadence if your races include any hills.

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It may be. Actually I had to modify my plan because after a huge FTP boost (+25 watts) as per ramp test at the beginning of SSBLV2, I couldn’t complete a single interval of my prescribed workouts. And got 4 vaccination shot on the same day that got me sick and weak for two weeks and then it was the Holydays. So that got me for 4 weeks without structured training. So I decided to start back with a new FTP test and a new plan that was the last 2 weeks of SSBLV1 and the first 2 of SSBLV2 + one recovery week and then do the last four weeks of SSBLV2.

I’m not sure about about skipping Donner and Clark though as I never did these workouts and would like to know that I can nail them before moving on.

As for the accuracy of the ramp test for me. I would say it’s pretty accurate except for that one instance where it gave me a 20% increase in FTP. Otherwise each time I did it the workout were all doable but challenging for the first two weeks and on the more gentle side the third week.

I don’t think he’s saying to skip these workouts. Rather to “tick them off”. As in, don’t move your FTP with only two workouts left before a recovery week. Just finish them, maybe adjust the intensity, and celebrate having finished the block of training. Just wait until the FTP test to adjust.

With all of this training under your belt you should know what FTP should feel like. So if your next ramp test gives you a number that you KNOW is too high then just go somewhere between. EX, if it give you a 15% bump and you know thats too high then take a 7-12ish% bump and move forward with that.

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I don’t think he’s saying to skip these workouts. Rather to “tick them off”.

Oh it’s language thing thanks for the clarification. I’m at my first round of SSB ever so I can’t really say I know for sure what feels off and what doesn’t.

If you are new and have these ftp bumps - trust the results. I had a 31W increase after SSB1, where the workouts become more like a high tempo rides, and the workouts were harder but always doable - even with pain face and some curses thrown. After next ramp test - I started to have more knowledge where my bumps come from - better top end, so I knew that my FTP allows me to finish any workout but I will have problems with long, steady workouts near threshold so I should start to work on them, neglecting my top end a little bit - simply to “own” my ftp. I do not know if you are able to achieve the result that makes the workout completely unachievable - the worst case is that you shift your zones a little bit and sweet spot becomes threshold, but you should not have a problem with VO2 max because if you overestimate on a ramp test is due your top end.

If you will observe that you cannot finish some time of workout - great, you have found your weakness you can work on, so modify the plan to put more emphasis on this type of weakness and grind through it.

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For lack of writing a novel: take the ramp test and then HTFU for the first week of workouts at your new ftp.

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Yup, meant complete them, not skip them! If it’s your first round of SSB I would just trust in the plan. Don’t be in a rush to start doing intervals at 102% or 105%. If your FTP is set a little low and you’re training a couple % lower than you’re capable of then it’s no big deal and will correct itself over time. Bump it up too aggressively because you’re chasing quick gains and it can cause much bigger problems e.g. leading to skipping workouts or overtraining and getting ill.

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I take the approach of reviewing the week just completed. If it went well I will bump my FTP by 2 pts in Base and Build and by 1 pt in Specialty. Accept whatever the next test gives you and repeat.
For me this means the increase after the test is not significantly larger than what I’ve already been training at.

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I had a big jump in my ftp. I choose some hard workouts right off the rip to make sure I would be able to push through the FTP increase. If I had some issue I might scale the workouts down to give my self some room to grow with the new numbers. Or you might need to take out a few rides and make sure you get enough recovery from the efforts that seem really hard, dont train if your not fresh so you can hit the new numbers.

The goal is really not quick gains here. I had to drop off SSBLV1 the first time because I didn’t even have the endurance to handle it. So I did TB 1-2-3 last winter, and some zwift riding/racing and a whole summer of riding to build endurance. And started SSBLV1 in september. My progress was erratic because of illness and two rounds of vaccination that got me off the bike for three weeks at a time.

I realized I need more recovery than what the plan suggest and probably more time at endurance level. It’s a long and slow process so I’m not looking at quick gains but steady ones. I’m both figuring out what my body can do after 5 years of severe illness and what structured training means in terms of recovery, what I can handle without getting sick.

Thanks for the help.

As an update I did Donner today at + 2% + 5%, +5% and 10 minutes in the drops for the first interval and followed instructions for the second an third. Felt strong, I did SS work that felt harder than that.

I would make sure you’re following the workouts, rather than mixing it up, and get plenty of rest, the first week or so after an FTP increase is always hard, but training isn’t supposed to get easier you just go faster!

I would make sure you’re following the workouts,

I do and usually to the letter and I understand training shouldn’t get any easier. The thing is health issues got me to stop and go stop and go. And when I resume the training I usually do with two things.

  1. A fresh FTP test and
  2. Redoing the previous 2 weeks I did to get my body back to work.

I know for sure lots of it is newbie gains. But one thing occured to me 10 years ago I got my FTP to about 250 watts at about 55 kilos maybe even less.

When I restarted training last year I was at 70 kg 110 FTP, now down to 60kg. But a FTP as per last ramp test at 136, probably more like 142-145 now. So my FTP is really someting like over 100 watts below the highest I ever achieved. So i guess my body remembers some of that and gets back at it faster than somone who never trained at all.

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Whether your FTP is “too high” will also depend on your strengths as a rider, and what workouts you’re doing. Remember all types of workouts get scaled to VO2max. There’s another thread on here somewhere the gist of which is that for a given FTP, ability to complete VO2max and sprint efforts can vary hugely.

My personal finding with a recent FTP bump is that I can complete long over-under efforts, but am having to really dig on some of the VO2 max work. I take this to mean that my FTP is pretty accurate, but that VO2max work is something I should focus on getting better at.

I find the same thing to be true (I struggle with intense vo2 work based on new FTP, but I am good with longer stuff).

This is surprising to me since it seems like the ramp test would is largely based on vo2max capabilities and “backs into” the FTP based on that. That might result in an FTP too high or low (because it’s based on an arbitrary %), but when I do an vo2max interval based on that FTP, you’d think it would map back to an appropriate vo2max range.

Said another way, I’d expect the ramp test to be off on my FTP, but if I use that FTP to determine v02 max zones, those zones should be pretty accurate.

Yeah I struggle much more with the longer stuff. I guess it much depends on whether your FTP is close to VO2max of the reverse. But anyway in my case I wrapped my mind around the fact I’m weak everywhere ;). So the saying train your weakness, race on your strenght became “Train!”.