I just finished the 8 week get faster plan and I saw a ~15% increase in FTP which is awesome! I am now going to be switching over to the HIM plan. Do you think I will continue to see any FTP increase, or am I now just going to be building endurance without affecting FTP much? I ask this because I don't plan on losing any weight, so am I basically stuck at my current w/kg until next season?
Thanks!
Good question. How much more gain / rate of gain is a function of many factors, including your history as a cyclist and more. I would say you'll continue to see some gains in the HIM plan, less gains in the IM plan, but across both (more the IM plan) you'll turn into more of a diesel engine -- can just do a shit ton of work for a looonnnggg time.
More importantly, gains are historical and built upon each season. My historical FTP, that I've built up to several times over the years, is ~300-310w. That means that when I'm very, very unfit on the bike, my FTP might be 230-240...but I'll see gains of about 5-7w/wk until I get to about 270w. Then they slow down until I get to about 280-290w. Then slow down again going from 290-300w. But more importantly, all of this is based on the crazy, stoopid hard work I did from '00-03 to get me from zero to 300w. I've been cashing checks against that watts balance for a decade now
So, once you got it, you got it, and get "most" of it back pretty quickly, you'll get back to your historical high more quickly than it took you get there the first time, but will still take a ton of work to push that historical high up past where you were last year...but you'll get to that new high earlier in the calendar next season...if that make sense.
Short answer is to crush the bike pretty much every time you get on it, unless the volume / distance of the plan begins to dictate otherwise, and sustain this crushitude across as much of the calendar as possible, without too many significant layoffs. Also, pick a local guy and put a target on his back. Delgado is my target . Michel would be a good one for you, similar body type.
Coach Rich, When switching over to HIM or IM, is it possible to still focus on intensity while building volume? I know you said that the gains are smaller when you start going longer, but I also found that once I increased volume, I almost intentionally backed off intensity just so I didn't burn out. I'm wondering if I sold that short now.....and should've kept working on FTP through the "build" phase. Just curious what your thoughts are on that.....
You still have one FTP session each week in the the IM and I think VO2 work in HIM so I think I've not lost much (if any) of my FTP during IM and HIM plans last year.
turns out i was the dumbass that rode with a 1000$ cateye. Learned that pairing your PM with head unit is not the same thing as calibrating your PM . So i don't how big a part is due to actual Watt gain and what part is due to calibrating, but had a 15 watt increase in FTP in 1 week.
turns out i was the dumbass that rode with a 1000$ cateye. Learned that pairing your PM with head unit is not the same thing as calibrating your PM . So i don't how big a part is due to actual Watt gain and what part is due to calibrating, but had a 15 watt increase in FTP in 1 week.
Nice job! It sounds like your new Watts are your REAL watts! FWIW, I calibrate before every ride/workout. Now if only my scale would tell me that I'm actually 15 lbs lighter than it has been telling me every day...
Soooo.... Apparantly the spreadsheet is all messed up again... I can't fix it on my iPad and can't open it at work. I'll be coaching my boys at their wrestling matches tonight and tomorrow, so please be patient and I'll try to fix it this weekend.
Soooo.... Apparantly the spreadsheet is all messed up again... I can't fix it on my iPad and can't open it at work. I'll be coaching my boys at their wrestling matches tonight and tomorrow, so please be patient and I'll try to fix it this weekend.
JW, thanks for hooking this up and continuing to manage it.
SmartCraftyCoder Types -- what's involved in hard coding this spreadsheet on the web somewhere?
Marc-- I'll hit you up on the side to discuss. I'll get the spreadsheet back into working order this weekend then send it to you and we can chat about the mechanics of how it works.
The data is straight from the sheet, and I tried to fix any obvious errors. I'll get the Edit page working this weekend so everyone can fix any bad data and enter new weights & FTPs.
Also on the Members page there'll be a place for new people to sign up.
Any and all comments are welcome! (especially any design suggestions, I'm a programmer not a designer)
if i didnt know better, i'd say there was an erroneous sort applied to the spreadsheet. google docs does have version history, looks like the last good version was Feb 4, 6:42 PM. could easily restore that version of the doc, but i dont want to be the one to make that call, as the 40 or so updates after that date would be lost
Soooo.... Apparantly the spreadsheet is all messed up again... I can't fix it on my iPad and can't open it at work. I'll be coaching my boys at their wrestling matches tonight and tomorrow, so please be patient and I'll try to fix it this weekend.
Thanks Marc for hooking this up. The ftp numbers being all messed up is what I was referring to a couple of days ago, but haven't had any time at home with a real computer to fix it. I think I have a version saved from like a week ago. I'll email it to you to get the starting point right for everyone.
FYI, good data restored from february 4th. all data entered after that time was unfortunately discarded, but the numbers are sane again. if you want, you can re-import the data
Comments
Good question. How much more gain / rate of gain is a function of many factors, including your history as a cyclist and more. I would say you'll continue to see some gains in the HIM plan, less gains in the IM plan, but across both (more the IM plan) you'll turn into more of a diesel engine -- can just do a shit ton of work for a looonnnggg time.
More importantly, gains are historical and built upon each season. My historical FTP, that I've built up to several times over the years, is ~300-310w. That means that when I'm very, very unfit on the bike, my FTP might be 230-240...but I'll see gains of about 5-7w/wk until I get to about 270w. Then they slow down until I get to about 280-290w. Then slow down again going from 290-300w. But more importantly, all of this is based on the crazy, stoopid hard work I did from '00-03 to get me from zero to 300w. I've been cashing checks against that watts balance for a decade now
So, once you got it, you got it, and get "most" of it back pretty quickly, you'll get back to your historical high more quickly than it took you get there the first time, but will still take a ton of work to push that historical high up past where you were last year...but you'll get to that new high earlier in the calendar next season...if that make sense.
Short answer is to crush the bike pretty much every time you get on it, unless the volume / distance of the plan begins to dictate otherwise, and sustain this crushitude across as much of the calendar as possible, without too many significant layoffs. Also, pick a local guy and put a target on his back. Delgado is my target
. Michel would be a good one for you, similar body type.
When switching over to HIM or IM, is it possible to still focus on intensity while building volume? I know you said that the gains are smaller when you start going longer, but I also found that once I increased volume, I almost intentionally backed off intensity just so I didn't burn out. I'm wondering if I sold that short now.....and should've kept working on FTP through the "build" phase. Just curious what your thoughts are on that.....
@ Kori: Moxie AND legit improvements = AWESOME!!!
(oh yes, she did!)
By no means the fastest in this Haus, but I am seeing gains.... Pretty good for a former 255 pound couch potato.
FYI - The TP testing protocol is wild. "We suggested a threshold if your Peak 45 Min Average Pace is faster than the currently set threshold."
Nice job! It sounds like your new Watts are your REAL watts! FWIW, I calibrate before every ride/workout. Now if only my scale would tell me that I'm actually 15 lbs lighter than it has been telling me every day...
Only running i've been doing is what the NOS called for. That was only good for 6 minutes off my 5k, and 10 vdot points. So not really
JW, thanks for hooking this up and continuing to manage it.
SmartCraftyCoder Types -- what's involved in hard coding this spreadsheet on the web somewhere?
Not that much if you don't require that people register, log in, etc. and are OK with anyone entering and changing data (like the sheet).
The formulas and conditional formatting are pretty straightforward to code if JW would be willing to go through what he's implemented in the sheet.
I'm up for the coding if I can get some help with the design.
http://wkk.marcrobards.com/
The data is straight from the sheet, and I tried to fix any obvious errors. I'll get the Edit page working this weekend so everyone can fix any bad data and enter new weights & FTPs.
Also on the Members page there'll be a place for new people to sign up.
Any and all comments are welcome! (especially any design suggestions, I'm a programmer not a designer)
Masterful job otherwise.
Tho I still think there's some bad data on the sheets. People will be able to fix their number on my site soon.
Or are the numbers jacked up on the original spreadsheet?
If JW can fix it I'll re-import the data. If not everyone will have to fix their FTP on my site once I get the edit functionality working.
Exactly. No big deal to re-input our info once you get it fully functional.
Thanks Marc for hooking this up. The ftp numbers being all messed up is what I was referring to a couple of days ago, but haven't had any time at home with a real computer to fix it. I think I have a version saved from like a week ago. I'll email it to you to get the starting point right for everyone.
I think we lost a few people in the restore, there were 43 and now there's only 41.
Hey Marc,
Thanks for hooking this up!