Build Me Up (12-week training plan)

After reading this topic and speaking with a few other guys I know who Zwift or SF. I think you are correct and I will be doing the other program in a few weeks and hope to get some more positive results. Maybe have my sights set a little more realistic this time lol. Glad you got a decent result front the trg also.

I’m currently into week 11 of the 12 week course. If I can give anybody any advise on this plan is don’t accept an increased ftp on any additional rides you might do or during the plan.

The first 5 weeks of the plan are relatively easy. I was thinking that my FTP maybe wrong as I wasn’t really finding it difficult.

At about week 6 of the plan they opened up the new French courses. There were a couple of rides that were races. My FTP went from 238 at the beginning of the plan to 268 after the rides. I duly accepted the increased ftp ( very pleased with myself). BIG MISTAKE!!
The rest of my training plan has been based on that increased FTP. All was going well until about week 10. I suddenly started struggling with each workout. As I said i’m now into week 11 and have already failed to complete a couple of workouts.

My confidence has taken a bit of a hit so I decided to decrease my FTP to my original figure. Although it’s still a tough effort I completed it.

I think the training plan based on your original FTP would be a correct assumption. It does get a lot harder as you go on so stick with it.

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You could just adjust the Bias setting on the Companion App when you see a particularly tough ride. In your case, the range it provides would have given you the option of dropping target power by almost the amount of your FTP increase.

Regardless, good on ya for sticking with it. Its a long plan.

I didn’t realise there was that function. Just checked it out, if only I knew about the function a couple of weeks ago!! Thanks for that.

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Hi there, I’m into week 6. Tough, but hanging on! A couple of questions:
Am I supposed to do the workouts each day or take breaks in between?
Why do some workouts say “do before Sunday” or something like that, when there are four workouts to do and its only Monday or Tuesday?
Why is the order of the workouts different in the Zwift app and on the Build me up session?
I usually do a long weekend road ride on (50-60 miles) is that bad? Should I skip and rest?

thanks!

Hi Sal

I’m going into week 9 so only a little ahead of you. While everyone talks about it getting serious in week 9 there’s no doubt there’s a kick in week 7 - Enjoy.

All rides for a week have to be done by the Sunday night and the moment they come up most (I think there may be a limited few that give an earlier end time) will give Sunday night as cut-off. The moment you’ve done a ride the lock-out to the next ride kicks in - in my experience the minimum is 12 hours but I think it’s longer after the harder rides. Some of the rides have quite long lock-outs e.g Bricolage In week 8 only becomes available on The Friday morning so rest is well and truly forced. I would certainly take breaks and as you’re getting into the serious part of it think about how you’ll cope with a weekend ride. I’ve stopped all road rides while I do this, really following the rests. They’re as important as the workouts. In general I do my rides Monday, Tuesday, rest Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, rest Friday and Sunday if there are 4 rides or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, or Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday if 5 rides. Depends on work and other commitments, and the rides themselves. If you are really blown after a ride, listen to your body. This is cumulative!

Order of workouts - generally I follow the order on the desktop app and this order does seem to plan less demanding workouts in between more demanding ones but occasionally I will vary it depending on how I’m feeling.

Finally, if you haven’t seen it there’s a great overview on GC Coaching.

I hope you keep enjoying it. For me I’m chuffed to be entering Phase 3, having already gained a huge amount from the coaching aspect, and touch wood, the hard work!

Cheers

Craig. Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough response. It clarifies a lot and I will follow your advice. I finished week 6 and did an additional 70 mile 4.5k ft ride on Sunday and felt very strong, but will start resting more. Thanks once more! Hope to see ya on Zwit. Ride on!

If you are interested, this is the overview of the BMU, posted by Shayne on GC Coaching’s site (creator of the BMU, in case you’d like to call names during the workouts :smiley: )

Any yes, make more use of rest days, especially during your first BMU. On the second one, you’ll have more experience to fine tune your rest periods.

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Great info here and Thanks to everyone for your contributions.
I am in the middle of Week 6 and starting to feel the pain.
My only gripe is that there is no option to include outside rides or extend the plan to be able to include all the missed workouts.
I have just been marking the missed rides as Done outside.

Completed Ride 50 yesterday (feeling chuffed!) and as this thread in particular has been an enormous help through the 12 weeks I thought I might add with my experiences/ thoughts in the hope others coming across this thread may find them helpful.

Quick background to put in context:

Summary

I ride for health and fitness and to challenge myself personally. On a fair background level of fitness had been riding regularly again for about 9 months before starting the program and been pushing myself out on the road to get better/ faster for a good 6 of those 9 months.
New to indoor training and Zwift. Started BMU 2 weeks after getting trainer and one week after signing up for Zwift. No prior structured cycling training.
Had lost 4kg (72 to 68) in the 6 months prior and my aim for the program was not to lose more (although in retrospect another 2-3 would have been fine).
Was chasing being a better cyclist with any increase in FTP gained a bonus, rather than the main goal.

My thoughts for newbies like me:

Summary

Great program - for not just strength/ fitness/ FTP improvement but for the coaching it provides (for me cadence and recovery in particular)
The 2 most important rides in my opinion are:

  • a formal FTP test (ideally done on Zwift the week before and, if I do the plan again, I’ll pull the final FTP test off “what’s on zwift” so that the 2 FTP tests are testing me the same way);
  • Zone Benchmarking. This is where you test whether you over- or undercooked yourself on your FTP test and whether you should increase or decrease your FTP BEFORE starting the plan. (I’m sure this is less important for those who are re-testing their FTP regularly and will have a more accurate FTP)

Don’t change (increase) your FTP during the 12 weeks. Too many stories on this thread (let alone others) as to what happens if you do. Shayne Gaffney put an FTP test in at the end and would have put others in along the way if he thought they were necessary (Shayne, if you come across this and I’m wrong please correct me!).
Drink lots, and fuel on the longer rides. Two hours may not seem that long but these are workouts that will well and truly use up your breakfast.
Take that extra rest day if you need it. While the 5 rides/ week weeks don’t give a huge amount of flexibility there is some. If you feel shattered after a previous ride, or for some other reason in your life, listen to your body.
Stars - they’re only stars. I achieved every one but didn’t! One of my completed and “Well done” rides didn’t upload and I had to click “I did it” - no stars. In another long workout Zwift crashed 2/3 through and although I got it up and running quickly and recommenced a few intervals earlier, only the “new stars” did I get. (Importantly the XP points get added after each interval so they’re not lost.)
The shorter workouts often bring a whole lot more pain than the longer ones! True.
Not every workout is supposed to crush you. Be thankful!
We all have different strengths and weaknesses and you’ll soon be able to look at the workouts and know which ones are most likely going to cause you pain. But you won’t always get this right!!
Music (loud) is an important analgesic.
Tenacity’s 5 second intervals. These are at 200% FTP. I did see a suggestion here to go onto the bigger chain ring to essentially help ERG get you to 200% quicker. I’m not sure how well that works but what I did was just follow the on screen instruction to go full gas, essentially hammering ERG to try and catch up to the power I was putting out - in so doing I went way beyond 200%, feeling I achieved what was being asked.
Chamois cream proved indispensable.
Chill! If you find yourself fearing some rides like I did, and wondering whether you would “fail” any of the intervals remember it’s just a training plan. That said, mental fortitude does build.
Finally, weeks 9-11 are big but you’re well prepared for them. Week 9 got my heart pumping. Week 10 I did the 5 rides Monday to Friday as we went away for the weekend. Not that bad. Week 11 a nice sense of achievement. Although the fatigues does kick in even if the rides are not as bad as anticipated.

My numbers:

Summary

Pre-BMU FTP test (on Zwift a few days prior) - 223 @68kg (3.28w/kg)
Post-BMU FTP test - 246 @ 67kg (3.67w/kg)
So a w/kg increase just shy of 12%.
An important note here though - on Zone Benchmarking it all felt too easy so I upped my FTP by 5% to 234 and did the entire plan on that FTP, admittedly suffering a bit the first few weeks but by Purple Unicorn I figured I probably had it right.

May well do again next winter. For now, time to get out on the road again now that we’re in late spring.

Enjoy and Ride on!

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Just finished this one today. FTP 232->271.

Biggest benefit for me however has been my cadence discipline when I’m out on the real road!

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Started the Build me up plan last week as looking for something to keep me focused over the coming winter and hopefully give me a platform for 2021.

How do I mix this up with outdoor riding?

I ride every weekend, come rain or shine, organise my clubs weekend ride, which will be 60 - 80 miles at normally an IF of .80… As a guide, this is a TSS for me of 220 - 270 depending on hills. I don’t want to stop this as my my main motivation is to ride with others. I don’t want to put intervals into this ride, it is purely a club ride. I’m used to training 5 days a week, with a TSS of 600 - 700 over the spring / summer but happy to reduce to 500 - 600ish over the Autumn Winter
Do I replace one of the long sessions with the weekend ride, the weeks with only 4 sessions are fine, but when it goes too 5 sessions, with two over 90 mins I stand no chance of motivating myself to ride Mon - Thurs (break Friday), club run Saturday, then another interval session on Sunday.
Can’t believe I’m the only one who continues with a club ride through the winter whilst pairing off with intervals so how do people structure this?

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On the contrary, if the workouts feel too light you should probably take an FTP-test mid-program. Why waste weeks of training in one zone too low on the key intervals? You won’t see as good of an improvement as possible.
This is my first structured program on the bike after many years of running and I’ve had to use the “easy” weeks 4 and 8 too press in a Ramp Test becasue the treshold intervals started to noticably easier. First ramp test my FTp upped 11% and the second 5% from that, making a total of 17% up from the full 20 min FTP test i did directly prior to the program. I did Briccolage on my newest FTP of 236 W today which felt totally Ok bordering to perhaps a bit easy still. The thing with the Ramp Test for me is that i probably underachieve a bit due to lack of VO2-power in the legs. I’m more for long and steady efforts.

Had I kept using my original 202 W throughout the whole program it would have been a total waste of time. 202 W barely feels in the legs now, it’s Tempo power for me today but was Threshold power 8 weeks ago. Therefore I would, with my current FTP, have done SS and Treshold work in de facto Tempo power and VO2 work in SS och Treshold power for the second half of the program if I hadn’t taken more tests.

So if your a newbie on structured cycling training like me you probably will improve fast and need to take frequent FTP tests.

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I did this plan having very little cycling background. Started on Zwift around May and went straight into the 12 week plan. My FTP to begin with was 193. At the end of the plan FTP was 290 and 4 weeks later it’s now 302.
Thinking if doing the plan again but enjoying the longer rides at the moment. I found it easy at 1st but by week 7 my FTP had increased and so did the workload. It became hard in places but I stuck with it!

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Great job!
Imagine if you’d stuck to the advice given above to simply keep your initial FTP of 193 W thoughout the 12 week course! Another case proving the point that cyclists making beginner gains need to take FTP tests often!

I’m in week 10 of the plan Noé and it’s getting serious. Before i start i performed a ramp test that gave me 202W. While the first weeks of the plan were ok it was horribly difficult at some points and i was thinking about the final 20 min FTP test and could not imagine to sustain 215W for 20 min.
Looking at my estimâtes Ftp on Strava it was 175W which is based on the training experience More in the range of what i could sustain for 20 min. So i reduced the FTP down to 190W and now down to 180W. The workouts are still difficult but i don’t feel exhausted as previously and i m able to complete these.
This makes a difference of 10% between what the ramp test and the 20 min test which doesn’t hurt me. Anyone has the same experience?

If you do a Ramp test at the start of a plan, and trust it (meaning the workouts afterwards challanging enough but not impossible nor too easy), than stick with it. DO NOT try a different protocoal a few weeks into the plan, neither trust approximations from Strava or Garmin. Especially not from Strava. Garmin could be close, but as you do a trianing plan, the estimation based on the efforts from the plan could be way off. Stick with the same protocol repeated every 4-6 weeks (Ramp, in your case). If you feel a workout too easy or too hard, increase or reduce intensity by a few percent, but hcanging FTP isn’t a solution. Maybe your FTP is lower because of life/work stress or not enough rest, maybe it’s higher because you’ve rested enough and the plan works. But do not mix up measuring methods (Ramp vs 20 mins) and don’t dive in those FTP estimations. I’m repeating myself, but stick with 1 protocol at least for the duration of the plan, and execute it every 4-6 weeks. If you really want to compare how your body reacts to different protocols, try them after the plan finished. Do a Ramp test on Monday, then a 20 min test on Wendesday, and the 8 mins test on Friday, etc. Most likely there’ll be differences, mainly because some protocols fits our physical abilities differently than others. FTP isn’t carved in stone, it moves on daily / weekly basis, and different protocolas could have differnet results.

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Thanks Andreas for your answer, you come to the core of my question. When you test yourself using different tests and you get very different FTP results (e.g. 200W with ramp test an 180W using 20 min) which should you consider for your training?

  1. An ambitious approach taking the highest one
  2. A safe approach taking the lowest
  3. In between considering what your body is telling you.

Considering that the Ramp test “only hurts at the last few minutes” while the 20 minutes test is very hard to pace correctly and handle mentally, I’d pick the higher one. Then after a rest day, do some long SST or Over /Under workout (1-1.5hr long) and try determine if the efforts based on the higher FTP fits the feeling (bring RPE into the FTP checking a day or so later than the actual test). If the SST challanging, but you “would be able to do one or two more intervals” or the OU workout is very challanging, but achievable (barely though) than it’s okay. If not, lower it 3-5% and retest the next opportunity with similar WO.

I’m in the second week of the build me up plan. I’ve used trainer road plans in the past and found they were successful, but friends of mine are using Zwift this year, so we all decided to do the plan together.

I can’t speak to the outcome of the plan, as it’s early days, but I’m shocked at how much time the plan spends in Zone 3. I’ve never done a plan that spends so much time at this level. I looked ahead and it appears that I’ll do more zone 4 and even 5, but that’s still while doing a lot of zone 3 work. This is at conflict with a lot of what I’ve read about training, but I’m choosing to trust this for now and see how things go.

I’m also unclear as to what I should do on the off days. So far I’ve just been resting, but it feels odd to do nothing for 3 or 4 days a week.

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