At the end of a foundation workout (e.g., as presented in the 6-week FTP builder plan), how tired should I be?
I’m finding that while they definitely aren’t easy, I still have a lot of gas in the tank at the end of these rides.
It seems that I may need to up my FTP in order to garner larger amounts of progressive overload - but maybe that’s not the intent of these foundation workouts?
Thanks in advance,
-j
The Foundation workouts are relatively easy in that they are intended as recovery/endurance rides (they are zone 2/blue rides) which shouldnt get you into a big sweat if you have a base fitness (subjective of course).
The plans also have a Suffer Scores (TSS) which provide a clue as to the overall difficulty - the Foundation workouts in that Plan are 30’s through to 50’s so fairly easy. When you get to some workouts in the plan that have a TSS of say 90+, you should be feeling it and may even feel fatigued after some workouts.
You can of course adjust FTP but if your FTP is reasonably accurate I would suggest just increase output via the bias buttons on the companion app.
I agree with Dean - I did the 6-week program back in November. The program has a lot of low intensity zone 2 foundation work, you should be able to hold zone 2 level effort for a long time, so I wouldn’t worry if you have lots of gas left after a 33-35 stress point workout. If you find you’re not tired after the tempo and threshold workouts that would probably be a different story 
Sometimes if I felt I needed more of a workout during a foundation day I would keep going after the foundation program was done for more zone 2 work at the same level as in the workout.
Perfect, thank you thank you!!
Just to add. Most workouts shouldn’t make you feel like you’re destroyed. If it feels hard at the end, and you think you could probably do one more interval, it’s a good workout. More tired doesn’t necessary mean more gains.