Just comparing some of the older FTP Builder, FTP Booster, and variations to the current FTP Builder and they’re a bit all over the map.
The old FTP Builder (6wks) seemed to vary between Z2 days and max effort short sprint days. 5 days a week.
FTP Booster (4wk) is HIIT every day, 7 days a week, all tough, all the time.
The Current 10-12wk FTP Builder looks like 12 straight weeks of Z2 rides. 4 days a week.
I know you can get stronger in different ways, and riding in general will make you better. But how is anyone to know what’s actually “good”
I’ve got about 8 weeks to an event. Early this year I was in great shape but had to do some travel and was off the bike for 5 weeks. I’m now riding again but FTP test says I’m 5w less than the beginning of the year baseline.
In this 8wks I want to drop some weight, and build strength (who doesn’t). So what plan is the best bang for my buck?
In 8 weeks, dropping any significant amount of weight is going to make it very hard to improve your power numbers. Realistically you have about 7 weeks of solid training time available if the event is in 8 weeks. It’s just not very much time to achieve both goals. Exactly what to do on the bike depends a lot on the nature of the event (the amount of time it will take, how much climbing is involved, the nature of the climbs) and your available time per week (how many rides, how many hours). Your best fat-burning program will involve a lot of zone 2 hours, and attention to diet, but a significant calorie deficit will likely defeat your goal of increasing power. If I were in your situation I would probably accept less weight loss and focus more on fitness and dietary quality.
I’ll add for the record- “The event” isn’t competitive in nature, nor do my results really matter. I would like to beat my time from the previous two years, which I had thought I could do with my early season training but after the 5 weeks off, I’m back to “it’ll be a fun day out”.
The event is short in distance 115km, high in climbing 4800m, and long in hours due to the fact you’re always going up
That’s also why I think the weight loss would be good. A bit less to take upwards hah. But I’m not truly looking for any significant drop in weight. More like I know a good training block can also help drop a kilo or two while you’re at it. That would be an improvement for me. Mostly I need to be prepared for 8%+ sustained hour-long climbs, with some nice low cadence rampy sections.
I’m also not a coach, but from experience I know that specificity is important, so I don’t think any Zwift Training plan is the best solution for you in this situation. Most Zwift training plans are all over the place as you correctly put it. If I were in your situation I’d try to mix some longer outdoor rides (2-5 hours) with some Zwift training (1-2 hours). Three or four times a week, 10+ hours per week if you can manage, but don’t overdo it on intensity. Some shorter interval training can be beneficial, but you need to allow for good recovery between rides.
4800m in 115km is quite extreme, so you need to pace yourself and choose the right gearing. You could try Alpe du Zwift, Ventop or any of the longer portal climbs to train on and maybe do two of them back-to-back after a number of weeks of training. Start out with a rather easy training week and do not add more than 10-15% of time and intensity every next week. And take an easier week half way through. Losing weight would be a nice side effect of the training, but please fuel yourself well on training days! Good luck!
Mate, you had to type this before I could even fathom not following a preset workout.
I think what I could manage and might be good(?) would be:
1hr each - 2 days of intervals, selected from the 4wk program, progressively (I think they’re good)
2-2.5hr - 1 day of back to back climb portals / zwift climbs at max difficulty
5-7hr - My typical Sunday club ride / outdoor adventures
Then depending on schedule, and feel I can throw in some 1-1.5hr z2 indoor rides, or 1.5-2hr local loops at a “casual pace”.
With 4 weeks to go, a friend and I usually go to a “local” climb that’s about a 10% avg for 5km, with some very pitchy parts up to 21% We’ll do that at least once a week in the evenings. So I’ll fit that in and around the above.
This feels like not a terrible plan, and actually, I tried Zwift’s “The Grade” FTP test last night. As it’s done on a climb, it might be a decent indicator of improvement over the next 8 weeks for exactly this event. Normally I prefer the 20m test but decided to give the grade a try.
Look like a good plan to me as long as you build up to it properly and have enough recovery! As long as your body reacts well to it and you have fun doing it, it should put you on the right path!
This is quite a bit of volume so if you haven’t already been doing high volume weeks you may need to ease into it a bit. It also matters how hard the climb portal and club ride days are. Club rides and free riding climb portals both involve the risk of doing unplanned expensive efforts. You need to be intentional about the easy days. Three days of hard work per week would be a good limit, which means some part of your planned program will have to be at lower intensity even without the optional low-effort days you are imagining. You probably also need to plan for a lower volume week in there somewhere and not just do the same thing every week.
Doing what you describe when in significant calorie deficit would be playing with fire, but it sounds like you have reasonable expectations for weight loss. I would probably start by eliminating all the junk, make diet swaps that remove most of the fat from meat and dairy, eliminate alcohol, avoid meals you can’t control (eg, most restaurant food) and make every calorie count in terms of nutrition without trying very hard to drop weight. A written meal plan is just as useful as a written training plan.
Yeah, the first week (starting today), I’m just going to do a single interval workout instead of two, and a single climb instead of back-to-back.
Club ride I can always expect some effort, heck even if I go solo. It’s just the terrain around here I’ll always have to exert somewhere. But for the back-to-back climbs, I’ll aim to go tempo for both or get spicy only on the second one.
