Hello there Zwift Community!
I’d like some advice on my training plan. I’m relatively new to Zwift. At about 7 weeks in I’m level 22. I decided to try a more structured approach to improve my FTP. I enrolled in the FTP Builder, 6 week training program early this week. I completed the initial FTP Ramp Test and then the Zone Benchmarking the next day. Based on the benchmarking, I increased my FTP by 10% to 259. All good.
Today I completed the strength program and this is where the issues started. The instructions are to do a few 10 second “max efforts”. The problem is the target for “max effort” for me is 415 watts. It said to turn off ERG for the max effort parts which I did. The problem is max effort over 10 seconds for me is much greater than 415 watts. It’s closer to 800 early in the session and around 600 towards the end. When I do max effort I don’t get the star for the segment which is telling me I’m doing it wrong.
I’d like the community’s advice here. Do I ignore the stars and just really do max effort? Did I pick a training plan that’s too beginner for me? (I’m one week in and want to maximize my gains for the given time so I don’t want to underutilize the next 5 weeks.) Should I abandon this training plan? I don’t think the answer is to target the 415 watts. It doesn’t seem like that effort is going to be enough stimulus to improve.
Anyone?
Some Zwift stats if it helps:
zFTP: 206 (Recall my FTP was 235 and I raised it to 259 based on the benchmarking session.)
zMAP: 275
VO2 Max: 45.5
Racing Score: 337 (I’ve never raced so this is a Zwift estimate.)
