12 week training plan: it works

Training Training Plans
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Just finished a 12 week general training plan. Here’s a look at the before and after FF results.
Sept 24 Dec 22
NM 842—>986
AC 319—>349
MAP 262—>285
FTP 220—>235
Takeaways:
After the Sept test, the profile notes said MAP was a weakness and suggested that may be limiting my FTP. Sure enough, in Dec my MAP and FTP both increased by similar amounts.

In the Dec test the 5 min section felt more manageable. It still hurt, but whenever I felt my cadence start to drop, I was able to ramp it back up.

The training plan’s cadence builds improved my sprinting technique. I finally broke 1k watts in a sprint!

Overall, I felt so much stronger in the Dec FF test, in every metric. While my FTP is still 15 points shy of my PR from 2 years ago, my 5 sec, 1 min and 5 min numbers are all PRs for 2023.

I feel like the training plan did a good job of improving multiple aspects, not just one. Looking forward to some Zwift races in Jan followed by a 3 week MAP building block.

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Nice! That’s fun progress

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Believe it or not, I came here to make almost this exact post! I had a similar starting point to you (although was completely new to indoor training) and have seen similar improvements after following the All Purpose plan. I have no sprint to speak of though! :joy:

1000005272
10000052721080×2340 183 KB

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Awesome job. Congrats on the 12 weeks of hard work!

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Thanks, you too! May your Christmas be Sufferking good (if you celebrate it)!

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Update on my original post:
The 12 week training plan continues to pay off. Since the training block I’ve done 9 Zwift races (cat D) with 3 wins, 4 podiums and the rest top 8. And today I got bumped up to cat C.
Biggest differences I’ve noticed:

  • My cadence has increased. 85 used to be my comfort zone. 95 now feels normal and I can hold that at tempo+ efforts. In a race when I have to accelerate but not attack, I can just rev up to 100-105 instead of changing gears.

  • Under fatigue, I can hold power at threshold longer than I used to. In races, it’s hard to drop a group with a short acceleration, but if I hold above FTP for 3-5 minutes it’s much easier to get clear. For the first time, long range attacks are now an option.

  • Recovery time from short hard efforts is a lot faster, and that recovery can be at Z2 instead of Z1.

  • My sprint under fatigue is still trash :grinning: and long climbs are a challenge, but overall the gains are much broader than I expected.

So to anyone on the fence about committing to a 12 week plan, I say it’s definitely worth the hard work.

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which plan did u use?

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All purpose plan with yoga and strength training.

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