Would be nice to know how much your FTP/MAP/AC/NM and weight improved after completing what training plan.
I wish we had that power. There is really no way to predict improvement for any given plan because response to any given dose of training is highly individualistic. The best path for improvement is to have a plan which jibes with your goals, fitness level and geared to your training availability.
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i mean You ve completed some plan and Your gain was or you lost 5kg or You ve completed some race with best result
Oh sorry, I misunderstood. Iām sure thereās lots of Knights out there that will share their gains (4DP), weight loss, and race results.
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@Dmytro_scott are you asking for a reporting metric post completion that summarizes your achievements or goals or something that talks about what people normally expect?
Yes on providing a training plan summary. That would be awesome for us to build and provide to athletes.
The second part is āIt Dependsāā¦ Everyone is different, on different levels of fitness, so generalizing outcomes for training plans is almost impossible to do. For instance, we could take someone who is untrained and put them on a 12 week plan and they would get amazing results. However, a person that has been training for 5 years will see lower results. Or, some people are highly trainable and some of us struggle for the small gains we get. Results are all based on the individual, how they fuel themselves, how quickly they can recover, and even their age.
i understand all that. but we all can share results and write some short pre history. Even badass has bad days-)
Oh, okay. So in my past experience, this is what the training plans have done for me. I usually canāt do advanced right from the beginning so I do something in the medium level for 12 weeks.
Baseline coming off the couch 235 FTP, 315 MAP, 475 AC, 1100 NM
12 week plan with about 4 to 6 hours of cycling.
265 FTP, 345 MAP, 510 AC, 1300 NM. Weight loss 3kg
12 week advanced plan with up to 8 hours of training
295 FTP, 385 MAP, 595 AC, 1400 NM. Weight loss 3kg
To hit a 315 or 320 FTP I would have to really start ramping up my long distance rides and then focusing heavily on 3 x 20 minutes and things like that. But, my NM starts to really suffer as FTP goes up my NM starts going down. I am probably not fueling correctly.
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awesome! brilliant! that what i was talking about!
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Here goes then (one reason I think this is a risky thread is once youāve done this for a while itās not a world of āgainsā necessarily - but perhaps thatās needed for visibility of what works for some)
Baseline after 18m of using another platform, and having started getting used to SUF FF
03/05/2019 849 444 304 240
12 weekāish custom plan with STR about 6 to 9 hours of cycling.(plus some fun MTB at times)
19/08/2019 922 353 284 232 - weight static at overweight
12 weekāish custom plan with STR about 6 to 9 hours of cycling.(less MTB)
16/11/2019 822 398 283 228 - weight up 1kg - slightly more overweight
8 week custom plan, then 4 week targetted (self developed MAP) plan
05/02/2020 871 418 291 233 - weight down 1kg still overweight)
12 week self developed plan (up to 10hr/week - occasional longer weekend rides in there pushing over 10 total for the week)
08/05/2020 893 422 304 240 - weight down 2kg (and I ripped my guts out on this one even more than normal if thatās possible - as i could see i was heading for close to last years numbers, but couldnāt get that one measly watt more)
I have no idea whether I can improve these numbers or not - possibly if I didnāt work maybe. More time dedicated to coaching myself and doing things in an even more structured way would maybe get my a few watts on ftp
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This is quite timely for me as I did Half Monty yesterday - Iām planning a Full Frontal on Friday and Iāve found that doing HM during the taper really helps with getting the targets right for pacing purposes.
Last year was a bit of a bust for me in terms of cycling; lots of life stuff got in the way and my fitness declined from where it had been. I did a FF in July 2019 and got the following numbers:
946 409 268 212
That represented a drop from my best FTP/MAP, which were around 240/330. I managed to start training consistently again around January and did FF in early April, getting the following results:
990 433 305 241
Iāve done a 12 week training plan (Advanced Mountainous Gran Fondo) since then. I wouldnāt say that Iāve followed it perfectly - I had a crash about halfway through which limited my riding for a couple of weeks, and I lightened the load at the end of the plan after feeling a bit burned out (not necessarily overtraining, but life in general). After doing HM, my numbers now look like this:
990 433 330 264
If I can maintain those numbers during FF (and hopefully add a little to the AC figure) then that will represent my best showing ever. What it shows, in my view, is that consistent training absolutely does get results; I am not a naturally sporty person but I am pleased with these numbers and am excited to see what happens next. Iām keen to see if I can manage another similar increase after following another 12 week plan more closely - if I can get to FTP/MAP of about 275/350, Iād start to edge closer to the magic 4W/kg figure on FTP thatās been a long-time target of mine.
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Wow on the massive increases.
And re āIām planning a Full Frontal on Fridayā
Good luck sir
Martin.
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10% every 3 months (twice). Some going !!
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For me, thatās reasonable for 6 months of focused training. The hard part if finding 6 back to back months for focused training. After that, the gains are miserably hard to get. Also, Iām a bigger rider with a bigger power output I guess. So, those numbers look good until I add my 90kg of weight to it.
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Thanks @aaron.johnson - so would you say that baseline is a detrained baseline but youād expect to normally get up there with a decent 6m block.
And itās then that we find that numbers donāt necessarily go up?
That would certainly chime with me, I can structure things all which way and have done for a while now, but the numbers (yes theyāre just numbers) rarely change much.
As Sir Aaron said, training tends to be an exercise in diminishing returns - noob gainz are great fun because you progress quickly, but at some point youāll reach a level where you either need to devote much more time to training to see substantial improvements, or decide to focus on one aspect of your power profile (so you can train your FTP and see results, but thatāll be at the expense of your NM, or similar).
I have seen someone who has done multiple Ironmans (Ironmen?) and been to Kona say that becoming that good at endurance sports (i.e. racing well at age group level) is not necessarily rocket science; itās about packing in very large volumes of training (i.e. 20-30 hours a week) consistently and getting your recovery right. You can do it on less and some do it on much less, but progressing in terms of numbers is easier when youāve got that much time to train purely because of the way you can stimulate physical changes without going too deep in any given session. For most of us, of course, thatās not practical.
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@Martin that is just my experience. Usually I make great gains in 6 months and then I have to focus more on volume, recovery, or completely changing up my routine to keep the body adapting. I always thought that at the 6 month mark, I would be better served with a coach to really try to boost my gains. After 9 months of consistent training I would scale things back and recovery from any nagging injuries I had or just change up my routine to help me mentally. I am no coach though. Iāve only done self training and coaching for about 30 years between running, triathlon and cycling.
Currently I struggle to just find 2 hours a week to do any training, so I need to step back and look at my priorities soonāish. LOL.
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I retired from a different sport late last year, and subsequently managed a decent amount of miles over the winter in the UK but nothing too special - approx 180km per week was my aim, but regularly not achieved.
In Jan Iād had enough of the maintenance required to keep the bike going and missing miles due to weather / darkness and picked up a Kickr Core, plus a trial of Sufferfest. Jumped straight in to the 4DP as iād been desperate to give it a go:
FTP: 294
MAP: 345
AC: 487
NM: 1272
Thereafter i had 6 weeks of really just enjoying the different videos. I had the TT plan on my calendar as a bit of guidance but i didnāt follow it rigorously.
Once lockdown hit my area i threw myself into a fairly structured mix of indoor and outdoor riding of my own design - helped by a new bike with power meter arriving just before. I have used Half Monty to set the baseline at the end March, then worked through a number of 4 week blocks repeating HM at the end of each rest week. Initially was two blocks base focus, as I was always an anaerobically stronger rower and weaker aerobically, it also seemed sensible to start there. 
Baseline. 04/04/20
MAP 461w
FTP 354w (20 min HR constrained avg power 286 / 173hr)
LTHR 189
End Block 1 02/05/20
MAP 474w
FTP 369w (20 min HR constrained avg power 297 / 175hr)
LTHR 187
End Block 2 30/05/20
MAP 486w
FTP 365w (20 min HR constrained avg power 287 / 180hr)
LTHR 190 (last minute avg 203 / 204 max)
The room in which i did the third test was 28c, and although nothing for a lot of people for somebody in Scotland it hit me hard! Thatās my selected excuse for sub-standard HR constrained result.
For the last 2 blocks I shifted focus slightly to increase the intensity of my sessions away from being dominated by z2 rides to more muscular endurance / threshold / vo2max. I didnāt do a Half Monty at the end of the June, mostly because i felt gains would be slower to come by, and the numbers i was working to seemed like they were overestimates anyway so wanted more time to work on them.
This last block has been pretty effective, and hoping to step on when i do HM next week. Amount of training has been helped by my lack of commute, and is typically 11-13 hours per week. I had a great fit for the new bike back in March, which has contributed significantly to no injuries so training has been really pretty consistent.
On weight, i started just above 86kg, and weighed in at 81.4kg yesterday. I doubt Iāll ever be a hill climber, but I donāt live in the alps anyway.
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This ^^ - this has to be common - I think I made any improvements I was going to make when I did my first period on an indoor bike (using it to recover from an injury). After that it would need more volume and formality than I have. I did try the coach thing, but actually unless you have a fairly dedicated time it doesnāt change the bar facts that youāre not spending your days only focussed on bike training
Wowzers. Are you Matthew Pinsent? Amazing numbers.
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Digging out this post as Iāve just done Full Frontal for the first time since Feb, and thought Iād log the 2 Half Montyās I did since posting:
Half Monty 25/07/20
MAP 477 -9
FTP 365w = (295w for hr constrained effort)
LTHR 190
On the face of it this saw a decrease to my MAP, but as i considered 480 to be an overestimate anyway I wasnāt disappointed. Was more happy to see an increase in the HR effort.
After this test I prioritised sub-threshold and sweetspot type work. My partner and I were able to get out to the mountains around Lake Como at the end of August as some flights for a friends wedding (canceled due to covid obviosuly) were still going, so we rolled the dice and got out there. I wanted to increase my ability to cope with sustained efforts of up to 2 hours (Passo San Marco the main target, and being 24km with 1700m gain combined with the 170km round trip from our hotel would be by far the biggest climb I had attempted).
Still no VO2 / MAP focus, other than some daft dayās out in the British summer linking up some of the punchy climbs in the Mendip hills and South Wales local(ish) to me. Covid restrictions meant racing never really got going - crits were limited to 3x 15 min races i think, which didnāt appeal really.
Great Bianchi my partner hired in Bellagio, plus my Focus at the top of the Muro di Sormano.
Anyway, following the italian trip I went back to a Zone 2 focus Base period - up to Lockdown 2 in the UK last month. Iād switched from 4 week blocks to 3 weeks, after some feedback on here to better manage accumulated fatigue. So as our second lockdown was basically this length I thought Iād structure some Threshold work during it and see what gains I could make.
HM 13/11/20
MAP 471
FTP 377 (HR effort 326w)
LTHR 187
Felt good going into this one. New sessions like the cobbler really seemed to work for me, so felt strong. Although anothe slight drop in MAP, the sustained effort felt as good as these things can.
Couple of weeks of thresholdy-ish work, ISLAGIATT ticked off at 100%, HHNF kicked my ass and did not get done at 100%, Angels done, plus some longer outdoor z2 rides when the weather allowed (Iām a fair weather rider now).
Lockdown ended here on Tuesday, so had FF scheduled for yesterday. Delayed that as wasnāt feel great, and the weather forecast today was shocking so wasnāt going outside in any case. Primers on thursday, then GOAT instead yesterday as I the low cadence work seems to work for me.
FF 05/12/20
NM 1367
AC 670
MAP 440 (adjusted by Suf to 450)
FTP 391 @ 187 avg HR.
Seems thereās some rounding going on for the exact figures, but the plot from intervals.icu is:
Heart rate was right where i wanted it through the MAP and FTP efforts. Was recording on my Garmin as well so could see i was sat at around 385w average at 10mins in. Tickled it up a bit, but certainly by the last couple of mins i was focusing on keeping the cadence up at my target.
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