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10/12/2019 11:32 am
THE HOUR OF POWER!.....not my creation by the way but I champion it.
After a warm up do 60 minutes at 100% FTP or very close.... ramp up the last 5 minutes at 105% FTP if you can! This is pure hell. NOTHING in training is harder than this done on a trainer. If you do this ride once a month on a trainer you will become tough as hell! It raises FTP nicely too but is overkill unless you are plateauing in your FTP (and not overly fatigued)...but be DAMN SURE to take a couple recovery days after this kind of work.
100% FTP is your 50-60 minute ALL OUT average power....this is the power you would hold for your best 40K TT effort.
You better use blasting music if doing this workout on a trainer...you sure the heck better be draining sports drink.
I guarantee you that your mind will be "making deals" with you to reduce the time of the ride!
The easiest way to do this workout is on a long climb.
So......no....I won't be doing that 6 hour ride to "Tim Buck Two"...I'll be doing the "Hour of Power" today on my Kurt Kinetic, and I'll get 10 times the "cycling gains" than you my friend....after I recover that is
This ride is absolute death....and hard to recover from. ALLOW FOR RECOVERY and you'll be happy
Truth be told even if this ride is done at 90-95% FTP it is very hard and very productive.
Give it a shot!
RG
10/12/2019 11:55 am
If FTP = 50 - 60m all out, how can you ride 60m at this power with last 5m increasing the power. If you can, you might have underestimated your FTP, or am I missing something?
10/12/2019 12:24 pm
If FTP = 50 - 60m all out, how can you ride 60m at this power with last 5m increasing the power. If you can, you might have underestimated your FTP, or am I missing something?
60 minutes @ 100% FTP your gonna be spent...Wel you should be as gillesd mentioned...
Topic starter
10/12/2019 12:49 pm
If FTP = 50 - 60m all out, how can you ride 60m at this power with last 5m increasing the power. If you can, you might have underestimated your FTP, or am I missing something?
I am not sure anyone really knows what their true FTP is . If I chased you up a mountain road with a gun pointed at your head I bet you would be able to hold a higher wattage for 60 minutes....a new FTP record...I doubt that you could match it the following week after you have recovered(and maybe with better fitness) in a 40 K TT. The mental game is so much a part of FTP because it is not solely a physiological state that can be accurately measured.
You can do the last 5 minutes of a 40 K TT(50-60 minutes all out) at 105% FTP bro....through pure "will power". Not saying that everyone is capable of this though.
Just because you are holding what you think is your 100% FTP, or darn close, doesn't mean you can't go a little higher for short periods.
Your 100% FTP is higher than your true lactate threshold and in some guys quite a bit higher, but your body is NOT operating at 95-100% VO2 max. You can ramp up the intensity in the last minutes of a long TT to this 95-100% VO2 max by laying down more power.
If you did this before the last 5 minutes, lets say at minute 30 or 45, then you wold have to drop below 100% FTP to recover..you could not drop to 100% FTP or close to it and hold it there...there would be a debt to pay.
Some guys inadvertently do this in a TT if they don't have a lot of experience or a power meter(and know their FTP).
Now as an "aside"...variable power TT-ing is usually better(for time) in hilly or windy TT's. ie: you go a little above 100% up a hill and a little below 100% down the hill.
RG
10/12/2019 1:14 pm
Oh yeah bro. It certainly looks like hell. I’ll try it in 3 weeks.
I am in the second day of E ,and day one of test e.
The problem is that I don’t like at all the indoor trainer so I will do it on a long climb as you suggested. I thing this workout is better to be done immediately after a recovery week. What do you think? Thanx testEster
Topic starter
10/12/2019 1:45 pm
Oh yeah bro. It certainly looks like hell. I’ll try it in 3 weeks.I am in the second day of E ,and day one of test e .
The problem is that I don’t like at all the indoor trainer so I will do it on a long climb as you suggested. I thing this workout is better to be done immediately after a recovery week. What do you think? Thanx testEster
I would do one day with "some" effort" before doing this workout...you want your energy systems to be "tuned up" and firing on all cylinders.
RG
10/12/2019 2:02 pm
most men are defining FTP as 95% of CP20 - and most guys aren't testing it more than once/month. Depending on how you define it, FTP should be approx the power you can hold for an ISOpower effort for 60 min - but there is room either way on this. if you do the 'death hour" at close to 100%, you can ramp the last 5 min as an all out effort, dig deep and go over 100% for sure - but you must be fresh mentally to do this.
now if you have overestimated your FTP, this will be impossible, and if you have grossly underestimated it then it will be less of a challenge.
even an hour at 98% is death - hell, 90 to 95% will give you a killer workout. the key is to make it all the way to 60 min and kick it in at the end.
10/12/2019 2:25 pm
This is a killer workout but it's hard on the body.
What I like to do is to throw in some cadence changes to keep the focus up. Every 3 or 5 min change your cadence, either increase it for 30 seconds by 5-10 rpms or decrease it for 30 seconds by 5-10 rpms..... it allows you to stay motivated during the entire workout. It also helps prepare your body for speed changes during a race.
pp
Topic starter
10/12/2019 2:49 pm
This is a killer workout but it's hard on the body.What I like to do is to throw in some cadence changes to keep the focus up. Every 3 or 5 min change your cadence, either increase it for 30 seconds by 5-10 rpms or decrease it for 30 seconds by 5-10 rpms..... it allows you to stay motivated during the entire workout. It also helps prepare your body for speed changes during a race.
pp
Yes this is a killer workout indeed and hard on the body as you say and that's why you only do it very infrequently. But in fact you never "have to" do this hard of a workout at all. Shorter 100-105% FTP intervals work very well to peak your FTP That said I do think this workout has good value physiologically and NOTHING will make you tougher mentally than this workout done indoors! After doing one of these workouts on your trainer you will think the hard group rides you do aren't too bad after all....and when guys are really starting to suffer mentally in a race you'll have 'been there" already in training
This is something that I advocate all threshold or even VO2 max intervals from time to time.....good advice ad thanx for chiming in. Good comments coming on this thread.
However, try to keep your power the same no mater what cadence you are using. Threshold work is best done for at least 7-8 minutes at a time before dropping the power. I like 20's but some guys like 2 X 30 instead of 3 X 20. The idea of doing 3 X 20 at 95% FTP is sometimes very hard to stomach on a weekly basis ....3 X 20 seems to "get it over with" faster.
There are other workout that you can do ie: micro bursts into the anaerobic work capacity power zone, in which you increase cadence and power for periods of 10-30 seconds followed by lower cadence work at tempo or perhaps low threshold...the build back to mid to high threshold before doing another burst.
This mimics the surging in crits and some road races.
You can also do lower cadence micro burst at 85-90 cadence to mimic a hill surge...before dropping back to tempo or low threshold....building to threshold.
You can also stay at threshold and drop cadence to 80-85 for 5-10 minutes or more at a time to mimic a hill in a more steady effort. I will often do a a 20-30 minute threshold interval with half the time spent at 85 cadence and the other half at 95 or so.
Any variety is good to keep your motivation and interest up.
RG Last edited by Realgains on 01-07-2008 at 05:15 AM