December 10, 2025 • 39 mins
OVERVIEW
Following their episode on aerobic training, CTS Coach Adam Pulford and Tim Cusick (Head Coach at Basecamp and TrainingPeaks WKO Product Leader) dig into Functional Threshold Power (FTP) training in Episode #284 of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast". This is one of the clearest, accessible, and practical explanations of FTP training you'll ever hear. They talk about what's happening in your body, how long each phase of FTP training should take, what interval durations/frequencies/intensities to use, and what adaptations to expect if you're a relative beginner cyclist or a very experienced athlete.
Topics Covered In This Episode:
- You are not your FTP!
- What's happening in the first 2-4 weeks of FTP Training?
- What you'll feel after 2-4 weeks of FTP Training
- What's happening 4-8 weeks into FTP Training?
- Diminishing returns after 10-12 weeks of FTP Training
- Training intensity ranges for FTP workouts
- Recommended durations for FTP intervals
- Frequency of FTP Workouts per week
Resources
- Tim at Basecamp: https://www.joinbasecamp.com/tim-cusick
- Tim on IG https://www.instagram.com/tim.cusick_coach/
- Stress vs Strain: Difference Between Stress and Strain - GeeksforGeeks https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/physics/difference-between-stress-and-strain/
Guest Bio:
Tim Cusick is a world-class cycling coach, a leader in data analytics for endurance sports, an educator, and an innovative business leader. Tim works with Olympians, world champions, and more, including Amber Neben and Rebecca Rusch. As a data analytics leader, Tim is an acknowledged expert in the field for endurance athletes. He is the TrainingPeaks WKO product leader,
codeveloper of WKO5, and Instructor: Advanced Training with Data. As an educator, Tim has presented at USA Cycling summits, TrainingPeaks Endurance Summits, TrainingPeaks University, and more. Tim is also the founder of BaseCamp, which is driven by Tim’s philosophy of bringing together the science of data and the art of coaching. His values-based approach focusing on shared vision and team building allows for the construction of dynamic and purposeful organization development.
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:06):
From the team at CTS, this is the Time Crunch
Cyclist Podcast, our showdedicated to answering your
training questions and providingactionable advice to help you
improve your performance, evenif you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, Coach AdamPolford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches who makeup the team at CTS.
(00:27):
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
other coaches, and experts inthe field to provide you with
the practical ways to get themost out of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now, on to our show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Thanks for having me again.
And I think we're going to saythat a couple more times before
this is over.
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
We've got a lot of times to say that because we
have a lot of adaptation to talkabout.
Last week we talked abouttraining impact and how stress
and strain drives the type ofadaptation that we either are
seeing or wish to see intraining.
We then had a deep dive inaerobic training of uh how much
(01:29):
time you'd have to spend to seethese responses and what to
expect.
We also had a fun dialogue aboutzone two hype and reductionistic
thinking.
And if our listeners missed thatepisode, definitely go back and
listen as each discussion inthis little mini-series builds
off the other.
So, Tim, since we talked aboutaerobic adaptations last week,
(01:52):
what are we going to discusstoday?
SPEAKER_00 (01:55):
I think we should discuss functional threshold
power, FTP, which can be named awhole bunch of other things, but
let's just use the FTPdefinition.
Uh let's dive in there.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Let's do it.
So uh again, you you gave someuh caveats uh uh about what
we're talking about, and I wouldsay what is the one thing about
the bell curve that you want tostress when it comes to
threshold adaptation?
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
Yeah, we talked about in episode one this idea
that we're variants, variables,and diminishing returns, and
that we're playing the bellcurve.
Um the concept of diminishingreturns means that when we are,
you know, when we first starttraining, we see faster gains
early, but then those returnsbegin to diminish as we train
(02:46):
more and more and more.
The gains we get early are hard,you know, harder and harder to
get later.
We need to do more and morework, balance the fatigue and
fitness relationship morecomplexly.
When we start talking about FTP,there's two things to say.
One, and I'll say this to thewhole audience, and it's really
important before I make mysecond part because it's going
(03:06):
to be disappointing.
You are not your FTP.
It doesn't define you, and itactually doesn't, even though
it's an important part of yourtrain, your performance, it
doesn't fully define yourperformance.
There's so much more toperformance.
FTP is a solid metabolic markerthat allows for the
(03:26):
determination of exerciseintensities and it gives insight
into let's just say how yourbody's making energy and dealing
with metabolic waste product.
Simple as that.
So don't judge yourself by yourFTP.
Because when we start thinkingabout threshold adaptation, as
you become a more matureathlete, meaning you're training
(03:49):
in a structural fashion yearafter year after year, your
athletic maturity is improving.
The law of diminishing returnsloves to kick us right in the
FTP gut.
Like it literally is the onethat can often get like you've
gotten your gains year one oryear two that you started your
training, still saw some inthree, by three years in, four
(04:12):
years, you tend to be fightingback to the same point or trying
to diminish loss.
You know, it depends on age andmaturity and everything else
that you're going through.
So it's a tough one toemotionally deal with because
we've linked everything to FTP.
Athletes, you know, endoranceathletes on a cyclist are
defining themselves by FTP.
(04:32):
And that's a bad habit becausethe more you train, the more
that might become a littledisappointing to you.
But it also isn't the limiter.
Your performance gains willgenerally come in other places.
The FTP is just the metabolicmarker.
It's an indicator of yourmetabolic fitness and capability
more than a definition.
SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
Yes, exactly.
And there's a lot more to saythere on some of those more
chronic or long-term uh gains oruh stagnations and whatnot.
And I'd say let's get to thoseum a little bit later in this
episode, because uh, and andI'll pull it back to it because
it is important.
But I would I would say if if weif we're to take like a younger
(05:16):
athlete or maybe somebody whodetrained properly uh and we
started back on some FTPtraining, what adaptations would
we expect in the first two tofour weeks of hitting some good
old FTP work?
SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
Yeah, great question.
And return from injury isanother great one here, because
we get injured and we startfreaking out like it's never
gonna come back.
But once we if we heal first andthen start to train, it comes
back quickly because you're thelaw of diminishing returns, you
might be more in the uptakecurve until you get there.
So, first two to four weeks ofFTP training, really the major
(05:51):
impactors are what's happeningwith your ability to, I tend to
call it manage lactate as awhole.
You tolerate, you buffer, youclear, you shuttle.
There's a lot of impacts goingon with there.
But when we think about what FTPis, you know, it is the ability
to tolerate the byproducts ofmore intensive exercise.
There's two main byproductsyou're talking about.
(06:14):
One is muscular acidity.
Um, you're spinning off hydrogenatoms in the production of
energy.
That hydrogen is making youacidic, it's making you muscular
acidic, and that's a problem.
And we tend to blame lactate foreverything, but that acidity is
uh a pretty high impact.
Lactate, your fast twitch musclefibers produce lactate.
(06:34):
You produce lactate when youburn carbs as fuel.
Um you uh that that's the thethe chemical uh residue that's
like that's what's left over.
You know, the byproduct.
I had to think of the rightword.
What does it do?
That's the byproduct of theenergy production of your fast
twitch muscles.
Those are the limiters, thosewill cap your performance at
(06:58):
like your power at FTP.
I know the P stands for power,but it's a good way to think
about it.
As you train that, you quicklybegin to adapt by your tolerance
and lactate clearance getsbetter.
Those are probably the twoearliest responses.
You begin to have better lactatetransporters, which is a
complex.
We start to talk about MCT1 andtwo, and I think now there's a
(07:22):
four, but we begin to have achemical response and how we
deal with the lactate and thetransporters of that, which
allow us to resynthesize that asenergy and select scenarios.
Um we also early on see theability to buffer muscle
acidity.
And this is a pretty good onebecause when you start to talk
(07:42):
about buffal, you're spinningoff these hydrogen atoms,
they're changing your muscularchemistry, you're becoming more
acidic, so less alkaline.
Um that probably more so thanthe lactate kind of brings on
the pain.
That's why like threshold,extended threshold efforts are
hard.
Um, and you're not only learningto deal with that, your body is
(08:05):
doing a little better uh job ofdealing with that, but you deal
with the suffering better.
So your body is defensive, likeyou were designed as a defensive
system because your body wantsyou not to die.
Good thing.
We'll say that's a good thing.
So you have a lot of sensors inyour body that sense negatives,
(08:25):
right?
And you don't have a lot ofsensors that sense, you have a
lot more negative sensors thanpositive.
So one of the negative sensors,when your body sees this muscle
acidity, it sets off alarms inyour nervous system.
Bells start going off.
It's part of the suffering.
And your body and your brain aretrying to convince you to stop
doing that because that's whatthe pain is.
Like, this is bad for us.
It's a precursor to worsethings.
(08:49):
You actually begin to adapt tothat signal.
You, and this is anoversimplification, you're
muting that signal, thosewarning signals.
You're simply learning tosuffer.
And that doesn't mean you justshut off the suffering.
It means you actually accept itand you're just simply getting
better at dealing with it.
And that's happening uh at acouple of different levels.
(09:11):
Um that's probably what'sdriving that early initial
response.
Um, but there's more to come.
Like that's an early response.
It's a bio more of a biochemicalresponse if you want to give it
something.
That's some of the earlyresponse that we tend to see.
SPEAKER_01 (09:28):
Yeah, and I was gonna say it's it's both it's
it's the biochemical response.
I think there's somepsychological in there that I'd
you know, that dealing withsuffering and pain, all this
kind of stuff.
But even some of themitochondrial and cinematic uh
properties that you talked aboutin the first episode, that's
occurring here.
But I'd say when I'm doing itright with an athlete, they say
(09:51):
it hurts.
It still hurts, but it hurtsless.
And that's where I see is likethey they're on top of the power
better, they're extending itlonger, or perceived effort
comes down in that first two tofour weeks.
That's what's occurring when youdo it right.
And I think for those listening,you know, that's one of those
indicators that you can take uhjust in real time on the bike,
(10:12):
you know, week one to two tothree, is to get that like
in-person feedback when yourcoach can't be there, or if
you're a self-coached athlete.
SPEAKER_00 (10:20):
Couldn't agree more.
You said uh such an excellentstatement.
I'm stealing that too.
Um I call that like what I'mlooking for when I move into FTP
training and we're in a phasewhere this is something where we
have a purposeful developmentof, I call it control.
When you first start doing someFTP intervals, you're not in
control.
There's some standing and somelittle spikes, and I'm fighting
(10:42):
to make control is when theathlete's like, okay, now I'm
beginning to adapt to this.
My body's dealing with thesuffering, the acidity, um, the
acidosis, specifically thelactate, and I can still deliver
and be smooth and efficient,economical.
When you see that more raggedfirst couple of intervals begin
(11:02):
to smooth out, and then controlhappens, that's progress.
That's adaptation that you'llsee before you see it in some
FTP test or in a specificnumber.
Control is the indicator of thatfirst phase of adaptation.
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
Yeah, exactly.
So when I carry out um training,you know, I'll say the next four
to eight weeks, what should weanticipate?
But I think it's important toalso recognize that uh I think
we talked about in episode onewhere we do you should cycle
training, especially once westart to hit FTP and above,
where uh a typical cycle oftraining would be three weeks of
(11:38):
hard work and one week easy, forexample.
And so when we say the first twoto four weeks and then the next
four to eight weeks, I'massuming, and I want everybody
to know that we should have aneasy week in there.
And even for time crunchedathletes, maybe it's not a full
week, maybe it is just a blockof recovery, four or five days,
and then we get back to work onthe weekend.
(11:58):
It's my typical time crunchedrecovery week.
SPEAKER_00 (12:01):
So kind of green more.
Yeah, it's funny.
I was gonna point out I wasliterally, that was the note I
had just written down.
Because we need those cycles ofwe don't get faster, right?
We don't get fitter when we'reexercising.
We're doing damage and traumawhen we're exercising.
We need the rest to recover.
You know, it's funny thatthree-one is three weeks on, one
week off has been around for along time, but I find it's
(12:23):
pretty good.
You talk about a pretty big bellcurve of people who will fit in
there.
Most of the listeners here will.
So after, and understand thateach one of these cycles, we're
generally thinking that bellcurve of uh work versus rest
relationship.
During the second four to eightweeks, we see we tend to see uh
a greater range of change.
We're beginning to see some ofwe've moved off the short term,
(12:46):
the the more uh normal andmetabolic responses.
We're getting into morestructural change.
Muscle glycogen, uh, muscleglycogen storage, muscle
glycogen.
Uh the endocrine system iscontrolling that better.
You have, wow, I don't want togo too deep in the fly.
You're you're having a responsebase, like a very a better
(13:07):
hormonal balance, a betterability to store glycogen, a
better ability to use glycogenis happening.
You're producing, again, you'rehaving an improved uh
relationship.
You're your enzymatic activityis improving uh for glycogen
utilization, and even forlactate utilization, and this is
you know very complex, it alwaysgets into an argument, but
(13:30):
you're beginning to improve yourability to lactate shuttle,
which basically means your fasttwitch muscles are making
lactate as a byproduct, but yourslow twitch fibers are using
that as an energy and fuelsource.
Um, those areas of improvementsare best.
Um, so we see a hormonal change,we see an impact on glycogen and
(13:51):
how we're better able to storeand utilize that, and we're
seeing a better capacity to uselactate as a fuel to improve
performance in that next range.
SPEAKER_01 (14:01):
I I tell my athletes sometimes we're trying to make
you like a like a hybridvehicle, right?
Where sure you got to take onexogenous fuel, but you're also
producing your own fuel that youcan then use.
Correct.
Right.
It that's essentially that's thesilly metaphor that we could
talk about during the four toeight weeks of of uh uh
threshold training.
(14:22):
Um I would say when again, whenI do this, right, what I see in
athletes is you talked aboutcontrolling the effort.
They now as opposed to likeeight minute, ten minute, maybe
twelve-minute intervals in thatfirst uh round of training, I'm
now going to use extensivethreshold intervals, which are
15, 20, uh, 40, maybe even 60minutes, but they're able to
(14:47):
sustain it for longer.
So they have that control, butwe're dragging it out longer.
That's the way I do it in thisin this next four to eight
weeks.
And that's what I'm looking forin my athletes if all the
enzymatic activity is uh growingproperly under the hood.
SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
Couldn't agree more.
Like in the first early phase inthose first kind of one to four,
one to three, two to four weeks,you are looking for the
establishment of that control.
Once the abathletes establishcontrol, to me, that's a
progression trigger.
Okay, time to move on.
Right.
And what you're saying is anexcellent way to move on.
I couldn't agree more.
Then we begin to add time andintensity to because that's the
(15:25):
increased stimuli.
That's the progression thatmakes sense.
I tend to look for control firstbefore I'll add time and
intensity.
Because what happens when theymove into FTP training, like we
talked about in the firstepisode, banister impulse
response model, two responses totraining.
The first couple of FTP workoutscreate a lot of acute fatigue.
(15:46):
So the first week or two,they're struggling with control.
Once they're beginning to absorbthat fatigue and manage it as
fitness is starting to comearound, and here we're talking
about a specific fitness, thenit's like, okay, now they've got
it.
Let's move on.
To me, that's of important.
And for everybody listening andcoaching or self-coaching,
that's important.
(16:06):
Like just don't come out of thegate and go crazy until you can
do the watts and control them,then progress.
SPEAKER_01 (16:11):
And I'd say don't go crazy in the way, like when it
gets messy, don't let that getin your head.
Because I actually tell myathletes, like when they have a
hard workout for the first time,I'm like, this might not be
pretty.
In fact, you might fail at this,and that's totally fine.
But what we expect to see nextweek and the week after is that
you nail it.
(16:32):
But the first one, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00 (16:34):
For us, like let's say you're going into FTP and
you've done a test, and nowyou're doing the first week of
FTP training on a new FTP testbecause you got your base
training right.
I was called that.
This is the bake it in week.
Like you tested there, but youhaven't yet adapted your body to
training there.
unknown (16:50):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (16:51):
Now we need a week to get you ready to train at
that new higher plateau.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (16:56):
So as we as we drag this out, Tim, um I I would say
somewhere in depends on theathletes, uh, it depends, right?
Um, but somewhere around thiskind of 10 weeks, we we probably
have this point of diminishingreturn where the we're gonna
plateau the gains of thresholdtraining.
And you know, what happens is isyou're just gonna kind of hit
(17:18):
the ceiling.
We're not gonna be able to gettoo much more FTP out of that
athlete.
Would you say it's around thatlike 10, 12 week sort of time
period, or when do you see itsort of in your athlete?
Or or what's an indicator foryou to just kind of move on in
the way of a stimulus?
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Great question.
Yeah, anywhere eight to 12weeks.
Like as we one of the general,so we look at these different
systems in all these episodes,and we basically are looking at
things from lower intensityefforts to higher intensity
efforts, right?
So let's put that on thecontinuum.
As we move up the intensitycontinuum, go back to a point I
made in episode one (17:59):
your aerobic is the slowest to build,
fastest to lose.
Your anaerobic is the fastest togain, slowest to lose.
Again, an oversimplification foreverybody, way oversimplified,
but it helps us think.
This is why I said it.
As we move towards the anaerobicside of things, adaptations will
occur faster.
(18:20):
Meaning we don't need 16 weeks,14 weeks, even 12 weeks of FTP
training because the higherintensity, well distributed,
well planned, good rhythm, isgonna probably most of your FTP
gains will be locked in eightweeks in.
Like, I don't know, it's notthat neat and clean, but
(18:42):
remember we're in the bell curvethrowing fastballs down the
middle.
Eight weeks is when I'm usuallylooking, it's time to move on.
And as a matter of fact, there'sthat sweet spot really mainly in
that uh four to eight weeks,really three to six.
It depends when your rest weekcomes in.
You suddenly see a little bit ofrapid gains.
Um, to me, eight to ten weeks iswhere I'm observing for
(19:07):
stagnation.
I would never go on beyond 10 to12 weeks.
Like that would be my cap for aseries of reasons.
For me, I'm really looking at astagnation impact where there is
a clear pattern between thesubjective and objective data
(19:29):
stagnation.
The athlete is not reallyslightly increasing power and
they struggle to hold thatintensity for one more minute.
Like the last minute of theinterval is that that's
starting.
Okay, they're going a couple ofwatts harder because their FTP
has been growing during thoseeight weeks, but they really are
struggling to hold it a little.
And then in the subject of data,you know, what are the feelings?
(19:55):
Because nothing lasts incycling, right?
You and I had this conversationearlier.
You get into this phase, andwhat fools most athletes, you
get about four to eight weeksin, and wow, I'm adapting now.
I didn't, I've done a great basstraining.
I know I'm aerobically fit.
I'm in this four to eight weeks,and it's almost like each week
you're like superman orsuperwoman.
(20:16):
Like each week's a littlebetter.
And I'm feeling I got bad newsfor everybody.
Like, that's not gonna last.
And what athletes will do isonce they start coming off that
high and the gains are slowing,we want to convince ourselves,
no, no, no, we could do thisforever.
But objectively, if you'rereally honest with yourself, you
know you're coming off that gainhigh, you're beginning to edge
into a non-functionalstagnation.
(20:40):
I would, it depends on yourevent, but I'd probably move on
a little earlier than a littlelater.
Um, but that's you know, a wholecomplex episode.
SPEAKER_01 (20:51):
It it is, but I think for our listeners, um,
just getting a few littletidbits, I think that's a very
great tip.
I I think too, if you're seeing,and I just dealt with this
before we jumped on the podcast,if you're seeing high heart
rates, high perceived effort,and low power, and then that TP
comment comes in, I think I'mgetting tired.
(21:12):
But you got to pull that up fromthe nosedive, right?
And and two, I always tell myathletes that even if we're
training really well and we'relike third week, you know, crush
the training, fourth week comes,coach, I feel really good, but
you got recovery week.
I'm like, that's perfect.
That is when that is actuallywhen we do training the best.
Yep.
(21:32):
When we pull up before you godown.
SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
Absolutely.
And that's that's the conceptwhen you take that to a bigger
picture where sometimes it'sbetter to move on a little
earlier than later.
Because if you take each phaseand extend it out to its
absolute max, you're hammeringin a lot of fatigue into the
system.
Yeah.
Like so you got to be careful,and that's again two different
time responses fatigue andfitness to exercise stimuli.
(21:57):
You have to manage them on theyou know, at all given times.
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
That's it.
And so as we talk about those uhuh kind of time course of
adaptations, what to expectalong these weeks.
You know, I'll go back to FTPand what we're talking about
here in that first week,especially if it's like a new
athlete and I'm trying to likebuild the FTP, we're we're using
something like 91 to maybe uhyou know 100% of FTP.
(22:24):
So perceived effort of seven,maybe eight, and let's just say
hug the low end of zone four.
In that next four to eightweeks, I'm gonna up it.
But I'll probably keep the lowat the low point, which means I
just broaden the zone of whatthe athlete um uh can do in that
zone four.
So 91 to 105%.
(22:45):
And I'll I'll tell the athlete,like, go ahead and hug the upper
end if you're feeling good, butit is okay to hug the lower end
if you are not feeling good.
And also logic should prevail isif we are doing extensive
threshold intervals, meaning 20,40, 60 minute goes, hug the low
end until you know you have itin the bag.
(23:05):
Right?
As opposed to every athletethat's listening, 90% of my
athletes that just peg it on theupper end, uh, suffer through,
see uh power decouple or youknow, heart rate decoupling
occur, and then we talk aboutall of this afterwards.
Um now, assuming FTP is correct,uh, I mean, I use perceived
effort of seven to eight, Tim.
(23:26):
Um, but I use perceived effort alot.
And would you do you communicatethat to your athletes and do you
uh look for feedback onperceived effort?
SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
Absolutely.
I am a firm believer in thisstatement.
Um at first, when you're new totraining or when you're new to
training with data and new totraining specifically with
power, because it'll make moresense if I don't have power.
First, we use power to calibrateour feelings.
If you want to continue toimprove, then you need to use
(23:55):
your feelings to calibrate yourpower.
Right?
And that's the differencebetween an immature and a mature
athlete.
By immature and I mean how longthey've been training.
Like we should at first, youhave a power meter and it says
go 300 watts, you know, andyou're on an indoor program and
it says 300 watts on yourscreen, or you give a range
that's 270 to 300, they go 300.
(24:17):
That's the execution you think,because you think more is more.
That's the right answer.
That's gonna help me get adaptedbetter, faster, stronger.
You'll all mature eventually tothe point and mature by training
maturity where you know that FTPisn't a set point, and this
happens in all intervals.
It's not an exact number.
It happens, it moves a littleeach day, it's a range of
(24:39):
transition.
That you have to learn to feelwhat FTP should feel like and
allow for the adjusting ofpower.
Days where it's a struggle, alittle lower.
Get in the work, just do thework.
Days where you're feeling greatand you can get five more watts
without going too crazy, got tobe careful.
Take those five watts.
Don't leave something on thetable.
(25:01):
But learning early to use thattargeting by power to then be
like, oh, this is what thisshould feel like.
And then later, as you becomebetter at being the athlete, uh,
this is my feelings.
Look what my power is.
That's the transition of, by theway, knowledge to mastery of
training.
SPEAKER_01 (25:22):
100%.
And I think too, what peopleneed to realize is hugging the
lower upper end could be likethe difference could be a good
night's sleep.
It could be a bunch of pasta thenight before.
It could be two days off oftraining because work got crazy
and now my glycogen is superfull, right?
As opposed to I've been reallyconsistent for two weeks in
(25:44):
training and I'm a littledepleted because I've just been
super busy, haven't been really,you know, like eating, taking
care of myself.
Depletion, depletion, depletion.
And then like the low end islike kind of struggle bus, but
you're still doing it.
Rest, pasta, upper end.
It can be as simple as that.
SPEAKER_00 (26:00):
Yeah, and well, just one quick add to that, because
it's so great for everybody tohear this.
As I just talked about thiscontinuum of training through
the season, and and we tend totalk about it.
Does it doesn't come out thisneat and clean?
We start a little easier, andthen as the season goes on, we
do higher and higher intensity.
The more important it is thatyou're actually managing and
thinking about those things.
Sleep becomes more important,fueling becomes more important.
(26:23):
You need to control thevariables as the intensity load
comes forward.
And when you're in higherintensity load phases, those
things are intensely, they're asimportant as the workout itself,
but we tend to make them verysecondary.
SPEAKER_01 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Um, Tim, just a just a couple uhpoints.
People people can look up in inlook up podcasts, look up
articles uh from you, uh, butsome durations that we're
working with, uh, I don't reallygo much lower than six minutes
if I'm doing a threshold uhinterval, that's about where I
start, and I go all the way outto about 60, maybe 75 minutes.
(27:02):
I mean, that gets a little long.
Would you agree with that timespan of doing intervals or time
in zone at FTP?
SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
Yeah, I probably don't go as low as six.
Like I try to use 10 as myminimum, but I'll use some six
to eight minutes in the likelet's say you're you know,
tomorrow we're starting a cycleof FTP.
The previous week, uh, beforethe athlete rested, maybe I
would put in a couple shorterjust to get them used to that
intensity.
(27:31):
So I don't really, you know, Imight not put that like here's a
full block or full training day,but I might put one six-minute
effort or eight-minute effort atFTP, and I get one or two of
those in the bank before we moveinto that field, just to get
people remembered.
Oh, yeah, that's how painfulthat is.
Um so that we get on top of thatcontrol.
(27:51):
For me, I like to use 10 minutesas a minimum.
You know, I will tend to thinkmore in that, like 10-minute
intervals with a little morerest in between, and that's uh
that's a real independent itdepends variable.
Um I love from an intervalsense, 10 to 30 minutes probably
(28:12):
is my sweet spot of FTP work.
Because when we look at thedemands of most of the events
where you're heavily focused onFTP development, that's what
you'll need.
Like it will tend to almostalways come in that time range.
So beyond the the physiologicalbenefit of raising uh FTP, I
also want event performancespecificity to have slight
(28:34):
impact on what that length ofwork is.
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yeah, that's that's a good summation.
And I would I would definitelyagree that's what I'm doing
probably 90% of the time.
But I I will say I've had someyou know green athletes, some
young athletes where I'll godown into the six just to get
control of the interval.
And it's completely appropriateto do that, in my opinion.
But I think for all thelisteners, it's just like know
(28:58):
that threshold is actuallylonger.
Like you should be going longerwith the threshold intervals to
get the full benefit.
I sometimes see like some stockworkouts in things like
threshold work, and it's likefour by three minutes with three
minutes in between, and it'slike it's not threshold.
SPEAKER_00 (29:17):
You you make a really good point.
Let me correct.
For newer athletes, absolutelylike we tend to think as
endurance athletes, pass fail,like everything's pass fail.
Like, well, ten minutes has allthe benefit in the world, and
six minutes doesn't.
No, for newer athletes, that'san excellent uptake.
Like you have to learn to beable to perform and control at
(29:38):
those levels.
And you are still introducing ahigher stimuli and stress load,
and you're responding.
And as you mature as an athleteand begin to optimize your
training more, you're going tobe doing longer.
So I that was a great correctionpoint because it's super
important that new athletes, youknow, four times 10 minutes can
be very intimidating and justthey're just physically, they
(30:00):
haven't, they don't have theneuromuscular capacity yet
because they haven't been ridingbikes long enough to execute
that.
So they fail and then feel badand then fail and feel bad,
where simply reducing the loadlike that is an excellent
solution.
SPEAKER_01 (30:13):
Yeah.
And I'll say, you know, anotherlittle tip here too is if you're
just getting going again, or ifyou're newer to the sport, um
oftentimes threshold could belike a two to one work to rest
ratio, like Tim was saying, uh,you know, 10 minutes of work,
five minutes recovery.
If you're working on the lowerend of things and you're just
trying to get that control, youknow, six and in like two or
(30:33):
three, you can manipulate therecovery periods um to
progressively overload or orincrease that stress that we're
talking about or the strain toadapt.
So just play around.
It's not super hard and fast umall the time, although um
starting with science, startingwith the fastball is always good
to do when you're creating yourown workouts like that.
(30:56):
Um but Tim, can you give somemore general recommendations?
Like how many times per weekwould you have a high volume
athlete hitting a threshold oran FTP session?
And would that change for atime-crunched athlete?
SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
Yeah, I when we think about answering that in
reverse order, you know,somebody who has a lot of time,
everybody can define that aslet's say 12 to 16 hours a week,
like a higher volume, but yetnon-professional athlete
training range.
Um you are doing more workoverall and you actually need
less of that intensity.
(31:31):
And actually, it's not aboutwhat workout you can finish,
it's what workout you can adaptto.
Like that's the mentality.
So you could take a highervolume athlete and say, hey,
let's do FTP work three or fourtimes a week, and I'll do a fast
group ride in between.
You might be able to do all thatwork, but are you really
adapting to it?
Is a much better question.
(31:52):
To me, I limit that type of workto two, possibly three with a
high volume, but pretty muchtend to avoid three, maybe an
overreach week or finishing outa cycle before a rest week type
of deal, but two is pretty muchmy number.
Um, I think for uh in FTPtraining, it's one of the
(32:13):
biggest challenged areas for thetime-crunched athlete.
Because when you think about thebest way to raise your FTP, it
really is this (32:21):
you need to be doing the aerobic capacity work.
Like the best FTP gains comewhen you're focused on aerobic
capacity, what we talked aboutin episode one, and FTP work and
really uh merging those twotogether, really being able to
execute good aerobic trainingand good FTP training at the
same time.
For a time crunch athlete, youdon't quite have the time range
(32:43):
to do that quite as well.
So you need to do, I would doone more with a time crunched
athlete.
And again, there's a lot of itdepends here and lifestyle
because you're time crunched fora reason, probably working more,
family life, things like that.
So if you can feel good andrecover and you're sleeping
well, three, but I also would dosome specific manipulations
(33:05):
within there to try to get moreout of the intervals.
A time crunched athlete, uh, Imight use uh formats like hard
start formats for even for FTPwork.
We're doing a minute or twoabove FTP, 105, you know,
because VO2 kinetics, we wantthe fast component.
(33:27):
We want to get you to a higherstrain level quicker in the
interval and try to get a littleextra benefit out of that.
I would also do probably alittle more in the time crunch,
even though I would do this witha high volume athlete, a little
more crossover style work, alittle more manipulation of the
intensity within the intervalitself, because you're dealing,
you're on the razor's edge oflactate and acidic management.
(33:51):
Um, being pushing you over andbringing you back is an
excellent way to get a littlebetter optimization out of that
tile style of work.
SPEAKER_01 (33:59):
So we might call those underovers.
I call those underovers whereit's kind of like spiking it um
throughout, right?
Or front-loaded threshold.
Um and that's what Tim's talkingabout, where it's just like
drill it real hard at first, andwhat you'll see is the the heart
rate goes up, it hangs high.
And probably what's happening,well, not probably, what's
happening under the under thehood, lactate spikes up, hangs
(34:21):
high, and builds.
And it's actually there'sthere's some really good uh
specificity of work to um workon there, but acidosis spikes
high and hangs high.
You kind of get uh uh I want tosay a better bang for the buck,
but it's just a different way ofdoing threshold work.
And I do find with a time crunchathlete that's a very effective
way to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (34:41):
Yeah, I mean you basically are, you know, when we
think about VO2 kinetics, right?
Like how you uptake oxygen andall the because uh lactate is a
byproduct of how you're making,it's an indicator, it's a it's a
proxy for how you're makingenergy, but it's it's a limiter,
right?
So if we can take a 10-minuteinterval and get to a level
where we're producing a highvolume of that faster, fast
(35:04):
component, that will help ustolerate if it's not creating so
much fatigue that you can'texecute the interval.
That's always the other side.
So you have to build into thingslike that.
But for a time-crunched athlete,they they will improve if you
can manage the fatigue, willoptimize your time a little
better.
SPEAKER_01 (35:22):
That's right.
And and Tim, I mean, what kindof gains do you see with uh like
some of your green athletes aswell as some of your established
athletes in the way of FTPgains?
Because we keep on talking abouthey, if you're uh you know,
fresh off the couch or uh comingback from injury or haven't done
this before, we're gonna seemassive gains quickly.
(35:42):
Yeah.
Can you talk about changes inFTP that you see uh with
athletes like that and then uhchanges to expect in an
established athlete?
SPEAKER_00 (35:50):
Well, the good news as a whole, like for the first,
like you you come off, like youget into cycling as a sport.
Your FTP is has one of thelargest ranges of change, like
this ability to improve this.
Remember, it's an it's ametabolic marker.
You could call it a marker ofyour metabolic fitness.
Oversimplification again, right?
You have excellent gain to bemade in that.
(36:13):
And it's one of the mosttrainable, uh developable,
improvable um elements in thefirst four years of cycling.
So you should expect large gainsthroughout the boat.
Now, let's say you get intocycling for the first four
years, you hire a great coach,you do it all right, you're
training 12 to 14 hours a week.
(36:33):
So you're a higher volumetrainer, probably about three to
four years, diminishing returnsare really kicking in at that
stage, and you should be lookingfor minor gains in FTP.
There are other things to chaseto improve performance at that
point in your developmentcareer, um, like durability,
(36:54):
resiliency, efficiency.
There's other areas to gain, butyou see a nice gain in that.
So, you know, it's encouraging,it's energizing.
That's why, you know, I alwayspoint out though, but on the
downside, like kind of once youarrive there without a
significant change in trainingvolume, your FTP will probably
(37:16):
change 5% a year.
But you might have changed 30 to40 percent from when you started
to train or more if you reallytruly weren't fit and coming off
the couch.
You'll have a huge change inthose first couple of years.
And that's what sometimes setpeople up for failure.
They expect that to keephappening, but at some given
(37:36):
point you begin to bump upagainst the ceiling.
SPEAKER_01 (37:39):
Yeah, that that's exactly it.
But I think you know, the keytakeaways for our listeners is
you know, the aerobic glycolyticenergy system is the most
trainable system we have in ourbody.
And that's why we spend a lot oftime training it, right?
Um, and we can spin it up prettyquick, and we can um also spin
it down pretty quick in the wayof detraining.
(38:01):
Um, but meanwhile, you know, itbuilds best on an aerobic
foundation.
So building aerobic capacity,then building threshold power is
a great kind of progressiveoverload or logical step process
in building your endurancemachine of yourself as an
athlete.
Um, anything that you want toadd to today's episode, Tim?
SPEAKER_00 (38:25):
No, I think that's an excellent summary.
SPEAKER_01 (38:28):
Excellent.
Well, uh, for all of ourlisteners, um, hopefully you're
getting your whole fix of TimCusick.
And don't worry, we have twomore episodes to come with Tim,
where we talk about the timecourse of adaptation to VO2 Max
training as well as anaerobiccapacity.
So don't forget to come backnext week to hear more from Tim
as we talk about VO2 Maxtraining.
(38:50):
Thanks, Tim.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
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free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in depthtraining content that goes
(39:11):
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast that'll help you take
your training to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart.
From the team at CTS, this is the Time Crunch
Cyclist Podcast, our showdedicated to answering your
training questions and providingactionable advice to help you
improve your performance, evenif you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, Coach AdamPolford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches who makeup the team at CTS.
(00:27):
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
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ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now, on to our show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Thanks for having me again.
And I think we're going to saythat a couple more times before
this is over.
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
We've got a lot of times to say that because we
have a lot of adaptation to talkabout.
Last week we talked abouttraining impact and how stress
and strain drives the type ofadaptation that we either are
seeing or wish to see intraining.
We then had a deep dive inaerobic training of uh how much
(01:29):
time you'd have to spend to seethese responses and what to
expect.
We also had a fun dialogue aboutzone two hype and reductionistic
thinking.
And if our listeners missed thatepisode, definitely go back and
listen as each discussion inthis little mini-series builds
off the other.
So, Tim, since we talked aboutaerobic adaptations last week,
(01:52):
what are we going to discusstoday?
SPEAKER_00 (01:55):
I think we should discuss functional threshold
power, FTP, which can be named awhole bunch of other things, but
let's just use the FTPdefinition.
Uh let's dive in there.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Let's do it.
So uh again, you you gave someuh caveats uh uh about what
we're talking about, and I wouldsay what is the one thing about
the bell curve that you want tostress when it comes to
threshold adaptation?
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
Yeah, we talked about in episode one this idea
that we're variants, variables,and diminishing returns, and
that we're playing the bellcurve.
Um the concept of diminishingreturns means that when we are,
you know, when we first starttraining, we see faster gains
early, but then those returnsbegin to diminish as we train
(02:46):
more and more and more.
The gains we get early are hard,you know, harder and harder to
get later.
We need to do more and morework, balance the fatigue and
fitness relationship morecomplexly.
When we start talking about FTP,there's two things to say.
One, and I'll say this to thewhole audience, and it's really
important before I make mysecond part because it's going
(03:06):
to be disappointing.
You are not your FTP.
It doesn't define you, and itactually doesn't, even though
it's an important part of yourtrain, your performance, it
doesn't fully define yourperformance.
There's so much more toperformance.
FTP is a solid metabolic markerthat allows for the
(03:26):
determination of exerciseintensities and it gives insight
into let's just say how yourbody's making energy and dealing
with metabolic waste product.
Simple as that.
So don't judge yourself by yourFTP.
Because when we start thinkingabout threshold adaptation, as
you become a more matureathlete, meaning you're training
(03:49):
in a structural fashion yearafter year after year, your
athletic maturity is improving.
The law of diminishing returnsloves to kick us right in the
FTP gut.
Like it literally is the onethat can often get like you've
gotten your gains year one oryear two that you started your
training, still saw some inthree, by three years in, four
(04:12):
years, you tend to be fightingback to the same point or trying
to diminish loss.
You know, it depends on age andmaturity and everything else
that you're going through.
So it's a tough one toemotionally deal with because
we've linked everything to FTP.
Athletes, you know, endoranceathletes on a cyclist are
defining themselves by FTP.
(04:32):
And that's a bad habit becausethe more you train, the more
that might become a littledisappointing to you.
But it also isn't the limiter.
Your performance gains willgenerally come in other places.
The FTP is just the metabolicmarker.
It's an indicator of yourmetabolic fitness and capability
more than a definition.
SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
Yes, exactly.
And there's a lot more to saythere on some of those more
chronic or long-term uh gains oruh stagnations and whatnot.
And I'd say let's get to thoseum a little bit later in this
episode, because uh, and andI'll pull it back to it because
it is important.
But I would I would say if if weif we're to take like a younger
(05:16):
athlete or maybe somebody whodetrained properly uh and we
started back on some FTPtraining, what adaptations would
we expect in the first two tofour weeks of hitting some good
old FTP work?
SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
Yeah, great question.
And return from injury isanother great one here, because
we get injured and we startfreaking out like it's never
gonna come back.
But once we if we heal first andthen start to train, it comes
back quickly because you're thelaw of diminishing returns, you
might be more in the uptakecurve until you get there.
So, first two to four weeks ofFTP training, really the major
(05:51):
impactors are what's happeningwith your ability to, I tend to
call it manage lactate as awhole.
You tolerate, you buffer, youclear, you shuttle.
There's a lot of impacts goingon with there.
But when we think about what FTPis, you know, it is the ability
to tolerate the byproducts ofmore intensive exercise.
There's two main byproductsyou're talking about.
(06:14):
One is muscular acidity.
Um, you're spinning off hydrogenatoms in the production of
energy.
That hydrogen is making youacidic, it's making you muscular
acidic, and that's a problem.
And we tend to blame lactate foreverything, but that acidity is
uh a pretty high impact.
Lactate, your fast twitch musclefibers produce lactate.
(06:34):
You produce lactate when youburn carbs as fuel.
Um you uh that that's the thethe chemical uh residue that's
like that's what's left over.
You know, the byproduct.
I had to think of the rightword.
What does it do?
That's the byproduct of theenergy production of your fast
twitch muscles.
Those are the limiters, thosewill cap your performance at
(06:58):
like your power at FTP.
I know the P stands for power,but it's a good way to think
about it.
As you train that, you quicklybegin to adapt by your tolerance
and lactate clearance getsbetter.
Those are probably the twoearliest responses.
You begin to have better lactatetransporters, which is a
complex.
We start to talk about MCT1 andtwo, and I think now there's a
(07:22):
four, but we begin to have achemical response and how we
deal with the lactate and thetransporters of that, which
allow us to resynthesize that asenergy and select scenarios.
Um we also early on see theability to buffer muscle
acidity.
And this is a pretty good onebecause when you start to talk
(07:42):
about buffal, you're spinningoff these hydrogen atoms,
they're changing your muscularchemistry, you're becoming more
acidic, so less alkaline.
Um that probably more so thanthe lactate kind of brings on
the pain.
That's why like threshold,extended threshold efforts are
hard.
Um, and you're not only learningto deal with that, your body is
(08:05):
doing a little better uh job ofdealing with that, but you deal
with the suffering better.
So your body is defensive, likeyou were designed as a defensive
system because your body wantsyou not to die.
Good thing.
We'll say that's a good thing.
So you have a lot of sensors inyour body that sense negatives,
(08:25):
right?
And you don't have a lot ofsensors that sense, you have a
lot more negative sensors thanpositive.
So one of the negative sensors,when your body sees this muscle
acidity, it sets off alarms inyour nervous system.
Bells start going off.
It's part of the suffering.
And your body and your brain aretrying to convince you to stop
doing that because that's whatthe pain is.
Like, this is bad for us.
It's a precursor to worsethings.
(08:49):
You actually begin to adapt tothat signal.
You, and this is anoversimplification, you're
muting that signal, thosewarning signals.
You're simply learning tosuffer.
And that doesn't mean you justshut off the suffering.
It means you actually accept itand you're just simply getting
better at dealing with it.
And that's happening uh at acouple of different levels.
(09:11):
Um that's probably what'sdriving that early initial
response.
Um, but there's more to come.
Like that's an early response.
It's a bio more of a biochemicalresponse if you want to give it
something.
That's some of the earlyresponse that we tend to see.
SPEAKER_01 (09:28):
Yeah, and I was gonna say it's it's both it's
it's the biochemical response.
I think there's somepsychological in there that I'd
you know, that dealing withsuffering and pain, all this
kind of stuff.
But even some of themitochondrial and cinematic uh
properties that you talked aboutin the first episode, that's
occurring here.
But I'd say when I'm doing itright with an athlete, they say
(09:51):
it hurts.
It still hurts, but it hurtsless.
And that's where I see is likethey they're on top of the power
better, they're extending itlonger, or perceived effort
comes down in that first two tofour weeks.
That's what's occurring when youdo it right.
And I think for those listening,you know, that's one of those
indicators that you can take uhjust in real time on the bike,
(10:12):
you know, week one to two tothree, is to get that like
in-person feedback when yourcoach can't be there, or if
you're a self-coached athlete.
SPEAKER_00 (10:20):
Couldn't agree more.
You said uh such an excellentstatement.
I'm stealing that too.
Um I call that like what I'mlooking for when I move into FTP
training and we're in a phasewhere this is something where we
have a purposeful developmentof, I call it control.
When you first start doing someFTP intervals, you're not in
control.
There's some standing and somelittle spikes, and I'm fighting
(10:42):
to make control is when theathlete's like, okay, now I'm
beginning to adapt to this.
My body's dealing with thesuffering, the acidity, um, the
acidosis, specifically thelactate, and I can still deliver
and be smooth and efficient,economical.
When you see that more raggedfirst couple of intervals begin
(11:02):
to smooth out, and then controlhappens, that's progress.
That's adaptation that you'llsee before you see it in some
FTP test or in a specificnumber.
Control is the indicator of thatfirst phase of adaptation.
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
Yeah, exactly.
So when I carry out um training,you know, I'll say the next four
to eight weeks, what should weanticipate?
But I think it's important toalso recognize that uh I think
we talked about in episode onewhere we do you should cycle
training, especially once westart to hit FTP and above,
where uh a typical cycle oftraining would be three weeks of
(11:38):
hard work and one week easy, forexample.
And so when we say the first twoto four weeks and then the next
four to eight weeks, I'massuming, and I want everybody
to know that we should have aneasy week in there.
And even for time crunchedathletes, maybe it's not a full
week, maybe it is just a blockof recovery, four or five days,
and then we get back to work onthe weekend.
(11:58):
It's my typical time crunchedrecovery week.
SPEAKER_00 (12:01):
So kind of green more.
Yeah, it's funny.
I was gonna point out I wasliterally, that was the note I
had just written down.
Because we need those cycles ofwe don't get faster, right?
We don't get fitter when we'reexercising.
We're doing damage and traumawhen we're exercising.
We need the rest to recover.
You know, it's funny thatthree-one is three weeks on, one
week off has been around for along time, but I find it's
(12:23):
pretty good.
You talk about a pretty big bellcurve of people who will fit in
there.
Most of the listeners here will.
So after, and understand thateach one of these cycles, we're
generally thinking that bellcurve of uh work versus rest
relationship.
During the second four to eightweeks, we see we tend to see uh
a greater range of change.
We're beginning to see some ofwe've moved off the short term,
(12:46):
the the more uh normal andmetabolic responses.
We're getting into morestructural change.
Muscle glycogen, uh, muscleglycogen storage, muscle
glycogen.
Uh the endocrine system iscontrolling that better.
You have, wow, I don't want togo too deep in the fly.
You're you're having a responsebase, like a very a better
(13:07):
hormonal balance, a betterability to store glycogen, a
better ability to use glycogenis happening.
You're producing, again, you'rehaving an improved uh
relationship.
You're your enzymatic activityis improving uh for glycogen
utilization, and even forlactate utilization, and this is
you know very complex, it alwaysgets into an argument, but
(13:30):
you're beginning to improve yourability to lactate shuttle,
which basically means your fasttwitch muscles are making
lactate as a byproduct, but yourslow twitch fibers are using
that as an energy and fuelsource.
Um, those areas of improvementsare best.
Um, so we see a hormonal change,we see an impact on glycogen and
(13:51):
how we're better able to storeand utilize that, and we're
seeing a better capacity to uselactate as a fuel to improve
performance in that next range.
SPEAKER_01 (14:01):
I I tell my athletes sometimes we're trying to make
you like a like a hybridvehicle, right?
Where sure you got to take onexogenous fuel, but you're also
producing your own fuel that youcan then use.
Correct.
Right.
It that's essentially that's thesilly metaphor that we could
talk about during the four toeight weeks of of uh uh
threshold training.
(14:22):
Um I would say when again, whenI do this, right, what I see in
athletes is you talked aboutcontrolling the effort.
They now as opposed to likeeight minute, ten minute, maybe
twelve-minute intervals in thatfirst uh round of training, I'm
now going to use extensivethreshold intervals, which are
15, 20, uh, 40, maybe even 60minutes, but they're able to
(14:47):
sustain it for longer.
So they have that control, butwe're dragging it out longer.
That's the way I do it in thisin this next four to eight
weeks.
And that's what I'm looking forin my athletes if all the
enzymatic activity is uh growingproperly under the hood.
SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
Couldn't agree more.
Like in the first early phase inthose first kind of one to four,
one to three, two to four weeks,you are looking for the
establishment of that control.
Once the abathletes establishcontrol, to me, that's a
progression trigger.
Okay, time to move on.
Right.
And what you're saying is anexcellent way to move on.
I couldn't agree more.
Then we begin to add time andintensity to because that's the
(15:25):
increased stimuli.
That's the progression thatmakes sense.
I tend to look for control firstbefore I'll add time and
intensity.
Because what happens when theymove into FTP training, like we
talked about in the firstepisode, banister impulse
response model, two responses totraining.
The first couple of FTP workoutscreate a lot of acute fatigue.
(15:46):
So the first week or two,they're struggling with control.
Once they're beginning to absorbthat fatigue and manage it as
fitness is starting to comearound, and here we're talking
about a specific fitness, thenit's like, okay, now they've got
it.
Let's move on.
To me, that's of important.
And for everybody listening andcoaching or self-coaching,
that's important.
(16:06):
Like just don't come out of thegate and go crazy until you can
do the watts and control them,then progress.
SPEAKER_01 (16:11):
And I'd say don't go crazy in the way, like when it
gets messy, don't let that getin your head.
Because I actually tell myathletes, like when they have a
hard workout for the first time,I'm like, this might not be
pretty.
In fact, you might fail at this,and that's totally fine.
But what we expect to see nextweek and the week after is that
you nail it.
(16:32):
But the first one, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00 (16:34):
For us, like let's say you're going into FTP and
you've done a test, and nowyou're doing the first week of
FTP training on a new FTP testbecause you got your base
training right.
I was called that.
This is the bake it in week.
Like you tested there, but youhaven't yet adapted your body to
training there.
unknown (16:50):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (16:51):
Now we need a week to get you ready to train at
that new higher plateau.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (16:56):
So as we as we drag this out, Tim, um I I would say
somewhere in depends on theathletes, uh, it depends, right?
Um, but somewhere around thiskind of 10 weeks, we we probably
have this point of diminishingreturn where the we're gonna
plateau the gains of thresholdtraining.
And you know, what happens is isyou're just gonna kind of hit
(17:18):
the ceiling.
We're not gonna be able to gettoo much more FTP out of that
athlete.
Would you say it's around thatlike 10, 12 week sort of time
period, or when do you see itsort of in your athlete?
Or or what's an indicator foryou to just kind of move on in
the way of a stimulus?
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Great question.
Yeah, anywhere eight to 12weeks.
Like as we one of the general,so we look at these different
systems in all these episodes,and we basically are looking at
things from lower intensityefforts to higher intensity
efforts, right?
So let's put that on thecontinuum.
As we move up the intensitycontinuum, go back to a point I
made in episode one (17:59):
your aerobic is the slowest to build,
fastest to lose.
Your anaerobic is the fastest togain, slowest to lose.
Again, an oversimplification foreverybody, way oversimplified,
but it helps us think.
This is why I said it.
As we move towards the anaerobicside of things, adaptations will
occur faster.
(18:20):
Meaning we don't need 16 weeks,14 weeks, even 12 weeks of FTP
training because the higherintensity, well distributed,
well planned, good rhythm, isgonna probably most of your FTP
gains will be locked in eightweeks in.
Like, I don't know, it's notthat neat and clean, but
(18:42):
remember we're in the bell curvethrowing fastballs down the
middle.
Eight weeks is when I'm usuallylooking, it's time to move on.
And as a matter of fact, there'sthat sweet spot really mainly in
that uh four to eight weeks,really three to six.
It depends when your rest weekcomes in.
You suddenly see a little bit ofrapid gains.
Um, to me, eight to ten weeks iswhere I'm observing for
(19:07):
stagnation.
I would never go on beyond 10 to12 weeks.
Like that would be my cap for aseries of reasons.
For me, I'm really looking at astagnation impact where there is
a clear pattern between thesubjective and objective data
(19:29):
stagnation.
The athlete is not reallyslightly increasing power and
they struggle to hold thatintensity for one more minute.
Like the last minute of theinterval is that that's
starting.
Okay, they're going a couple ofwatts harder because their FTP
has been growing during thoseeight weeks, but they really are
struggling to hold it a little.
And then in the subject of data,you know, what are the feelings?
(19:55):
Because nothing lasts incycling, right?
You and I had this conversationearlier.
You get into this phase, andwhat fools most athletes, you
get about four to eight weeksin, and wow, I'm adapting now.
I didn't, I've done a great basstraining.
I know I'm aerobically fit.
I'm in this four to eight weeks,and it's almost like each week
you're like superman orsuperwoman.
(20:16):
Like each week's a littlebetter.
And I'm feeling I got bad newsfor everybody.
Like, that's not gonna last.
And what athletes will do isonce they start coming off that
high and the gains are slowing,we want to convince ourselves,
no, no, no, we could do thisforever.
But objectively, if you'rereally honest with yourself, you
know you're coming off that gainhigh, you're beginning to edge
into a non-functionalstagnation.
(20:40):
I would, it depends on yourevent, but I'd probably move on
a little earlier than a littlelater.
Um, but that's you know, a wholecomplex episode.
SPEAKER_01 (20:51):
It it is, but I think for our listeners, um,
just getting a few littletidbits, I think that's a very
great tip.
I I think too, if you're seeing,and I just dealt with this
before we jumped on the podcast,if you're seeing high heart
rates, high perceived effort,and low power, and then that TP
comment comes in, I think I'mgetting tired.
(21:12):
But you got to pull that up fromthe nosedive, right?
And and two, I always tell myathletes that even if we're
training really well and we'relike third week, you know, crush
the training, fourth week comes,coach, I feel really good, but
you got recovery week.
I'm like, that's perfect.
That is when that is actuallywhen we do training the best.
Yep.
(21:32):
When we pull up before you godown.
SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
Absolutely.
And that's that's the conceptwhen you take that to a bigger
picture where sometimes it'sbetter to move on a little
earlier than later.
Because if you take each phaseand extend it out to its
absolute max, you're hammeringin a lot of fatigue into the
system.
Yeah.
Like so you got to be careful,and that's again two different
time responses fatigue andfitness to exercise stimuli.
(21:57):
You have to manage them on theyou know, at all given times.
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
That's it.
And so as we talk about those uhuh kind of time course of
adaptations, what to expectalong these weeks.
You know, I'll go back to FTPand what we're talking about
here in that first week,especially if it's like a new
athlete and I'm trying to likebuild the FTP, we're we're using
something like 91 to maybe uhyou know 100% of FTP.
(22:24):
So perceived effort of seven,maybe eight, and let's just say
hug the low end of zone four.
In that next four to eightweeks, I'm gonna up it.
But I'll probably keep the lowat the low point, which means I
just broaden the zone of whatthe athlete um uh can do in that
zone four.
So 91 to 105%.
(22:45):
And I'll I'll tell the athlete,like, go ahead and hug the upper
end if you're feeling good, butit is okay to hug the lower end
if you are not feeling good.
And also logic should prevail isif we are doing extensive
threshold intervals, meaning 20,40, 60 minute goes, hug the low
end until you know you have itin the bag.
(23:05):
Right?
As opposed to every athletethat's listening, 90% of my
athletes that just peg it on theupper end, uh, suffer through,
see uh power decouple or youknow, heart rate decoupling
occur, and then we talk aboutall of this afterwards.
Um now, assuming FTP is correct,uh, I mean, I use perceived
effort of seven to eight, Tim.
(23:26):
Um, but I use perceived effort alot.
And would you do you communicatethat to your athletes and do you
uh look for feedback onperceived effort?
SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
Absolutely.
I am a firm believer in thisstatement.
Um at first, when you're new totraining or when you're new to
training with data and new totraining specifically with
power, because it'll make moresense if I don't have power.
First, we use power to calibrateour feelings.
If you want to continue toimprove, then you need to use
(23:55):
your feelings to calibrate yourpower.
Right?
And that's the differencebetween an immature and a mature
athlete.
By immature and I mean how longthey've been training.
Like we should at first, youhave a power meter and it says
go 300 watts, you know, andyou're on an indoor program and
it says 300 watts on yourscreen, or you give a range
that's 270 to 300, they go 300.
(24:17):
That's the execution you think,because you think more is more.
That's the right answer.
That's gonna help me get adaptedbetter, faster, stronger.
You'll all mature eventually tothe point and mature by training
maturity where you know that FTPisn't a set point, and this
happens in all intervals.
It's not an exact number.
It happens, it moves a littleeach day, it's a range of
(24:39):
transition.
That you have to learn to feelwhat FTP should feel like and
allow for the adjusting ofpower.
Days where it's a struggle, alittle lower.
Get in the work, just do thework.
Days where you're feeling greatand you can get five more watts
without going too crazy, got tobe careful.
Take those five watts.
Don't leave something on thetable.
(25:01):
But learning early to use thattargeting by power to then be
like, oh, this is what thisshould feel like.
And then later, as you becomebetter at being the athlete, uh,
this is my feelings.
Look what my power is.
That's the transition of, by theway, knowledge to mastery of
training.
SPEAKER_01 (25:22):
100%.
And I think too, what peopleneed to realize is hugging the
lower upper end could be likethe difference could be a good
night's sleep.
It could be a bunch of pasta thenight before.
It could be two days off oftraining because work got crazy
and now my glycogen is superfull, right?
As opposed to I've been reallyconsistent for two weeks in
(25:44):
training and I'm a littledepleted because I've just been
super busy, haven't been really,you know, like eating, taking
care of myself.
Depletion, depletion, depletion.
And then like the low end islike kind of struggle bus, but
you're still doing it.
Rest, pasta, upper end.
It can be as simple as that.
SPEAKER_00 (26:00):
Yeah, and well, just one quick add to that, because
it's so great for everybody tohear this.
As I just talked about thiscontinuum of training through
the season, and and we tend totalk about it.
Does it doesn't come out thisneat and clean?
We start a little easier, andthen as the season goes on, we
do higher and higher intensity.
The more important it is thatyou're actually managing and
thinking about those things.
Sleep becomes more important,fueling becomes more important.
(26:23):
You need to control thevariables as the intensity load
comes forward.
And when you're in higherintensity load phases, those
things are intensely, they're asimportant as the workout itself,
but we tend to make them verysecondary.
SPEAKER_01 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Um, Tim, just a just a couple uhpoints.
People people can look up in inlook up podcasts, look up
articles uh from you, uh, butsome durations that we're
working with, uh, I don't reallygo much lower than six minutes
if I'm doing a threshold uhinterval, that's about where I
start, and I go all the way outto about 60, maybe 75 minutes.
(27:02):
I mean, that gets a little long.
Would you agree with that timespan of doing intervals or time
in zone at FTP?
SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
Yeah, I probably don't go as low as six.
Like I try to use 10 as myminimum, but I'll use some six
to eight minutes in the likelet's say you're you know,
tomorrow we're starting a cycleof FTP.
The previous week, uh, beforethe athlete rested, maybe I
would put in a couple shorterjust to get them used to that
intensity.
(27:31):
So I don't really, you know, Imight not put that like here's a
full block or full training day,but I might put one six-minute
effort or eight-minute effort atFTP, and I get one or two of
those in the bank before we moveinto that field, just to get
people remembered.
Oh, yeah, that's how painfulthat is.
Um so that we get on top of thatcontrol.
(27:51):
For me, I like to use 10 minutesas a minimum.
You know, I will tend to thinkmore in that, like 10-minute
intervals with a little morerest in between, and that's uh
that's a real independent itdepends variable.
Um I love from an intervalsense, 10 to 30 minutes probably
(28:12):
is my sweet spot of FTP work.
Because when we look at thedemands of most of the events
where you're heavily focused onFTP development, that's what
you'll need.
Like it will tend to almostalways come in that time range.
So beyond the the physiologicalbenefit of raising uh FTP, I
also want event performancespecificity to have slight
(28:34):
impact on what that length ofwork is.
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yeah, that's that's a good summation.
And I would I would definitelyagree that's what I'm doing
probably 90% of the time.
But I I will say I've had someyou know green athletes, some
young athletes where I'll godown into the six just to get
control of the interval.
And it's completely appropriateto do that, in my opinion.
But I think for all thelisteners, it's just like know
(28:58):
that threshold is actuallylonger.
Like you should be going longerwith the threshold intervals to
get the full benefit.
I sometimes see like some stockworkouts in things like
threshold work, and it's likefour by three minutes with three
minutes in between, and it'slike it's not threshold.
SPEAKER_00 (29:17):
You you make a really good point.
Let me correct.
For newer athletes, absolutelylike we tend to think as
endurance athletes, pass fail,like everything's pass fail.
Like, well, ten minutes has allthe benefit in the world, and
six minutes doesn't.
No, for newer athletes, that'san excellent uptake.
Like you have to learn to beable to perform and control at
(29:38):
those levels.
And you are still introducing ahigher stimuli and stress load,
and you're responding.
And as you mature as an athleteand begin to optimize your
training more, you're going tobe doing longer.
So I that was a great correctionpoint because it's super
important that new athletes, youknow, four times 10 minutes can
be very intimidating and justthey're just physically, they
(30:00):
haven't, they don't have theneuromuscular capacity yet
because they haven't been ridingbikes long enough to execute
that.
So they fail and then feel badand then fail and feel bad,
where simply reducing the loadlike that is an excellent
solution.
SPEAKER_01 (30:13):
Yeah.
And I'll say, you know, anotherlittle tip here too is if you're
just getting going again, or ifyou're newer to the sport, um
oftentimes threshold could belike a two to one work to rest
ratio, like Tim was saying, uh,you know, 10 minutes of work,
five minutes recovery.
If you're working on the lowerend of things and you're just
trying to get that control, youknow, six and in like two or
(30:33):
three, you can manipulate therecovery periods um to
progressively overload or orincrease that stress that we're
talking about or the strain toadapt.
So just play around.
It's not super hard and fast umall the time, although um
starting with science, startingwith the fastball is always good
to do when you're creating yourown workouts like that.
(30:56):
Um but Tim, can you give somemore general recommendations?
Like how many times per weekwould you have a high volume
athlete hitting a threshold oran FTP session?
And would that change for atime-crunched athlete?
SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
Yeah, I when we think about answering that in
reverse order, you know,somebody who has a lot of time,
everybody can define that aslet's say 12 to 16 hours a week,
like a higher volume, but yetnon-professional athlete
training range.
Um you are doing more workoverall and you actually need
less of that intensity.
(31:31):
And actually, it's not aboutwhat workout you can finish,
it's what workout you can adaptto.
Like that's the mentality.
So you could take a highervolume athlete and say, hey,
let's do FTP work three or fourtimes a week, and I'll do a fast
group ride in between.
You might be able to do all thatwork, but are you really
adapting to it?
Is a much better question.
(31:52):
To me, I limit that type of workto two, possibly three with a
high volume, but pretty muchtend to avoid three, maybe an
overreach week or finishing outa cycle before a rest week type
of deal, but two is pretty muchmy number.
Um, I think for uh in FTPtraining, it's one of the
(32:13):
biggest challenged areas for thetime-crunched athlete.
Because when you think about thebest way to raise your FTP, it
really is this (32:21):
you need to be doing the aerobic capacity work.
Like the best FTP gains comewhen you're focused on aerobic
capacity, what we talked aboutin episode one, and FTP work and
really uh merging those twotogether, really being able to
execute good aerobic trainingand good FTP training at the
same time.
For a time crunch athlete, youdon't quite have the time range
(32:43):
to do that quite as well.
So you need to do, I would doone more with a time crunched
athlete.
And again, there's a lot of itdepends here and lifestyle
because you're time crunched fora reason, probably working more,
family life, things like that.
So if you can feel good andrecover and you're sleeping
well, three, but I also would dosome specific manipulations
(33:05):
within there to try to get moreout of the intervals.
A time crunched athlete, uh, Imight use uh formats like hard
start formats for even for FTPwork.
We're doing a minute or twoabove FTP, 105, you know,
because VO2 kinetics, we wantthe fast component.
(33:27):
We want to get you to a higherstrain level quicker in the
interval and try to get a littleextra benefit out of that.
I would also do probably alittle more in the time crunch,
even though I would do this witha high volume athlete, a little
more crossover style work, alittle more manipulation of the
intensity within the intervalitself, because you're dealing,
you're on the razor's edge oflactate and acidic management.
(33:51):
Um, being pushing you over andbringing you back is an
excellent way to get a littlebetter optimization out of that
tile style of work.
SPEAKER_01 (33:59):
So we might call those underovers.
I call those underovers whereit's kind of like spiking it um
throughout, right?
Or front-loaded threshold.
Um and that's what Tim's talkingabout, where it's just like
drill it real hard at first, andwhat you'll see is the the heart
rate goes up, it hangs high.
And probably what's happening,well, not probably, what's
happening under the under thehood, lactate spikes up, hangs
(34:21):
high, and builds.
And it's actually there'sthere's some really good uh
specificity of work to um workon there, but acidosis spikes
high and hangs high.
You kind of get uh uh I want tosay a better bang for the buck,
but it's just a different way ofdoing threshold work.
And I do find with a time crunchathlete that's a very effective
way to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (34:41):
Yeah, I mean you basically are, you know, when we
think about VO2 kinetics, right?
Like how you uptake oxygen andall the because uh lactate is a
byproduct of how you're making,it's an indicator, it's a it's a
proxy for how you're makingenergy, but it's it's a limiter,
right?
So if we can take a 10-minuteinterval and get to a level
where we're producing a highvolume of that faster, fast
(35:04):
component, that will help ustolerate if it's not creating so
much fatigue that you can'texecute the interval.
That's always the other side.
So you have to build into thingslike that.
But for a time-crunched athlete,they they will improve if you
can manage the fatigue, willoptimize your time a little
better.
SPEAKER_01 (35:22):
That's right.
And and Tim, I mean, what kindof gains do you see with uh like
some of your green athletes aswell as some of your established
athletes in the way of FTPgains?
Because we keep on talking abouthey, if you're uh you know,
fresh off the couch or uh comingback from injury or haven't done
this before, we're gonna seemassive gains quickly.
(35:42):
Yeah.
Can you talk about changes inFTP that you see uh with
athletes like that and then uhchanges to expect in an
established athlete?
SPEAKER_00 (35:50):
Well, the good news as a whole, like for the first,
like you you come off, like youget into cycling as a sport.
Your FTP is has one of thelargest ranges of change, like
this ability to improve this.
Remember, it's an it's ametabolic marker.
You could call it a marker ofyour metabolic fitness.
Oversimplification again, right?
You have excellent gain to bemade in that.
(36:13):
And it's one of the mosttrainable, uh developable,
improvable um elements in thefirst four years of cycling.
So you should expect large gainsthroughout the boat.
Now, let's say you get intocycling for the first four
years, you hire a great coach,you do it all right, you're
training 12 to 14 hours a week.
(36:33):
So you're a higher volumetrainer, probably about three to
four years, diminishing returnsare really kicking in at that
stage, and you should be lookingfor minor gains in FTP.
There are other things to chaseto improve performance at that
point in your developmentcareer, um, like durability,
(36:54):
resiliency, efficiency.
There's other areas to gain, butyou see a nice gain in that.
So, you know, it's encouraging,it's energizing.
That's why, you know, I alwayspoint out though, but on the
downside, like kind of once youarrive there without a
significant change in trainingvolume, your FTP will probably
(37:16):
change 5% a year.
But you might have changed 30 to40 percent from when you started
to train or more if you reallytruly weren't fit and coming off
the couch.
You'll have a huge change inthose first couple of years.
And that's what sometimes setpeople up for failure.
They expect that to keephappening, but at some given
(37:36):
point you begin to bump upagainst the ceiling.
SPEAKER_01 (37:39):
Yeah, that that's exactly it.
But I think you know, the keytakeaways for our listeners is
you know, the aerobic glycolyticenergy system is the most
trainable system we have in ourbody.
And that's why we spend a lot oftime training it, right?
Um, and we can spin it up prettyquick, and we can um also spin
it down pretty quick in the wayof detraining.
(38:01):
Um, but meanwhile, you know, itbuilds best on an aerobic
foundation.
So building aerobic capacity,then building threshold power is
a great kind of progressiveoverload or logical step process
in building your endurancemachine of yourself as an
athlete.
Um, anything that you want toadd to today's episode, Tim?
SPEAKER_00 (38:25):
No, I think that's an excellent summary.
SPEAKER_01 (38:28):
Excellent.
Well, uh, for all of ourlisteners, um, hopefully you're
getting your whole fix of TimCusick.
And don't worry, we have twomore episodes to come with Tim,
where we talk about the timecourse of adaptation to VO2 Max
training as well as anaerobiccapacity.
So don't forget to come backnext week to hear more from Tim
as we talk about VO2 Maxtraining.
(38:50):
Thanks, Tim.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even more actionabletraining advice, head over to
trainwright.com backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in depthtraining content that goes
(39:11):
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast that'll help you take
your training to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart.
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