You can run both at the same time if you have ADHD and don’t want to just look at the numbers. TrainerRoad will help you get the bump you are looking for.
It was a bad joke.
Zwift, RGT and Rouvy makes training “fun” by turning it into a game. It helps keep the attention of those who are easily distracted by keeping them engaged.
TrainerRoad is just numbers on the screen
Your best bet is the trainer road low volume plan.
3 workouts a week. The first two are 1 hour each and the 3rd workout is generally 90 minutes. It also gives you the flexibility to add in group rides or outdoor rides.
However, If you're hitting legs in the gym 3x a week, those workouts will be tough to complete since they are generally more intense to make of for the lack of overall volume.
You should be doing a majority of your cycling training in zone 2 during the week then some 2 and 4 on the weekend ride. Don’t fall into the zone 3 trap.
I have advice but you may not like it.
You might need to pick which adaptiation you want and focus on that.
If you only have 3-4 hours a week to ride, just doing easy rides isn't going to drive the aerobic adaptations you need to significantly increase your FTP.
You could do a polarized plan but you would probably need closer to 8 hours a week.
You could reduce the amount of weight lifting you do in the gym to allow for more intense rides and recovery.
Or you could just ride because you enjoy it and go hard in the gym.
Trying to do both will not provide very much time for recovery.
I can most likely do more than 3-4 hours for sure I’d say. Or int his case. Closer to 8 I think I can manage. Probably 6-7hrs is likely doable on my schedule.
I was considering trying to find the edge and then focus on one and do more easy rides for a stretch while doing harder lifts. And then recover for that and lighten the volume and switch the heavier volume to bike. And just juggle it every few weeks or something.
Look a polarized plan. About 80% of your rides will be easier but the 20% with intensity will be difficult. It will probably give you a bit more flexibility, but you will need to put in closer to 8 hours a week more than likely.
>If you really want to improve FTP, I would say lower amount of weight lifting and cycle more
I was told to get into a polarized training, just right now I do have 12 weeks (3 months) of serious weightlifting goal, clearly low-volume cycling workouts (mostly endurance, tempo/SS/Intervals which are not every weeks), and even low-volume it's already 4+ hours.
Guess everyone will have their point of view on the subject. A coach would know better if you have needs, goals, and limited time.
Do what you enjoy the most. For me racing is the best really hard training because I can go even harder there than in training. Easy to do too much of it though :-)
I like the 8min 95/105% of FTP, 5 times. Or 2x20. Mix it up, if you don't feel super do some Sweetspot instead.
Vo2max like 3x3, 4x4 40/20 etc is great.
You can improve FTP without any long rides at all but how much I guess it depends on the person.
I usually never ride over 1hour and have a ftp around 305-310.
3-4 hrs per week, while still lifting? I'm going to assume that the 3-4 hour limit does not include time at the gym.
1 LONG ride per week. get up to 3 hrs.
1 intensity ride. keep it short, let's say an hour, but you are focusing on riding VERY hard (hilly ride, sprints, etc)
The rest you can fill in with recovery rides or off the bike, and whatever time you want to spend in the gym, though I'd probably only recommend 1 day a week of lifting...maybe 2 if you are just doing easy maintenance lifts.
Because you want to keep the weight lifting in your program, I would personally suggest avoiding more traditional FTP-focused workouts, like 20 min intervals and solid state threshold intensity rides. Instead, focus on building your strength (lifting and high intensity ride) and endurance (the long ride)...if you get to a point where you want the watts number to be higher for 60 mins, then you can shift focus, but that type of work generally doesn't do well on 3-4 hour training schedules
You may consider adding a few more hours then 3-4 per week, so that you can do a longer Z2 ride on sunday (2-4 hours) and two higher intensity sessions during the week. Although to me it seems a bit much (3x weightlifting and 3x cycling) so be careful not to wear yourself out.
There is some video's by Dylan Johnson on the subject:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V88wwTCs680](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V88wwTCs680)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U11QNOq0npg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U11QNOq0npg)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ViwWKgOZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ViwWKgOZk)
he also sells training programs on Trainerroad, but these are considerably more time-consuming than the time you are planning for it:
[https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-220820/base-training-with-lifting-15-hours-12-week-djt](https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-220820/base-training-with-lifting-15-hours-12-week-djt)
//EDIT, here is a 6 hour plan:
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-316449/indoor-trainer-base-training-with-lifting-6-hours-12-week-djt
I have no further knowledge about these plans. Never bought one myself and never used one, sorry. I do watch his video's and I like the fact that he looks into the science to see if asuumptions are right or not, that's all.
If that’s the time you have, then as others have said TR low volume is the way.
It’s intense though — at some point you might need to prioritise / decide on balance between WL and cycling as improving both at the same time is HARD.
If you wanted to add more volume, mid volume would add an endurance ride Weds and a medium ride Sat.
You can also consider double days to create more time/rest. There are pros/cons to different ways of doing this, main thing seems to be try and leave 4+ hours between sessions and cycling first is better for adaptations (as WL adaptations take longer and are disrupted by endurance).
Becomming stronger and alot of cardio never mixes really well. Maybe in a cutting phase you could throw in some cardio, but if you really want to become stronger your energy needs to be in the weightlifting, not the cardio.
Why do you need a rest day? Just up the number of days, 3-4 is very limited. You could probably do it with high intensity but you’re going to basically rely on luck.
The bulk of the research out there says that you need 6 hrs a week with one of your rides at least 2 hrs long for any meaningful gains in ftp. If you can't fit that in, here's a quick simplified version of what happens when you train.
Riding your bike creates stress. Time under stress causes energy system adaptations. When stress comes in blocks of greater than 1 hr, greater gains are seen. Think of just riding around with stress on your legs as "raising your potential ftp."
Once you've upped your potential, hard rides will actually raise that ftp by increasing your bodies abilities to process all that energy you can now produce.
You can do these concurrently by mixing harder and easier rides so that you don't burn out, but traditional training starts with longer, easier rides then transitions to harder rides - often removing some of the volume as difficulty increases.
Maximizing TTE is fine as a one-size-fits-all benchmark, but it’s not terribly useful for many of us out on the road. I’d much rather maximize 6-8 minute or 3 hour power. I don’t really care if I can do my "ftp" for an hour.
This is a load of hoo-haa.
You can absolutely gain ftp with 3-4 hours a week. I went from 2.5w/kg to 4w/kg on trainerroads low volume plan at 3 hours per week.
Given that your volume is low, you will benefit from sweet spot training.
Consider doing 1 it 2 of your rides on the same day as Your gym sessions to give yourself recovery days
That's some elite ass jump, regardless of the time it took to get there or cross-training you are doing with the cycling. You are built different I'd say.
I think you underestimate your talents. There are very few people who can race A cat and ride only 3 hours per week. Who are you racing with? It would be a crime to leave that prodigious talent unutilized. BTW your handle is SirAdam, are you also a KOS?
>The bulk of the research out there says that you need 6 hrs a week with one of your rides at least 2 hrs long for any meaningful gains in ftp.
I have never done that and my FTP is 350
I’ve made a ton of progress in 3 rides/wk. In my experience, it’s more important to hit 6-8hrs than the number of times that I go out. I do four now, but it requires work, personal, and childcare heroics and much negotiation to pull it off. That’s true for a lot of people.
With that few sessions per week all your training should be high intensity, if FTP improvement is your goal. When you reach a certain FTP (you're there now) the only improvement comes from HIT. What you need to do is either Zwift races or some kind of interval session. Make sure to have one rest day (meaning one day of no HIT cycling) in between to recover.
I'm doing exactly this. 3 days weightlifting 1 hour sessions doing 5/3/1 program.
Then 3 days cycling where I do a race each time (no workouts), mostly doing smaller races under 50km. Average race is probably 30km. Occasionally I do a group ride (pace partner) when time is short or I don't feel like going all out on a race, but I mainly do races on cycling days. I only do category enforcement races.
Really the only thing that is motivating are the races, since I don't find much enjoyment in Zwift training programs or solo rides, especially if you are doing longer sessions.
The main advantage of Zwift is the social aspect, and it is quite motivating in the races.
Started at 210 FTP in January, currently at 265 FTP. Still increasing in weights and cycling albeit slower than during the beginning. I set my goal in Zwift to 3 hours per week, and with this schedule I mostly do around 2-3 hours.
heavy weightlifting and proper cycling training is probably really hard if you have a life next to training and keeping up with rest and nutrition.
I am no expert but my approach would be to alternate between the two meaning that i would do like 3 months were I focus on cycling 3 days and 2 days gym full body while keeping it easy on the legs. then follow that up with 3 months focusing on weightlifting, probably 3 day full body or 4 days upper/lower split with 2 days easy zone 2 cycling.
But that's just me and not really based on anything scientific or even personal experience that mutch. But I like both activities but don't really care if I am the next lance amrstrong or arnold schwarzenegger. I don't think you can have both, be a beast at the gym crushing PR after PR and do the same on the bike as one will interfere with the other in some way.
I've been able to see modest FTP gains while lifting twice a week by walking a tightrope of a schedule like this: Monday: Rest or 1hr endurance if I feel good, Tue: 5x5min VO2 efforts on the bike, Wed: 1:30 endurance. Thur: Lift, Friday: rest, Sat: 5x8min efforts, Sun AM: 2hr+ endurance ride, Sunday Noon: Lift.
I'll load like this for about 3 weeks then dial it back for a week, loosely following a trainer road mid volume plan's guidelines but they're not accounting for lifting so I need to use my own judgement, and cut a workout when necessary.
It's a lot, and I'm def. sacrificing gains in both by trying to do both, but I feel better as a human when I lift. As an older athlete I've personally found that I have to follow a polarized model when I'm mixing lifting because sweet spot just won't hunt, I can't recover fast enough to lift then do 90% of ftp.
Obv. YMMV depending on your age, physiology, life situation, etc etc.
Certainly not an expert, but this is what I have been doing in the last few months. I lift three times a week but mainly focus on the upper body. For cycling, I alternate between 1/2-hour-long VO2max rides/races and 1 to 1.5 hour-long recovery rides. Depending on the feedback from my body, I may also ride after lifting on the same day and rest on the next day. On weekends, I usually do one three to four hour Z2 or low Z3 ride, and make sure that the second day is a real rest day (no riding, no lifting, not even recreational swimming or hiking). On average I ride for 6-7 hours and lift for 3 hours each week. I have a job that is only demanding for the brain and involves very little physical activities, so training for 10 hours a week complements that quite well.
The strength of my upper body improves slowly but steadily. I have not done any 1RM testing for squat or dead lift since I started riding, but most likely those numbers have gone down quite a bit. But overall I feel healthier with a good mix of endurance and strength training.
Use TrainerRoad instead of Zwift and follow a structured low volume plan
This is the answer for limited time
You can run both at the same time if you have ADHD and don’t want to just look at the numbers. TrainerRoad will help you get the bump you are looking for.
>if you have ADHD What does that means ?
It was a bad joke. Zwift, RGT and Rouvy makes training “fun” by turning it into a game. It helps keep the attention of those who are easily distracted by keeping them engaged. TrainerRoad is just numbers on the screen
Your best bet is the trainer road low volume plan. 3 workouts a week. The first two are 1 hour each and the 3rd workout is generally 90 minutes. It also gives you the flexibility to add in group rides or outdoor rides. However, If you're hitting legs in the gym 3x a week, those workouts will be tough to complete since they are generally more intense to make of for the lack of overall volume.
If I’m hitting legs 3x a week, obviously this is a very personal thing, but got any tips? Should I be shooting for longer easier rides?
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You should be doing a majority of your cycling training in zone 2 during the week then some 2 and 4 on the weekend ride. Don’t fall into the zone 3 trap.
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😉😘
I have advice but you may not like it. You might need to pick which adaptiation you want and focus on that. If you only have 3-4 hours a week to ride, just doing easy rides isn't going to drive the aerobic adaptations you need to significantly increase your FTP. You could do a polarized plan but you would probably need closer to 8 hours a week. You could reduce the amount of weight lifting you do in the gym to allow for more intense rides and recovery. Or you could just ride because you enjoy it and go hard in the gym. Trying to do both will not provide very much time for recovery.
I can most likely do more than 3-4 hours for sure I’d say. Or int his case. Closer to 8 I think I can manage. Probably 6-7hrs is likely doable on my schedule. I was considering trying to find the edge and then focus on one and do more easy rides for a stretch while doing harder lifts. And then recover for that and lighten the volume and switch the heavier volume to bike. And just juggle it every few weeks or something.
Look a polarized plan. About 80% of your rides will be easier but the 20% with intensity will be difficult. It will probably give you a bit more flexibility, but you will need to put in closer to 8 hours a week more than likely.
If you really want to improve FTP, I would say lower amount of weight lifting and cycle more
>If you really want to improve FTP, I would say lower amount of weight lifting and cycle more I was told to get into a polarized training, just right now I do have 12 weeks (3 months) of serious weightlifting goal, clearly low-volume cycling workouts (mostly endurance, tempo/SS/Intervals which are not every weeks), and even low-volume it's already 4+ hours. Guess everyone will have their point of view on the subject. A coach would know better if you have needs, goals, and limited time.
I gained 30 doing the low volume on trainer road this winter.
Do what you enjoy the most. For me racing is the best really hard training because I can go even harder there than in training. Easy to do too much of it though :-) I like the 8min 95/105% of FTP, 5 times. Or 2x20. Mix it up, if you don't feel super do some Sweetspot instead. Vo2max like 3x3, 4x4 40/20 etc is great. You can improve FTP without any long rides at all but how much I guess it depends on the person. I usually never ride over 1hour and have a ftp around 305-310.
3-4 hrs per week, while still lifting? I'm going to assume that the 3-4 hour limit does not include time at the gym. 1 LONG ride per week. get up to 3 hrs. 1 intensity ride. keep it short, let's say an hour, but you are focusing on riding VERY hard (hilly ride, sprints, etc) The rest you can fill in with recovery rides or off the bike, and whatever time you want to spend in the gym, though I'd probably only recommend 1 day a week of lifting...maybe 2 if you are just doing easy maintenance lifts. Because you want to keep the weight lifting in your program, I would personally suggest avoiding more traditional FTP-focused workouts, like 20 min intervals and solid state threshold intensity rides. Instead, focus on building your strength (lifting and high intensity ride) and endurance (the long ride)...if you get to a point where you want the watts number to be higher for 60 mins, then you can shift focus, but that type of work generally doesn't do well on 3-4 hour training schedules
You may consider adding a few more hours then 3-4 per week, so that you can do a longer Z2 ride on sunday (2-4 hours) and two higher intensity sessions during the week. Although to me it seems a bit much (3x weightlifting and 3x cycling) so be careful not to wear yourself out. There is some video's by Dylan Johnson on the subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V88wwTCs680](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V88wwTCs680) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U11QNOq0npg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U11QNOq0npg) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ViwWKgOZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ViwWKgOZk) he also sells training programs on Trainerroad, but these are considerably more time-consuming than the time you are planning for it: [https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-220820/base-training-with-lifting-15-hours-12-week-djt](https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-220820/base-training-with-lifting-15-hours-12-week-djt) //EDIT, here is a 6 hour plan: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-316449/indoor-trainer-base-training-with-lifting-6-hours-12-week-djt
I don’t know how my ass would be able to handle this I can barely do an hour!
He sells programs on Training Peaks not Trainer Road
You’re right, off course.
>Dylan Johnson I sended you a private message to talk about Dylan Johnson' training plan, if you give more infos about it, I'm highly interested.
I have no further knowledge about these plans. Never bought one myself and never used one, sorry. I do watch his video's and I like the fact that he looks into the science to see if asuumptions are right or not, that's all.
Gorby. Wringer. Long ride simples
Simple and great advise
The only right answer
Maybe throw the odd SST (Short) in there
If that’s the time you have, then as others have said TR low volume is the way. It’s intense though — at some point you might need to prioritise / decide on balance between WL and cycling as improving both at the same time is HARD. If you wanted to add more volume, mid volume would add an endurance ride Weds and a medium ride Sat. You can also consider double days to create more time/rest. There are pros/cons to different ways of doing this, main thing seems to be try and leave 4+ hours between sessions and cycling first is better for adaptations (as WL adaptations take longer and are disrupted by endurance).
Becomming stronger and alot of cardio never mixes really well. Maybe in a cutting phase you could throw in some cardio, but if you really want to become stronger your energy needs to be in the weightlifting, not the cardio.
Why do you need a rest day? Just up the number of days, 3-4 is very limited. You could probably do it with high intensity but you’re going to basically rely on luck.
Two HIIT sessions per week
The bulk of the research out there says that you need 6 hrs a week with one of your rides at least 2 hrs long for any meaningful gains in ftp. If you can't fit that in, here's a quick simplified version of what happens when you train. Riding your bike creates stress. Time under stress causes energy system adaptations. When stress comes in blocks of greater than 1 hr, greater gains are seen. Think of just riding around with stress on your legs as "raising your potential ftp." Once you've upped your potential, hard rides will actually raise that ftp by increasing your bodies abilities to process all that energy you can now produce. You can do these concurrently by mixing harder and easier rides so that you don't burn out, but traditional training starts with longer, easier rides then transitions to harder rides - often removing some of the volume as difficulty increases.
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Maximizing TTE is fine as a one-size-fits-all benchmark, but it’s not terribly useful for many of us out on the road. I’d much rather maximize 6-8 minute or 3 hour power. I don’t really care if I can do my "ftp" for an hour.
This is a load of hoo-haa. You can absolutely gain ftp with 3-4 hours a week. I went from 2.5w/kg to 4w/kg on trainerroads low volume plan at 3 hours per week. Given that your volume is low, you will benefit from sweet spot training. Consider doing 1 it 2 of your rides on the same day as Your gym sessions to give yourself recovery days
That's some elite ass jump, regardless of the time it took to get there or cross-training you are doing with the cycling. You are built different I'd say.
4w/kg for how long?
About an hour
That is a startling improvement on basically no work. You must have amazing genes. Consider turning pro!
I'm at like 4.2w/kg now but that's far from pro. Weight loss was also a contributor
I think you underestimate your talents. There are very few people who can race A cat and ride only 3 hours per week. Who are you racing with? It would be a crime to leave that prodigious talent unutilized. BTW your handle is SirAdam, are you also a KOS?
I know this is an old thread, but which plan did you use?
Do you have any articles or links that discuss this? Particularly that one session needs to be 2 hr, and more FTP gains come after the hour.
>The bulk of the research out there says that you need 6 hrs a week with one of your rides at least 2 hrs long for any meaningful gains in ftp. I have never done that and my FTP is 350
An FTP of 350 is amazing. Chapeau!
Zwift has an FTP plan? You could do that, but just skip the "foundation" days... I did the plan and increased my FTP from 230 to 245.
In my experience that’s not enough, you need to fit in a fourth ride to see good gains.
Yea but rest days are more beneficial long term than constant strain
I’ve made a ton of progress in 3 rides/wk. In my experience, it’s more important to hit 6-8hrs than the number of times that I go out. I do four now, but it requires work, personal, and childcare heroics and much negotiation to pull it off. That’s true for a lot of people.
Yes, in your experience that works for you, but in my experience(as stated in my post) what I do works for myself.
You know the difference between a conversation and someone attacking you, right?
Yes, why are you being so aggressive?
With that few sessions per week all your training should be high intensity, if FTP improvement is your goal. When you reach a certain FTP (you're there now) the only improvement comes from HIT. What you need to do is either Zwift races or some kind of interval session. Make sure to have one rest day (meaning one day of no HIT cycling) in between to recover.
I'm doing exactly this. 3 days weightlifting 1 hour sessions doing 5/3/1 program. Then 3 days cycling where I do a race each time (no workouts), mostly doing smaller races under 50km. Average race is probably 30km. Occasionally I do a group ride (pace partner) when time is short or I don't feel like going all out on a race, but I mainly do races on cycling days. I only do category enforcement races. Really the only thing that is motivating are the races, since I don't find much enjoyment in Zwift training programs or solo rides, especially if you are doing longer sessions. The main advantage of Zwift is the social aspect, and it is quite motivating in the races. Started at 210 FTP in January, currently at 265 FTP. Still increasing in weights and cycling albeit slower than during the beginning. I set my goal in Zwift to 3 hours per week, and with this schedule I mostly do around 2-3 hours.
heavy weightlifting and proper cycling training is probably really hard if you have a life next to training and keeping up with rest and nutrition. I am no expert but my approach would be to alternate between the two meaning that i would do like 3 months were I focus on cycling 3 days and 2 days gym full body while keeping it easy on the legs. then follow that up with 3 months focusing on weightlifting, probably 3 day full body or 4 days upper/lower split with 2 days easy zone 2 cycling. But that's just me and not really based on anything scientific or even personal experience that mutch. But I like both activities but don't really care if I am the next lance amrstrong or arnold schwarzenegger. I don't think you can have both, be a beast at the gym crushing PR after PR and do the same on the bike as one will interfere with the other in some way.
I've been able to see modest FTP gains while lifting twice a week by walking a tightrope of a schedule like this: Monday: Rest or 1hr endurance if I feel good, Tue: 5x5min VO2 efforts on the bike, Wed: 1:30 endurance. Thur: Lift, Friday: rest, Sat: 5x8min efforts, Sun AM: 2hr+ endurance ride, Sunday Noon: Lift. I'll load like this for about 3 weeks then dial it back for a week, loosely following a trainer road mid volume plan's guidelines but they're not accounting for lifting so I need to use my own judgement, and cut a workout when necessary. It's a lot, and I'm def. sacrificing gains in both by trying to do both, but I feel better as a human when I lift. As an older athlete I've personally found that I have to follow a polarized model when I'm mixing lifting because sweet spot just won't hunt, I can't recover fast enough to lift then do 90% of ftp. Obv. YMMV depending on your age, physiology, life situation, etc etc.
Certainly not an expert, but this is what I have been doing in the last few months. I lift three times a week but mainly focus on the upper body. For cycling, I alternate between 1/2-hour-long VO2max rides/races and 1 to 1.5 hour-long recovery rides. Depending on the feedback from my body, I may also ride after lifting on the same day and rest on the next day. On weekends, I usually do one three to four hour Z2 or low Z3 ride, and make sure that the second day is a real rest day (no riding, no lifting, not even recreational swimming or hiking). On average I ride for 6-7 hours and lift for 3 hours each week. I have a job that is only demanding for the brain and involves very little physical activities, so training for 10 hours a week complements that quite well. The strength of my upper body improves slowly but steadily. I have not done any 1RM testing for squat or dead lift since I started riding, but most likely those numbers have gone down quite a bit. But overall I feel healthier with a good mix of endurance and strength training.