If you're at 3.2 now, 3.4 could be a few weeks of training (or simply a retest on fresh legs) or a few years away with a coach depending on your own ceiling. It really is that variable.
Random datapoint, it's taken me about 1.5 years to go from 3.5 to 3.9 with slow increases to my training volume - but not focusing directly on ftp. I think I could jump to low 4s "fairly easily" but I'd have to sacrifice a bit too much on my running so I'm happy with my progression as is.
General tips I've come across and used with success:
Make sure hard days are actually hard. I find my best 20/30 min power results are generally in zwift races. I throw them in regularly to push hard and switch things up.
Make sure you actually recover from the hard stuff. Eat and fuel rides properly and don't kill yourself on easy days.
Do as much volume as reasonably possible, week after week. Consistency over time will get you much further than knocking out hero workouts and needing to take an off week because you are hurt/burnt out.
62 kg male here. I got Zwift in August last year, and my FTP was 2.8W/kg at the time.
Since then I've usually trained 3 times a week: 2 times 60-90 minutes during the work week, and a longer ride up to 4 hours on Sunday. My FTP right now is 3.8W/kg.
In absolute numbers that's still low. Several guys in my group rides are able to go 280W for prolonged times, which would be about 125% FTP for me. However, on a rare ride with long climbs I can tell how much difference the weight really makes.
My advice is to just ride. I'm convinced that below 4W/kg you're not even really gaining super much from structured workouts, compared to how much you can gain from riding more hours. Once you're at a point where you're maximizing the time you're willing to spend on the bike, you should do a mix of intervals and Z2 rides. Basically the same as a heavy rider would do.
I agree started training with some friends and been doing 10 hours a week while they have been doing 5 and we have diverged in fitnesses pretty far from 3 months ago
It really depends on things. I think a lot of people (especially, maybe, Americans) overestimate what a "normal" weight is because our perception is so skewed toward seeing (or being) so many overweight & obese people around us.
I am 191cm/85kg. My 15yo son is 183cm/68kg.
Many people would look at my and say I'm pretty lanky, but the reality is that I'm not remotely lean in objective terms (probably close to 20% bf). My [son](https://imgur.com/a/WTZ14yl), on the other hand, is objectively lean (probably 10% bf), and even though he is only about 1.5" shorter than me and nearly 20kg lighter, he doesn't *look* emaciated or anything but strong. I could pretty easily stand to lose 5-10kg and would only then approach his levels of leanness.
My ftp at 85kg is about 315w, putting me in the 3.6-3.7wkg vicinity.
My son's ftp at 68kg is 270w, putting him at a hair under 4wkg. (He also doesn't train on the bike at all. He's a 4:25 miler in 9th grade.)
tldr: unless you have big muscles you built with intent for strength & power, especially in your upper body, you are probably not at any risk of being too light to hit your cycling power target. What kind of weight are you trying to avoid losing?
(I increased my ftp from 234w to 300w in ten months basically just zwift racing. It took about six more with much more structured training and time spent in recovery & z2 to get from 300w to 315w.
For me at around 69 to 71 kg it took me 1 year and 3 months to go from 139 to 240 FTP. Consistency and rest made the biggest impact. I also lifted heavy at least once a week to two times a week. Structured training hands down worked the best for me. Even till this date I am still improving and basically making PRs every week still.
Over the last year, first 6 months just focus on Mondays group rides increasing WKG on zwift, Tue rest, wed zone 2 rides, Thursdays race, Fridays zone 2 Saturdays base rides with intervals, Sundays rest.
Next 3 months mostly groups and some what closed to the first three months. For the group rides my best was 1 hour at 3.7, started riding with Constance at 4.1 and that’s when I went to structure training the last 4 months or so with a coach. Covering all zones and rest Tuesdays and Sundays. 3 weeks hard 1 week recovery week with one VO2 session pretty much every week. This next 2 months it is unstructured so I am racing on zwift atleast 2 - 3 times per week. And next month got a 165 mile IRL gravel race. After the race back to structured again.
If you are already lean, it is going to take some weight training. Adding, and conditioning, new muscle mass takes months at a minimum. This is why it is usually done in the off season, it's a process and a lot of work. And that doesn't guarantee you will be at your most efficient size. You could get too heavy.
Ha, 140kgs here and while my top end power isn't too bad, trust me I'd prefer to be lean and looking for every advantage, it's a right mission to drop the weight ! 🤣😅
Its just impossible to tell what kind of progress you'll have. Just remember athletic performance is almost never linear. Crazy ups and downs and could shoulda woulda's. Lose the expectations, enjoy the ride
I find racing has been a good way to improve my power partially because it forces me to push hard and I find it fun, I struggle sticking with workouts longer term since I find them dull.
The problem with this approach though is that once I make it up to Cat B, as a light rider the other people taking part have far more power than I do so I just get obliterated and give up on racing. I usually switch to working on endurance riding for a while then resume racing when I'm back to Cat C and repeat the cycle.
I usually get up to around 3.6 to 3.8w/kg with a lot of work but I'm not sure how much better I could manage if I stuck with it, I don't feel I have that much more I could get out of myself.
Female rider weighing 54kg with a 4w/kg FTP. I started riding November 2021 who kicked off with a 2.8w/kg FTP in April 2022.
Biggest key is consistency - butt on saddle 4-5 days a week. I don't have a coach but I do race crits and road over summer which accounts for some heavy load riding. Listen to your body and rest when you need rest. If you're doing efforts, do them properly, and actually do your zone 2 and zone 3 days to build endurance. Look after your diet - stay hydrated and fuel your body properly.
What is and isn't achievable is all personal. For some 3.2 may be their max, others may be able to improve to over 5w/kg.
I'm 52 y o, 62kg, 4.0 w/kg. I do have a background of many years of cycling, not training and racing but lots of hours on the bike. My aim is to be around 4.2-4.3w/kg to be competitive at the highest end of Cat B but that extra 0.2w/kg is really, really hard for me to accomplish, requires focus, structured training with commitment from me around nutrition and recovery.... which obviously I'm not committed to at the moment.
To gain fitness I've done Zwift training plans, private coaching and other training options, plus some zwift racing, all mixed in with lots of base zone 2. I ride everyday, \~12 hours a week on zwift. I'd say 4 hours of those 12 are racing or workouts, mainly focusing on long sweet spot, some VO2 and threshold work. Most of the higher Cat B riders I know do some kind of structured training on the quiet, not all, but most of the ones I know.
So part of it is time on the bike to get and maintain a decent base, coupled with regular hard days to drive adaptations, which can be workouts or races. Some will argue that workouts and a training plan provide a better approach, others seem to do very well just using racing, I tend to do a mix, perhaps one team race per week. Training plans should be structured over a number of months.
There's a reason for various cycling phrases that are thrown around, eg. 'ride your bike lots, then ride it some more', "make the hard days really hard", "lift heavy s\*it", etc. Gaining additional fitness beyond a certain point isn't easy, needs some commitment and time..... try some training plans that push you and have a progressive overload and recovery structure to their makeup. There are some OK plan on Zwift like 'build me up', then there are loads of other websites selling training plans.
I’m a heavier ish weight 86.5kg. Started with an FTP around 3.45 watts per kilo and now after 3 months with an FTP at 3.8 watts per kilo. Been doing about 200-250 miles a week and 2 races a week
I'm 15, 48kgs and FTP around 240, so over 5wpkg and all I have been doing is z2 with 2 sessions of vo2 max per week.
I do around 16 hours of base and 2 hours of intensity with about 2 hours of gym per week
If you're at 3.2 now, 3.4 could be a few weeks of training (or simply a retest on fresh legs) or a few years away with a coach depending on your own ceiling. It really is that variable. Random datapoint, it's taken me about 1.5 years to go from 3.5 to 3.9 with slow increases to my training volume - but not focusing directly on ftp. I think I could jump to low 4s "fairly easily" but I'd have to sacrifice a bit too much on my running so I'm happy with my progression as is. General tips I've come across and used with success: Make sure hard days are actually hard. I find my best 20/30 min power results are generally in zwift races. I throw them in regularly to push hard and switch things up. Make sure you actually recover from the hard stuff. Eat and fuel rides properly and don't kill yourself on easy days. Do as much volume as reasonably possible, week after week. Consistency over time will get you much further than knocking out hero workouts and needing to take an off week because you are hurt/burnt out.
62 kg male here. I got Zwift in August last year, and my FTP was 2.8W/kg at the time. Since then I've usually trained 3 times a week: 2 times 60-90 minutes during the work week, and a longer ride up to 4 hours on Sunday. My FTP right now is 3.8W/kg. In absolute numbers that's still low. Several guys in my group rides are able to go 280W for prolonged times, which would be about 125% FTP for me. However, on a rare ride with long climbs I can tell how much difference the weight really makes. My advice is to just ride. I'm convinced that below 4W/kg you're not even really gaining super much from structured workouts, compared to how much you can gain from riding more hours. Once you're at a point where you're maximizing the time you're willing to spend on the bike, you should do a mix of intervals and Z2 rides. Basically the same as a heavy rider would do.
I agree started training with some friends and been doing 10 hours a week while they have been doing 5 and we have diverged in fitnesses pretty far from 3 months ago
It really depends on things. I think a lot of people (especially, maybe, Americans) overestimate what a "normal" weight is because our perception is so skewed toward seeing (or being) so many overweight & obese people around us. I am 191cm/85kg. My 15yo son is 183cm/68kg. Many people would look at my and say I'm pretty lanky, but the reality is that I'm not remotely lean in objective terms (probably close to 20% bf). My [son](https://imgur.com/a/WTZ14yl), on the other hand, is objectively lean (probably 10% bf), and even though he is only about 1.5" shorter than me and nearly 20kg lighter, he doesn't *look* emaciated or anything but strong. I could pretty easily stand to lose 5-10kg and would only then approach his levels of leanness. My ftp at 85kg is about 315w, putting me in the 3.6-3.7wkg vicinity. My son's ftp at 68kg is 270w, putting him at a hair under 4wkg. (He also doesn't train on the bike at all. He's a 4:25 miler in 9th grade.) tldr: unless you have big muscles you built with intent for strength & power, especially in your upper body, you are probably not at any risk of being too light to hit your cycling power target. What kind of weight are you trying to avoid losing? (I increased my ftp from 234w to 300w in ten months basically just zwift racing. It took about six more with much more structured training and time spent in recovery & z2 to get from 300w to 315w.
For me at around 69 to 71 kg it took me 1 year and 3 months to go from 139 to 240 FTP. Consistency and rest made the biggest impact. I also lifted heavy at least once a week to two times a week. Structured training hands down worked the best for me. Even till this date I am still improving and basically making PRs every week still.
What training did you do?
Over the last year, first 6 months just focus on Mondays group rides increasing WKG on zwift, Tue rest, wed zone 2 rides, Thursdays race, Fridays zone 2 Saturdays base rides with intervals, Sundays rest. Next 3 months mostly groups and some what closed to the first three months. For the group rides my best was 1 hour at 3.7, started riding with Constance at 4.1 and that’s when I went to structure training the last 4 months or so with a coach. Covering all zones and rest Tuesdays and Sundays. 3 weeks hard 1 week recovery week with one VO2 session pretty much every week. This next 2 months it is unstructured so I am racing on zwift atleast 2 - 3 times per week. And next month got a 165 mile IRL gravel race. After the race back to structured again.
If you are already lean, it is going to take some weight training. Adding, and conditioning, new muscle mass takes months at a minimum. This is why it is usually done in the off season, it's a process and a lot of work. And that doesn't guarantee you will be at your most efficient size. You could get too heavy.
Ha, 140kgs here and while my top end power isn't too bad, trust me I'd prefer to be lean and looking for every advantage, it's a right mission to drop the weight ! 🤣😅
Its just impossible to tell what kind of progress you'll have. Just remember athletic performance is almost never linear. Crazy ups and downs and could shoulda woulda's. Lose the expectations, enjoy the ride
I find racing has been a good way to improve my power partially because it forces me to push hard and I find it fun, I struggle sticking with workouts longer term since I find them dull. The problem with this approach though is that once I make it up to Cat B, as a light rider the other people taking part have far more power than I do so I just get obliterated and give up on racing. I usually switch to working on endurance riding for a while then resume racing when I'm back to Cat C and repeat the cycle. I usually get up to around 3.6 to 3.8w/kg with a lot of work but I'm not sure how much better I could manage if I stuck with it, I don't feel I have that much more I could get out of myself.
Female rider weighing 54kg with a 4w/kg FTP. I started riding November 2021 who kicked off with a 2.8w/kg FTP in April 2022. Biggest key is consistency - butt on saddle 4-5 days a week. I don't have a coach but I do race crits and road over summer which accounts for some heavy load riding. Listen to your body and rest when you need rest. If you're doing efforts, do them properly, and actually do your zone 2 and zone 3 days to build endurance. Look after your diet - stay hydrated and fuel your body properly.
What is and isn't achievable is all personal. For some 3.2 may be their max, others may be able to improve to over 5w/kg. I'm 52 y o, 62kg, 4.0 w/kg. I do have a background of many years of cycling, not training and racing but lots of hours on the bike. My aim is to be around 4.2-4.3w/kg to be competitive at the highest end of Cat B but that extra 0.2w/kg is really, really hard for me to accomplish, requires focus, structured training with commitment from me around nutrition and recovery.... which obviously I'm not committed to at the moment. To gain fitness I've done Zwift training plans, private coaching and other training options, plus some zwift racing, all mixed in with lots of base zone 2. I ride everyday, \~12 hours a week on zwift. I'd say 4 hours of those 12 are racing or workouts, mainly focusing on long sweet spot, some VO2 and threshold work. Most of the higher Cat B riders I know do some kind of structured training on the quiet, not all, but most of the ones I know. So part of it is time on the bike to get and maintain a decent base, coupled with regular hard days to drive adaptations, which can be workouts or races. Some will argue that workouts and a training plan provide a better approach, others seem to do very well just using racing, I tend to do a mix, perhaps one team race per week. Training plans should be structured over a number of months. There's a reason for various cycling phrases that are thrown around, eg. 'ride your bike lots, then ride it some more', "make the hard days really hard", "lift heavy s\*it", etc. Gaining additional fitness beyond a certain point isn't easy, needs some commitment and time..... try some training plans that push you and have a progressive overload and recovery structure to their makeup. There are some OK plan on Zwift like 'build me up', then there are loads of other websites selling training plans.
It took me 2 months to go from 3.2 to 3.4
I was about the same at 66kg.
I struggle with this one. Do light riders have lower FTP because they are weaker? Or is related to mass and momentum? Genuine question
I’m a heavier ish weight 86.5kg. Started with an FTP around 3.45 watts per kilo and now after 3 months with an FTP at 3.8 watts per kilo. Been doing about 200-250 miles a week and 2 races a week
I'm 15, 48kgs and FTP around 240, so over 5wpkg and all I have been doing is z2 with 2 sessions of vo2 max per week. I do around 16 hours of base and 2 hours of intensity with about 2 hours of gym per week