rsbob 

As a senior, I find that when I use their structured training plans, they run me on the intervals up to 90% of FTP and over, which really messes with subsequent trainings. I would like to be able to do 5 workouts a week without feeling totally spent. My take is that Zwift figures everyone is 26 years old with unlimited energy and reserves. There is zero consideration about age and recovery needed for 60 year olds and on. (I have beat this drum before.) So I am reducing my FTP in the app by 30 to see if it is more realistic. Anyone else done the same? (And yes, I hate doing it because it makes me feel like I am cheating but not running my heart rate up to 180 to 190 is worth it).

base2 

Your indoor & outdoor FTP will be different due to airflow, cooling, humidity, ambient temp, body involvement with stabilizing the bicycle not in motion & other factors I'm probably not thinking of.

I wouldn't over think it. If you feel spent then it was probably a good workout & that is what really matters more than any arbitrary on-screen number.

Zwift's biggest strength IMO is: "Work on your weakness." Whatever that happens to be. Cadence, cardio, sprints, raw grunt strength, hill climbing, sustainability at effort...whatever. Define your goal then work on that.

After years of perfecting high cadence work and cardio endurance that meant I could wear down most other riding partners & wheel-suckers, at the expense of many-a-KOM, I've been concentrating my efforts on low cadence "grunt" the last few months. The ability to power along at an uncomfortable cadence without shifting or to attack or jump away from another cyclist IRL unexpectedly has paid off in spades.

Zwift FTP numbers are probably suspect anyways, especially if you are fresh & well prepare under ideal conditions. So much of data is getting a representative sample. Gamed results in a game are nothing more than a reference point for the game.

MinnMan

You can reach 190 BPM at 60? Good for you!

PeteHski

I find Zwift structured training plans too generic and this is the kind of issue it causes. For that reason I use other Apps for structured plans alongside Zwift. I would consider using Wahoo SYSTM, TrainerRoad etc instead of Zwift for more focused structured plans. I currently use the UK based Pillar App for adaptive training, which I mentioned in another thread.

Regarding revving my engine, I still occasionally hit the redline in VO2 Max interval workouts, but only when fresh and rarely more than once a week. The plans I've used from Wahoo and Pillar I find sustainable. They also encourage you to tweak power targets on the fly to suit your form. Wahoo has a 4 point power profile, which helps to fine tune your workouts. For example you might keep your FTP setting constant, while lowering your VO2 Max setting by 10% if you are not feeling it on the day.

chaadster

Yeah, recovery from hard workouts becomes more critical, and usually longer, with increased age, so bumping volume of workouts while reducing intensity (i.e. doing high intensity less frequently) is probably a good, general strategy.

That said, HR really shouldn’t be near max when doing near FTP intervals. Lactate threshold heartrate is the target for those, which is usually somewhere in the 85% to 90% of max HR range.

Of course I don’t know what your max HR is nor what percentage 180-190bpm is, and I also understand you were probably speaking emphatically and not exactly, but maybe your current FTP setting bears reexamination anyway.

Reexamination might mean a new FTP test, but if you’ve been doing the right kinds of workout and watching the data, you can probably tell if it needs reset just based on that info. Peeling back 30w seems like a lot, though, and may suggest that rather than chopping FTP so greatly, a little more “sweet spot” training (L3 power) to build stamina at L4 and FTP, may be a good alternative route, especially since you can do L4 power and have the cardiovascular headroom.

Another consideration is that 5 workouts a week is a lot, especially with lots of high intensity sprinkled in there, so you may not need to lower FTP as much as you just need to get recovered fully and reset the training regimen with less intensity but the same power numbers.

rsbob 

Thanks guys. really appreciate the thoughtful replies. Will look at other apps and reconsider dropping FTP (which I recently did on a ramp test) from 230 to 200) so dramatically. I don’t want to go backward. Cheers

unterhausen

Doing structured workouts 5 days a week is probably too much, but I haven't looked at zwift workout plans. I just know that trainerroad plans are considered better and when I followed them closely I severely over-trained myself. My ftp went down about 10%. This is a common complaint about TR, even for 20 y.o. riders. There is a theory that they don't think they could get people to pay if they were only doing two structured workouts per week. On the contrary, I think if their plans were more successful they would get more people to pay. But I must say, I was really pretty happy with it for the 6 months that it was helping me, I felt faster than ever. The problem was I ignored the signs I needed more recovery.

Do recovery rides "just ride" on days between structured workouts. Do you have to do the workouts on the days they schedule them? That's one nice thing about TR, you can easily pick what ride to do.
TR also allows you to (essentially) reduce/increase ftp while riding. I have done this pretty often. Seems less clunky than changing a setting.

spelger

i think this is one of the things i did not like about zwift workouts/training programs. they were too rigid/inflexible. miss one and too bad its gone. could not delay a workout to recover, you just had to skip it. i was liking FulGaz training programs but never finished it since restarting rouvy again.

spelger

when i did zwift you could had to do the workout when they said. but you were able to ajdust the FTP setting i think up/down by only 10% though. i did need this once so it was quite helpful. i'd rather lighten the load instead of just bailing out, right? better to finish last than not at all.

PeteHski

One of the problems with FTP is that it's a single number representing your entire power curve. It's the main reason why Wahoo developed their 4-point power profile. You can have 2 riders with identical FTP, but one of them could have much better endurance, while the other may have a much higher VO2 max output. So scaling interval workouts from a single FTP value is going to be a compromise at best. Wahoo workouts use a 4-point curve to tune your endurance, FTP, VO2 Max and sprint power targets individually. From experience this makes a big difference, especially if your power profile is significantly biased toward endurance or sprint power. Wahoo's test protocol is also far better than Zwift's, so you are likely to generate more accurate power targets for differing interval lengths etc.

bblair

As I remember, the workouts have a slider so that you can adjust +/- 10%. I usually go with the lower end, otherwise I am completely tapped out near the end.

chaadster

It’s not clear from you’re comments whether you’re trying to game the system by flubbing your numbers or whether you took a legit ramp test and posted lower numbers resulting in the reduced FTP, but I’d suggest that, if you’re wanting to do power-based training, it’s best to work with honest numbers. That is to say, I wouldn’t artificially lower the FTP and other power zones either manually or by deliberately underperforming on an FTP test. Having true numbers not only determines all of the training power zones, but also helps drive your progress by providing insights into strengths and weaknessess based on how you execute workouts at particular zone/power targets.

I’d agree that, as PeteHski pointed out, finding a training program which works for you is the way to go, rather than trying to fudge numbers in an effort to make a program which doesn’t really work, work.

Another thing which may be interest is personalized coaching. Outfits like Carmichael Training Systems can look at your ride data and devise a custom-tailored training regimen to meet your personal goals (including preferred timeline). I’ve been doing coached, power-based training for about a dozen years, and have found it very helpful particularly in that allows me to not worry about performance analysis and instead to stay positive and have faith that even though there are ups and downs, there’s always a path forward. It’s kind of remarkable to me that I’m performing as well today as I ever have over that 12 year period, despite setbacks with arthritis, knee surgeries, weight gain, and aging, and I put that down to the guidance of my coach and power-based training.

rsbob 

Interesting thoughts. Gaming the system suggests cheating, but your definition may vary from mine. What I was attempting to do was lower the various training thresholds so I am not running myself up to redline so much. After reducing my FTP numbers, my thinking was that the program would lower the required Watts during intervals. Much to my surprise, I didn’t see, or recall, any variation from previous. I will do one more session to verify. If so, I will take your advice and find a more tailored approach.

It’s good to hear that using your methods you have enabled you to maintain your level over time. Appreciate the advice.

Black wallnut 

Wahoo didn't develop 4DP, The Sufferfest Pty. Ltd. did. More directly Sirs Neil Henderson, Mac MacCaslin and David McQuillen (the founder of The Sufferfest) came up with 4DP. When Wahoo brought Sufferfest into their umbrella they adopted 4DP. 4DP is FTP, 5 second power, 1 minute power and 5 minute power. A rather well rounded set of metrics.

rsbob reducing the intensity of the workouts might be enough. I used to mostly agree about the Zwift workouts in general until I tried to do some while fatigued. There are some that are plenty tough compared to Wahoo. I haven't tried any others. Many of the Sufferfest ones in Wahoo are brutally hard when done in ERG. Revolver, HHNF, and Downward Spiral to name just a few.

msu2001la

Zwift lets you adjust the intensity of workouts. You can do this for individual workouts or you can manually set your FTP to a lower number so that all of your workouts are automatically set lower: How-To: Adjusting the Difficulty of a Workout | Zwift

I'd also echo others - 5 interval workouts at/over FTP every week seems like a lot, but that also depends on duration. 5 30min interval workouts a week is going to be a lot different than 5 90min interval workouts a week.

I haven't done a deep dive into Zwift's training plans, but most of the ones I'm familiar with mix in lower intensity and shorter rides to manage the overall workload. You can view all of Zwift's workouts and plans on this link, and even sort by stress points, duration, etc:
Zwift workouts and training plans | What's on Zwift? (whatsonzwift.com)

himespau 

They've recently changed it to 25%.

chaadster

Oh, sorry! No, I did not mean to imply cheating when I said “game the system,” but instead was thinking of something like… “outsmart,” maybe, is a better term. Mainly, I was wondering if you did not put full effort into the ramp test so that you could set a lower FTP, or if you genuinely produced a lower result in the test from an honest effort. And that’s no judgement there; essentially “throwing” the test would be a practical way to not only lower FTP, but also all the associated zones, in a quick, 5 minute task, so I get the rationale, if that is indeed what happened. I don’t really know, though, if Zwift will do a clean reset based on a new ramp test, or if there is some algorithm which accounts for past tests, activities, or estimated FTP; maybe that’s why the last workout under the revised FTP number didn’t seem too different. Dunno.

In any case, I only meant to express concern that artificially lowering FTP might make it more difficult for you to assess your fitness and plot an improvement path. Maybe it wouldn’t, but most training regimens depend on applying enough training stress to force physical adaptation, and so working with too low numbers which make it easy to hit goal but don’t apply sufficient stress, could set you up to lose ground.

chaadster

If I’m seeing what msu2001la was referring to, the slider (for setting FTP on individual workout screen) is adjustable in 1w increments:


The orange knob on the far right is a slider to adjust FTP up and down by 1w increments.

surak

Modern training theory is all about quality. If you're not adequately recovered from previous workouts, then trying to do hard workouts at an easier level is self-sabotage. You'll just end up in a loop where you're constantly tired from doing poor quality workouts.

I agree with the suggestions to look at other, more customizable training plans. Personally I'm in the Dylan Johnson camp that training plans don't need to be anywhere as complicated as Zwift's.

rsbob 

No worries Chad. I did an honest effort on the FTP 20 minute revamp test and even though I found it tough, it never took me to a point of total exhaustion or wanting to quit or being so out of breath I couldn’t continue. I found this a bit strange that even though it was difficult it was not nearly as difficult as a couple of local 15%+ climbs around here that go on for a mile and a half, where I am totally shot at the top, have to rest, and then recover and am fine. Evidently it is not designed to run one to complete oblivion which I find curious. Maybe that’s why its called FUNCTIONAL TP.

I tested last year and again this year and the good news at. 68 is that I didn’t slip but also didn’t improve either.

I too follow Dylan Johnson and his advocacy of the majority of training staying in zone 2 with only one or two days doing intervals with a rest day thrown in for recovery. Zwift very much does it’s own thing and is either not up to date on modern theory or is more designed for aspiring 28 year olds. The thing is, I enjoy pushing myself hard but it apparently may be counter productive. Apparently I need to take it easy which will be tough because I enjoy speed, revving my heart rate up and feeling like I gave it my all. However after a recent episode of dizziness which came out of nowhere which scared the crap out of me - after showering after doing an FTP verification test, I am reconsidering pushing myself so hard.

Thanks guys for suggesting alternatives since Zwift, even when trying to outsmart it, outsmarted me.

I

unterhausen

It seems to me that they could probably find a coach to make some training plans for them. I don't think a lot of thought was put into what they have. Just because a 20 y.o. rider could tolerate their plans better than their average rider doesn't mean it's good for them.

PeteHski

The main point is to have a relevant structured training plan in the first place and that is where I think Zwift falls down. Although there are many "canned" training plans in Zwift, last time I checked (about a year ago, so may have improved) the plans seemed more like a random collection of complicated interval workouts than a coherent training plan. It's like they are trying to make the workouts appear more interesting rather than focusing on what training you may actually need to progress.

For example my current structured training plan with PILLAR is relatively boring, but effective. Loads of long Z2 sessions and no more than 2 high intensity sessions per week and those are pretty uncomplicated. My plan also has a 2:1 build/recovery cycle with practically no high intensity sessions during a recovery week. It is also periodized in the longer term too, with base, build, peak periods etc. The plan I was using with Wahoo SYSTM/Sufferfest last season was much the same in this respect.

So get the right "plan" in place and you will be able to complete higher intensity workouts at the appropriate frequency - which is generally less than you might think.

PeteHski

While I find many of the Wahoo Sufferfest individual sessions are brutally hard, they still work fine for me when placed in the context of a longer term plan alongside all the many easy sessions. My plan ensures I'm recovered enough to take them on. If I did the hard sessions randomly and too frequently they would soon grind me into the ground.

When Sufferfest became Wahoo SYSTM a year or so ago, they did tweak a lot of the Sufferfest workouts to make them slightly less intimidating and they also made the Sufferfest plan builder a bit more flexible e.g. with the option of 2:1 vs standard 3:1 recovery cycles. I think this was a good move. The old-school Sufferfest was exactly that! I never got involved with events like the "Tour of Sufferlandria" as they served no purpose for me other than a guarantee of over-training! As I was training for real-world events I always stuck to the appropriate Sufferfest training plans and they served me well.

For the last 8 months I've been using PILLAR for my training plan (adaptive, virtual coaching App) and I think this is a step up from the Wahoo SYSTM plans. Although I do still use individual Wahoo workouts within my PILLAR plan just for a bit of variety. I just choose a Wahoo workout with matching intensity. I can also export PILLAR interval sessions directly into my Zwift workout library.