In this age of power meters and quantified training, athletes spend hours upon hours, days upon days poring over power files and searching for a way to get ahead of the competition. They hope against hope that there's a magic bullet out there that will suddenly catapult them to the front of the pack. And all too often, they believe that magic bullet is raising their functional threshold power (abbreviated as FTP.) But is a simple number the key to destroying your rivals on the Sunday group ride, the Saturday criterium or the Tuesday Night Worlds?
In today's podcast I discuss the concept of efficiency as it relates to FTP or what I refer to as “Efficient Threshold Power”. I'll talk about some of the following concepts:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:22 — 88.4MB)
@1:06 – Announcements, sponsors, discussion of my upcoming “Raw Strength” modular plan, and some of the Astana doping positives.
@23:34 – What is FTP? What is the role of FTP? What good is chasing a number when it relates to FTP? What is foundational strength and a “strong first” approach to cycling training?
@50:06 – How to become efficient in your FTP, including some drills and workouts to raise your efficiency.
Links and show notes:
Joe Friel's training pyramid and associated podcast.
Astana's fifth doping positive since October.
Vinokourov suspends the Astana Continental Team after 3 doping positives.
If you like what you hear, click through to the Tailwind Coaching Podcast on iTunes and rate it 5 stars so that I can reach more listeners and help more people get stronger on their bike. Don't forget to post any questions to the Tailwind Coaching Facebook page, and don't forget to support our sponsors and help to keep this podcast free, and help me to get this information to more people and help grow the cycling community.
Now that we're winding down the season, you might want to think about planning your next season and squaring away your training! Check out my modular training plans in my online store and think about building your offseason strength with some weight workouts. Keep a lookout for my “raw strength” module and check out my Battenkill Training Store. As always, don't forget to save 10% with the coupon code in this week's podcast.
