This session is great for developing your threshold cycling pace. This will benefit you particularly if you are a triathlete, time trialist, or someone who likes to try and ride with the breakaway, as well as further developing your top-end speed.
Each Wednesday I’ll post a Windtrainer Workout that you can do in about 60 minutes to enhance your cycling. See a previous post about training intensity (Levels) to know how hard to work. If you are working directly with Coach Ray he will in most cases prescribe either a Power Zone or Heart Rate Zone to work within if you are training with these tools.
Functional Threshold Power (FTP) Test
- 20min Warm Up Level II;
- 3x 1min Level V Cadence 100RPM, 1min RI Level II;
- 5min Level V, 10min Level II RI;
- 20min Level IV;
- 10min Cool Down Level II;
- 5min Stretching
Start the workout with a Warm Up (WU) of 20 minutes of easy riding at Level II. The Warm Up (WU) is continued with three reps of one minute at Level V with a cadence of 100 Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), after each rep takes a one-minute Rest Interval (RI) riding at Level II.
The main set includes two reps, the first is five minutes long and is done at Level V. Ride as hard as you can for these five minutes. Afterward, ride for ten minutes at Level II as your Rest Interval (RI). The second set is 20 minutes long and is ridden at Level IV. Once again ride as hard as you can maintain for the 20 minutes.
Conclude the ride with a minimum of ten minutes riding at Level II for your Cool Down (CD).
Finish with ten minutes of stretching to assist with your recovery.
Once you’ve done the workout if you’ve utilised a Power Meter, you can analyse the data, particularly the average or normalised power generated within the 20min Level IV effort. This 20-minute effort will be pretty close to 105% of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP).
This session is taken by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan’s book Training and Racing with a Power Meter (2nd Edition).
If you would like further advice feel free to contact me.
I am the Head Coach & Director of Qwik Kiwi – Endurance Sports Consultant.
I specialise in assisting first-timers and recreational athletes to achieve their sporting goals. I can be contacted at coachray@coachray.nz and 021 348 729. Make sure you sign up for my informative newsletter.
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Download the Garmin (.FIT) and Zwift (.ZWO) files for this workout for FREE
If you enjoyed this workout, here is a similar session I published 12 months ago.
Wednesday Windtrainer Session: Non-Stop Tempo
For more great workouts of this nature check out my eBook Top 10 Cycle Workouts From Coach Ray.
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