As we mentioned in our earlier video for the majority of triathletes, the biggest gains to be made over winter – in terms of overall time improvements, are from focused bike training.

In this video Coach Rob talks more specifically about how to improve your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) – i.e. the maximum power (measured in watts) you can sustain for a 60 minute period.

At Team Oxygenaddict we have a lot of experience of improving our athletes’ FTP. Several of our already strong bikers saw FTP improvements of more than 10% over the winter period, which – no surprise – resulted in significant PBs when it came to race season.

So – we know how to do it. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that there’s no silver bullet. It requires hard work and commitment to a series of tough sessions on the turbo.

Going out riding with your friends will help your base endurance, but is not an effective way to build your FTP. That requires targeted training sessions slightly above, slightly below or at the level of your threshold power.

To start with, you need to know what your FTP is by completing an FTP test.

With this number to hand, Team Oxygenaddict athletes are them prescribed a series of bike training sessions. Typically there are 3 sessions per week.

Two of those sessions will be turbo based (no longer than 60 minutes in duration), with the third a slightly longer, lower intensity outdoor ride – weather permitting! The 2 turbo sessions should be treated as your key bike sessions of the week. You’ll need to be ready to work hard, but the rewards are more than worth it!

The indoor sessions will typically have a warm up, 30-40 minute main set focused on riding close to your FTP (just below, just above or at it – depending on the set).

An example set, after an appropriate warm up, would be 6 repetitions of 5 minutes at 100% FTP with a 1 minute rest in between each repetition.

While 1 minute to recover in between reps might not sound like much, but assuming the FTP you’re riding to is accurate you’ll be surprised at how well you’re able to recover in that relatively short space of time. That said, the 6th and often even 5th rep of this set can feel very challenging. Don’t worry – it’s meant to 🙂

The second of these 2 key bike sessions might focus on riding in a big gear. The aim is to simulate the feeling of hard work but low cadence that you get when riding up steep hills. For our athletes not used to such riding we make sure to introduce these sessions gradually. And that’s important – as if you’re not used to this sort of riding it can increase the risk of injuries.

Introducing indoor big gear sessions means that when you start riding outdoors again, your ability to ride up hills will have significantly improved. This is because you’ll be used to pushing a high power at a low cadence – exactly what’s required for riding hills!

Towards the end of winter we typically introduce ‘sweetspot’ bike sessions – usually replacing one of the FTP based sessions. The main set of a sweetspot session normally involves riding at around 90% of your FTP.

Many of our athletes who haven’t done sweetspot training before often struggle with the concept. “Why ride below FTP when I’m capable of riding at FTP? Won’t I progress further by riding at 100% of my FTP?”

Well – when riding at your sweetspot, you can ride for longer. So typically it’s very challenging to ride for more than 30 minutes across a 60 minute set at 100% of your FTP. But it’s relatively easy to ride for 2 x 20 minutes (occasionally even 3 x 20 minutes is possible)  at 90% of your FTP. So you’re accumulating more work and building fitness while working at a slightly lower intensity.

Remember – while sweetspot efforts are less effort than FTP efforts, they are still a higher intensity than you’ll be riding in a 70.3 or iron distance race. And – these sessions will still contribute to FTP improvements for Olympic and sprint distance racers.

If you structure your winter bike training like we do in Team Oxygenaddict you’ll be amazed at the improvements you make – we guarantee!