I’ve been training my endurance on the exercise bike on and off for the past couple months. When I first started, I had an FTP of about 115W. I couldn’t output more than 130W for longer than 20 minutes.

I took a couple weeks off for holiday. A couple weeks of training later and I managed to output 180W for an hour last week. My average heart rate was about 180bpm throughout this effort.

This week I absolutely smashed it. Put my body through hell with interval training. I managed to output 300W for 3 minutes seven times over the course of an hour (4 minute-long breaks).

I estimated that my FTP might be closer to 220-240W based on this effort. Today I decided to do a 20 minute test. I started at 255W and somehow managed to maintain this for 20 minutes. This means my FTP is now somewhere around 240W (subtract 5%).

So I’ve managed to double my FTP over the course of 6 fairly consistent weeks of training and 10 days of extremely hard training.

My issue is this: during my 20 minute effort today, my heart rate was over 190bpm for the final five minutes, peaking at 192 during my final 30 second sprint.

My training this week has been extremely hard, with hour long interval sessions ranging from 12 reps of 30 second efforts to 2 reps of 20 minute efforts. My heart rate during almost all my training sessions is pushing 180bpm.

I find this to be sustainable at the moment, but I get the impression that this is maybe not the most effective way to train. I watched a TED talk wherein the speaker said that the best athletes in the world spend the majority of their training sessions at 65% of their maximum heart rate (which for me would be 130bpm).

I also read about training in the so-called “MAF zone” which can be calculated as 180-age. For me, this would be 159bpm.

So there are plenty of different schools of thought on how to train most effectively. I’d like to get my FTP to 300W in the next few months. I find my training only just sustainable at present. I never take rest days. I think this is because I’m a noob and my body is still making adaptations and “noob gains”. Furthermore, I’m learning how to tolerate the pain.

I also wondered how my four years of weight training experience will have affected my anaerobic system. Perhaps it could be overdeveloped relative to my aerobic system (which I never really trained)? I have good strength in my legs, deadlifting over 200 kilos and squatting close to that. I wonder if I should focus on further improving my FTP or rather focus on increasing the duration that I can remain at my FTP.

Literally any feedback is appreciated. This post may seem convoluted, because it is! I like to keep track of my progress mentally and writing is a good way for me to achieve this.

P.S. I’m 6’4” (~194cm) and weigh just shy of 100kilos (~220lbs).