Zwift 6-Week FTP Builder - Week 2 Update

The first week of Zwift’s 6-week FTP Builder training program for beginners was fun. I enjoyed most of it and mostly suffered on high-cadence Foundation days.

The second week brought four mandatory workouts and one optional (active recovery).

I had a huge time constraint coming into this week. I could only ride my bike for 3 days due to work constraints, which meant I had to cram 2 cycling sessions into a single day. Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but what can you do.

The second week is now behind me. I had to skip the optional active recovery ride due to time constraints, but that’s okay - it was the least beneficial one anyway. My hamstrings are super sore, especially after the last Tempo session. More on that in a bit.

Here are the total stats for Week 2:

Up next, let’s discuss the overall impressions for each cycling session.

Workout #1 - Foundation

This workout plan is full of low-power high-cadence sessions, which is something I don’t particularly like. Doing 100 RPMs for minutes feels uncomfortable and taxing on my cardiovascular system, while my legs meet zero resistance.

But still, you got to do what you got to do.

Foundation sessions this week are 5 minutes longer than in Week 1, and this workload increase is something to expect in the upcoming weeks. The training plan gets progressively harder each week, to really build your FTP.

I managed to dial into a decent average speed, and the session was completed in less than an hour.

Workout #2 - Strength

I was feeling good this day. The goal was to complete a one-hour-long session riding comfortably around 53% of my FTP, with short 10-second bursts at 160% - all while remaining seated.

This last part is critical because you want to draw all the power from your legs, and not leverage gravity in the process.

The session was over in less than an hour and I completed it on Friday, with two more sessions remaining for the week. The problem is, I knew I won’t be home on Sunday, which means I had to cram up an extra session today.

Workout #3 - Foundation

This was my second workout session on the same day (Friday), and I started it minutes after completing the previous one (time constraints due to work and family obligations).

It’s yet another high-cadence session, but my legs were up for it for some reason. Maybe a dozen high-intensity intervals during the Strength session made me want to flush my legs for a bit.

One hour later, I completed my second Zwift workout for the day. In almost 2 hours, I cycled almost 63km on perfectly flat terrain and burned close to 1200 calories.

Workout #4 - Tempo

What a perfect way to end the week. Realistically, this was my third cycling session in the last 24 hours, and I felt it.

A lot of time was spent riding at 88-89% of my FTP at high cadence (up to 100 RPM), and my heart rate didn’t like that. I averaged 155 BPM with a max of 177 BPM, which is a lot for an 80-minute cycling session.

I found the 3min at 240W followed by 3min at 250W (and vice versa) intervals the most challenging, since it’s a lot of time to be riding so close to my FTP.

The 1-minute intervals at 100% of FTP really got my hamstrings working, and I’m expecting respectable soreness tomorrow.

Week 2 Conclusion

Overall, Week 2 was fun, but harder than Week 1. That’s probably because I had to cram 4 workout sessions into 3 days, and the last 3 workouts occurred in less than 24 hours.

The conclusion is identical to the week before - real-life conditions are never perfect. Work and life obligations get in the way, and you have to be creative working around time constraints.

For Week 3, I won’t be able to ride a bike until Tuesday night, and that’s only if I manage to get home on time. On the plus side, it will give me close to 72 hours to recover.

Stay tuned to my update on Week 3.