For years, my FTP was stuck at 225 watts.  No matter how hard I trained, I could never get it any higher.  I would go out for long 2-3 hour hard rides at 85-90% FTP every weekend.  I would hit the Computrainer every week and do the classic 2 x 20min at 100% FTP on five minutes recovery.  Nada.  In reality, my FTP was probably quite a bit higher because I suck at 20 minute all-out indoor FTP tests.  But even if it was higher,  the power that I could bring to these hard workouts wasn’t going up.  Sure, my body was adapting and I wasn’t getting devastated by them nearly as much after each workout, but the raw power was pretty level.

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