Following up 1000 watts for one minute. Is it true? where british hillclimb sprinter Callum Brown posted a > 1000 w 1 minute result @ around 170lb, also heard he’s held 740w for 2 min which to me is even more impressive.
So, anyone likely able to hold 1000 W for 2 min or is that beyond human capability? Is there a watt/min to VO2 max calc lol?
Some bring up track sprinters which rarely avg more than 1k watt for the kilo, but keep in mind they don’t do rolling starts and could avg a lot more if they started at speed. Perhaps one of the biggest specimens could do it?
What’s the biggest 2 min power you’ve done or seen?
Certainly beats me, since I’ve got a power meter the most I’ve put out for 1 min is 552w on a turbore and for 2 mins is 433w on a turbore session and 387w outdoors. They are all post my operation though so I’m happy with that.
So if you do the math, it seems like this would not be possible.
Best case scenario say its a huge dude with an FTP of 500, lets calculate what his FRC(power someone can do over FTP) would have to be to do 1000 watts for 2 minutes(120 seconds).
1000 Watts - 500 Watts(for FTP) = 500 Watts of power generated by FRC stores.
500 Watts * 120 seconds = 60000 Joules = 60KJs which is huge! A quick search shows this pretty much tops out at 35KJs(did not vet this number too much) for men. So the person would have to be aerobically a outlier as well as an anaerobic outlier.
If it were possible, it probably would have been seen by now. I am not even sure how practical that would be on the track. Controlling that kind of speed would get pretty scary lol. Imagine the potential in a road race or crit 1K to the finish… “bye”
Wouldn’t even need to wait until the last 1K in a crit.
2 minutes @ 1000 watts is enough to lap the field almost every time. Just do it somewhere mid race, maybe right after a prime, then just cruise to the finish.
It will be interesting to see the power outputs in the UK National Hill Climb Championships which this year is on Winnats Pass in Derbyshire on 31st Oct.
Just for fun, if Calum Brown can do 740w for 2 min at 170 lb, if scaling up power linearly a 231 lb monster could do 1000w for 2 min I guess no competitive cyclist has hit that weight, Chris Hoy was 92 kg for instance, but there are surely a select few who can do 800w for 2 min.
So… Some people say™ 4w/kg is obtainable by ‘anyone’ willing to put in the training/time/etc and that beyond that it comes to genetics. Before his recent ‘fat loss phase’ in which he lost more than 75% of a @Jonathan Hafthor Björnsson was a pretty fit 205kg. I suspect he could produce at least some power, based on that 1000lb deadlift and all. If he decided that being a TV star, strongman, boxer etc was a big waste of time and track sprinting was the place for him to try his hand, 4w/kg would have been 820 watts. That means that his 120% vo2 max repeats would have been 1000 watts. Even at his current weight 4w/kg is 620 watts. 2 minutes at 160%? Maybe. We’re gonna need a stronger bike…
As tongue in cheek as this is, it sure suggests a crazy outlier is possible. 99.9999% genetics plus giant dump trucks of drugs can always push limits.
I spent this winter training my short end power. Prior to the training block in Dec 2020, I did a PR (and first ever real attempt) at 1min on my hammer trainer at 750w (exactly 10w/kg).
I tested again in early May and did 850w (11.33w/kg). Spent the winter and early spring building from 10s to 20s sprints with full recovery (1000w+) and doing repeat 30s power intervals (600w on → 90s at 200w off).
If this was outside, I think it would be maybe 5-10% higher since throwing the bike matters a lot for short end power (as opposed to having the rear axle locked into a trainer.
If you look at guys like Matthieu Van der Poel’s power data on Strava, he puts out 800+ for nearly minute long intervals within MtB races (ie repeats them) and he is 75kg as well. I would def say the really muscular track riders and do close to 1000w for two mins and easily (relatively speaking) can do 1000w for 1 min.
I actually don’t think they do. If you look at this classic video:
Robert Förstemann puts out .021 KWH powering a 700 Watt toaster, this means he lasted for 1.8 minutes.
(.021 Kilo Watt Hour) (1000 Watt/1 Kilo Watt) (1/700Watt) ( 60 Minutes/1 Hour) = 1.8 Minutes
While I don’t want to say it is impossible to do 1000 watts for 2 minutes, I think it would have to be a person with the perfect storm of huge size, huge anaerobic and huge aerobic engine.
No it was for 1.8 minutes which is pretty good it’s explained in the comments (Calum Brown however did better!), but Robert has a relatively small frame so his lung capacity won’t be the best, plus it’s on a stationary bike where he probably performs 5-10% worse - he’s best suited for sub 1 min efforts which rely more on peak muscle strength.
To do 1000w for 2 minutes you likely need to be a 2 meter tall 230+ lb freak with both huge lungs and huge legs, perhaps the biggest elite track guys could get close…I guess people like that would go into more lucrative sports however like american football or basketball explaining why we haven’t seen them on the track ;p
PS. I’m also at 850W 1 min power having tried to do it exactly once, think I have 900W in the bag, not impressive at nearly 90 kg - my excuse is that a lot of the weight is from useless-for-cycling upper body muscles - got that 1 arm pullup in the bag
So if you watch the video, there is no question that the man rode the bike for 1minute… 1min 4 sec to be exact (1.0666 min) .
If we want to say he rode 0.021 kWh, then he would haven produced an average power of ~1200w for that 1 minute and 4 seconds.
If we want to say he rode at only an average of 700w for that minute and 4 seconds, then he produced only 0.0124 kWh.
x Kwh = z (1/1000) watts * y (1/60) minutes.
The fact that he rodes 1 min 4 seconds (y=1.0666) is known from watching the video (the ride in it is simply was not 1.8minutes long).
If we want to set x=0.021 then z = ~1200. If z=700 then x = 0.0124
Longest I’ve done 1000w is 1 minute 15 seconds. Despite me being very young a light(70kg), I doubt I’ll ever reach 1000w for 2 minutes. My 2 minute power is currently only 778w.
I guess no competitive cyclist has hit that weight, Chris Hoy was 92 kg for instance, but there are surely a select few who can do 800w for 2 min.
