I done Vo2 workout today outdoors. 8 x 3 mins and I’m just wondering does standing out of the saddle affect my power as in give me higher average power for my intervals??
Power has no clue if you are standing or seated. Standing is much less efficient for sure.
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teamkennyg: if you have a wheel on trainer and if your weight balance shifts, then there might be some changes in the pressure of the bike wheel on the trainer. If you are taking power from the trainer – either directly or via TR’s virtual power – then you will see power reading change for the same force applied to the pedals.
power itself is just an output variable, so you are partly correct, but powermeters do. That’s why some software will detect your position from your pedal dynamics. I am hoping to make a video on this soon, but it may be a pipe dream as I am trying to do nhs work in the crisis atm.
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Sure the Waveform of the pedal stroke will change and with sophisticated enough hardware and software this can be detected(hell I bet you could detect between bars and aerobar extensions), but the formula to calculate power doesn’t include an input for standing or seated.
So what I was wondering was that if you do a 3 min vo2 sitting and then do 3min vo2 with standing intervals would you have a bigger power output in??
Standing is considerably more powerful but generally fatigues quicker. higher fatigue is not just because of the higher power output but also because people don’t train a standing cycling position. I decided to test this myself over the off-season and made it to three hours continuous standing effort, which I know is entirely ridiculous but I wanted to discover what is possible (and yes it is on strava if you find this hard to believe). Back to your question…rule of thumb standing will boost your power around 5-10% for a short period usually for around 3mins-20mins (but at a slightly higher HR/metabolic cost)
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Standing isn’t directly related to power. VO2 is a given percentage of your ftp, hit your power goal, regardless of standing or seated.
Standing tires you more. For these longer Vo2max reps, I practice staying seated and in good form. If its something you want to train specifically by standing, try doing so for the last do 10secs, first 10secs or 10 secs in the middle of the interval.
When and if I stand on intervals I mix it up to keep the muscles guessing and train specific things you may end up doing in a race.
Hope that helps, ride on.
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Many thanks Alex, doing the work we dont want to as always.
Awesome bro. Much appreciated. 
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