Going from 4w/kg to 5w/kg

I know you wrote this is a contrived example, but I still think it necessary to point out that you don’t have a choice whether you are a 60 kg rider or a 75 kg rider. I definitely fall into the latter category, but I didn’t and don’t have any choice in the matter.

Whether being heavier and more powerful (at comparable or slightly lower W/kg) or lighter and perhaps slightly more powerful in relative terms isn’t something you can influence. In your example, relatively speaking, the 60 kg rider would be fitter. They’d have an advantage in very mountainous terrain, but would be at a disadvantage in ordinary terrain, at least in terms of power (aerodynamics notwithstanding). And they’d have room to grow since your 75 kg athlete is doing sweet spot (89 % FTP) for 120 minutes whereas your 60 kg athlete is doing tempo (83 % FTP). Your 5 W/kg rider is likely also doing a better job with their nutrition and other parts of training. Overall, I’m not convinced this is such an easy hypothetical.

Probably, what will separate these two athletes in practice is other stuff: race-savvy, how aero they can get, whether they are good at conserving energy. There are (usually) no weight classes in cycling, just courses that give relative advantages to various riders.

agree so my answer is still no. OP will have to do other things besides pick an online training plan to get to 5 w/kg, and presumably race faster.

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Absolutely. In my experience apart from physiological limiters, your life has to allow for a 5 W/kg lifestyle.

Just being able to sustain the training load means you have to have your life dialed rather well. When I tried going to MV++/HV-, everything in my life had to go right — which it doesn’t, because such is life. A spirited team ride derailed my training. My daughter waking up at night derailed my training. Etc. Even now, today, I know I overdid it this morning, because I did not sleep enough. It likely would have been better to sleep 8 hours and do 1 hour of endurance rather than sleep 7 and do 2.

Nutrition is another one. You can’t drop the ball, you have to be very disciplined e. g. during holiday season and the like.

You have to learn about structured training and all the other things that matter. However, I think religiously held opinions on things like polarized vs. sweet spot usually recede into the background. Like you write, they are far less important overall and far easier to get a handle on than nailing all aspects of your life that allow you to put in the necessary work.

While I am not at 5 W/kg and might never get there, I think I am close enough to have an idea of the effort it would take to get there. One of the least impo

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There’s a lot of guys with high FTP and garbage endurance, 2-3 hours isn’t a long ride after all. Maybe that’s why we don’t have a lot of longer Zwift races :grin:

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The issue with your example, though, is that you cannot change body type. And that a lighter rider doing 250 W on a climb (at a higher W/kg) will be faster than your normal-weighted rider at 300 W (and a lower W/kg).

I don’t see how this says anything about (not) incorporating sufficiently many long, slow rides into your training.

That’s quite different from the example you gave before. Taking what you wrote at face value, it is clear why your buddy’s endurance isn’t up there. That’s something you have to train for over a long period of time and consistently.

But IMHO that’s quite different from the example you gave previously, at least with the numerical values you have given.

Yup.

I TT in the UK and weigh 61kg - I can manage 254W for a 25 mile TT on the TT bike and 270W for 75mins on the road bike in a 30m TT - I am always beaten by guys who weigh 80 odd kg and have an FTP of 300ish watts - as on flattish TT watts are everything. I don’t road race - as I haven’t the guts for bunch racing in my 50s and unless there was a big climb - rare in the UK it wouldn’t help. My 4.5 ish w/kg would put me at the pointy end if I weighed 10kg more - as it is I’m in the middle - although I did a 20min 10 and a 53 min 25 last year. Doesn’t bother me as some of the big guys have awesome positions and low CdA but as mentioned there are lots of parameters that effect performance.

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He sounds inexperienced (riding next to the bunch). Does he eat enough on rides?

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5w/kg isn’t even close to human genetic performance limits, you’re selling yourself short if you believe genetics are the thing that are preventing you from reaching this level of performance. Time is the limiter - time devoted to riding, weights, yoga and equally important time devoted to recovery.

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This :100: - I hit my highest at 4.5W/kg, but “life stress” as vacations, travel, illness, work commitments, relationship always derail training to a degree.

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Agreed. I am pretty sure, ironically, that COVID enabled me to get to 5w/kg…it allowed me above everything to embed a focus and consistency to my training which I have not stepped away from

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Slightly OT, but this illustrates how FTP is not always that useful. In terms of legit hour power, I max out about 270-280 - a fraction under 4w/kg. And that hasn’t really changed in 1.5 years (though I’ve never specifically trained it either). However, I can now hold an NP of over 230 for over 3 hours. I’m the guy who is clinging on the back on every climb or surge for the first 50km then starts to grind down riders who are stronger on paper in the second half of the ride. It’s not much use outside of semi competitive sportives, mind you.

As regards the original question, I don’t think we can get much beyond ‘maybe’ because genetics is probably the single biggest factor. I seem to remember Alan Couzens saying his research showed that most people with an FTP north of 4w/kg were also training over 60 hours a month and had a CTL ~ 100 (with quite a strong correlation between CTL and ftp). If your CTL is <100 and you’re at 4.5w/kg, that’s a pretty good indicator of (well) above average genetics, he suggests.

It’s interesting how this all seems to validate the age old roadies’ law that 15 hours a week is the magic number for most people.

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hogwash, i train a lot (14-16hrs) and I’m not getting to 5w/kg, it’s pretty well established the average person can get to 3.9-4 as their potential ftp

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This is what I thought too, but I’m not sure anymore. This number seemed to be based on the relationship between FTP and VO2, and then knowing what the typical max VO2 was in an average population, and that in theory ability to raise VO2 was quite limited by genetics. Plus the fact that ~4 seemed to be the common high value people run into in real life.

But then there was some newer stuff that suggested that people can significantly increase their VO2, moreso than we used to think, mostly by several years of high-volume aerobic (z2) training. This would still explain why most amateurs run into a ceiling around 4… as not many amateurs are putting in 15-20h weeks consistently for half a decade.

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Feel free to set arbitrary limits on your own performance but you’re nowhere near your genetic potential. You might be near the potential given your lifestyle - unsurprisingly the figures you mention come from the general population who work and have other priorities in life, again time is the limiter, not genetics.

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Just to add a bit of context, this isn’t just any slight uphill that the 250W 60kg rider is faster. Plugging it into an online bike speed calculator, the 75kg 300W rider is faster until ~7% grade. I’m in the midwest and finding any 7% grade thats more than a couple mins long is a challenge.

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Well my long term goal is get to 4 w/kg was at 3 - 3.2 on and off but accidents and broken bones made things take a bit longer, finally got to 3.5 so hopefully another year 4 will be possible.

For me its just consistency thats all it requires.

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You’re allowed to control the narrative of how you perceive things and allow the energies to motivate you.

Have you never ridden with athletes that have short training histories, or low training hours, who are already over 5w/kg?

Time is the limiter sure, but some people can do an awful lot more with the same time.

Maybe everyone can get to 5, or 6w/kg, or maybe there’s no limit at all, but how much time will it take some people?

I wonder if our chance of bridging the gap from 4W/Kg to 5W/Kg or 5 to 6, etc…is dependent on body type (ecto, meso endomorph)? The absolute wattage it takes at light weight rider is much less than heavy weight rider. Or does physiology work the same for a lightweight compared to heavy weight?

For an extreme example:

5W/Kg for a 115lbs/52.3Kg rider is 262W and 4W/Kg is 209W or a difference of 53W.
5W/Kg for a 200lbs/90.9Kg rider is 455W and 4W/Kg is 364W or a difference of 91W.

Anyone?

It’s purely anecdotal but certainly all the big watt riders I know are also big guys. The only rider I know who can genuinely hold 350+w for an hour is ~1.84m and has a physique that’s more typical of an athlete than a cyclist. I don’t know his weight but I’d be very surprised if it’s under 80kg. Likewise, the best pure climber I’ve ridden with is a very small guy, so the w/kg ratio is probably very good.

There’s a reason, though, why most GC riders in grand tours are of around average height and middleweights in cycling terms: they have enough pure power to punch and tt, but the w/kg ratio makes them great climbers too.

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I think there are distinct advantages to ectomorph type bodies with regards the frame size relative to weight.

It comes down to having a body that allows, or posseses, large enough lungs and then having the predisposition to mitochondrial efficiency required. The cellular level stuff is obviously not dependant on body size/type, but as far as I’m aware there’s a pretty direct link between the amount of Watts and the mL of O2 used.

Most of the very high W/kg riders I know are quite small. I know a few tallish riders but all are skinny.

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