How can NP be lower than avg power?

It’s also important to be aware of how much hard sprints can throw NP into wildly irrelevant values thanks more to the non-linear math than physiological relevance.

For example, I did Bays +1 yesterday using the screwed up outside workout version. Mostly high Z2 endurance but with 6 20-sec sprints instead of the targeted 4. Did the sprints at ~3.1 X FTP instead of target ~1.8 X.

Two extra sprints and going harder on them skews the TSS from a target of 84 to an actual of 167 in 95 minutes. Was also the highest NP I’ve ever seen for 95 mins. But there’s no way I could actually do those watts for 95 mins steady - doubtful I could even do it for 60 mins.

At the same time, I’m also not nearly as fatigued as I might have been with a 95 min all out TT or other more steady efforts to try to achieve that same NP / TSS.

Point being, be careful on NP conclusions if you have a few big sprint efforts on a group ride or workout - the math goes pretty crazy when you start taking things to the 4th power :slight_smile:

(ps - for those that use Rouvy and chase the career seasonal TSS metric - this is a very useful hack to rack some extra TSS up quickly :smile:)