How did you 5w/kg+ riders make it there?

Training
643

How did you 5 w/kg + riders make it there?

My own experience is as follows. Just to add, I am a cycling coach and use many different software apps, from TP, WKO5, XERT, ICU and TR. All have there uses, and I am a data nerd.
Now that is out of the way.

My FTP is 370 and I’m 72 / 72.5kg (5.1wkg) V02 max of 72 (tested in a lab) and 39 years old, wife and 2 children. 5yo and 8yo. At the height of the race season, I would like to be 71kg. This is weather dependent for miles of smiles. (UK)
I am a time trialist and mountain biker XCO & Marathon. - much better at the longer stuff.

I have been training since I was 32 and specifically taken an interest in coaching for the last 3 years, which has helped me, and progressed with my own journey. I love helping others it turns out.

So fundamentally, which I have found with my clients and myself as an example, unless you’re naturally gifted and or started training young at late teens or early 20s, then Interval sessions alone aren’t going to get you there, not all the way… It’ll only get you so far.

In my opinion you’re unlikely to get to 5+wkg by following a plan with is extensively V02 max or anaerobic in nature, repeat and rinse systems isnt going to work. Essentially it has to be built of top of a strong foundation. A strong aerobic system, or as they say, a strong aerobic engine, one that has been nurtured for potentially years and hours of cycling.

I am cringing writing this btw… I try and follow a Polarized system and switching between Pyramidal and Polarized, constantly changing every time there is a plateau with currently 12- 15 hours cycling, it’s ramping up as the season is about to start in 6 weeks. Majority off road Gravel and mtb trails.
Over the winter was more like 6 hours on the turbo and 1 longer endurance ride outside totalling 10 hours.

Either following Trainer Road or custom training peaks workouts.
I have to mention that I think TR is a great resource for the ‘Majority’ it gets people fitter and stronger to fit within a budget. Not everyone has £80-£150 per month and endless hours at their disposal. I frequent the forums and has a great / diverse community and the workouts are solid. Although I disagree with what Nate said about no longer needing coaches on their latest podcast. That sounded like marketing BS in my opinion. Other than that, learn to hurt your self when it’s required. Go easy the rest of the time.

644

To be fair Marcel Kittel was able to get over the mountains in 2013 & 2014 and win in Paris on the final stage

645

thats a lot of tss :open_mouth:

well done, you also got some good results!

you might take a look at cell “S5” seem like it should be 338.

646

Hi, out of interest when you first started what kind of level were you at?

648

My first ever FTP test was 13/10/2014 307 / LTHR: 177 using Trainer road.

However, it was pretty stagnant doing intervals upon interval and has only progressed to where it is now since May 2019 after a broken ankle rehab and but some effort in to my own training.

May 2019 was 330 now 370 and probably going to rise abit more. Although, there’s only so much I can do with work, family etc etc.

649

FIFY

650

Thought you were going to say 0.5W/KG

651

So, did you put less focus on intervals and more on overall volume?

652

Really curious how you guys are qualifying the watt measurements. It’s a lot like dynometers for race engines, different types are different, then there are atmospheric correction factors.

I could take the same race engine on 4 different dynos, and record numbers that are 10-15% different. 10% on a 300-350w FTP is 30-35 watts, which can put you in the 5w/kg range or under.

Also crank watts will be higher than wheel watts.

653

I have multiple power meters and have swapped power pedals across all of my bikes to see where all of the power meters fall relative to a range, while also benchmarking those against a few different smart trainers.

Everything except for the new Kickr v5 (which reads high) has been within a few watts of each other, so I feel pretty confident in my numbers, to the point where I don’t think about adjusting my workout targets. I just ride indoor or outdoor on whatever bike I need to for the day.

Also, to be clear, none of this “actually matters”. It’s just a milestone on the journey to reflect on.

No one actually cares what any of our w/kg is. What actually matters is that you go faster or you win.

654

Increased the endurance time and kept the intensity. I think what people want to hear most is a drastic change. I think it’s just the accumulation of years.

Oh ok, I now sleep 8hours a night. Used to just get 6-7.

655

Is it important? Power is used to setting power zones and have some point of reference. If someone has a one power meter and it reads high 30w but he uses only one source of power he trains and rides to this power. In the end you end up riding against other people not putting your ftp on the table checking who has higher FTP and go home. The problem starts if you have for example trainer that rides high and pm on your bike that reads lower - then your zones are off.

656

Thank you for the pointer :wink:

657

It’s only important in the context of comparing your data with others. For your own use, precision matters, not accuracy.

That said, if we’re going to compare numbers, then it does matter. One could be looking at 8-15w loss from the crank to the wheels, and I haven’t seen anyone test this with a chart for varying power and rpm. Friction works exponentially, higher power causes more deflection in the driveline.

Different brand power meters and smart trainers vary in what they produce… it could be 1% to maybe as high as 10%. Some people are at sea level where others are at altitude. No doubt TR has a good data set looking at that.

Does this matter for anyone personally? It shouldn’t. Ideally you use the same power meter inside as outside, and as long as it is precise, then the numbers could be 10 or 20000w, who cares. To compare on a forum or against w/kg charts, it does matter. It’s also the major flaw with Zwift (other than people focusing on being super lean in the offseason when they should be focusing on base building / strength)

658

In my experience, the smart trainers are less reliable from an accuracy perspective than crank or pedal based power meters and tend to read high. You can see this every week from the Premier league races in the analysis section, especially with the newer Kickr v5: ZwiftPower - Login

(If you want to race on Zwift and have an advantage, getting a Kickr v5 seems to be a prudent investment for an extra 10-20w)

If it’s about comparing on the internet, well, I have five different power meters (one set of pedals, 3 crank based, and one flywheel on the Tacx Bike) and they all read within a few watts of each other, so I’m not really worried about the numbers.

659

Statistically, does that mean you would recommend crank based PM’s over others?

660

Power meters I’ve used, are accurate based on my testing, and can recommend

  • Powertap hub power meters
  • Quarq DZero
  • Power2Max NGEco (both have read ever so slightly low, which is notable, but its like 2-4w)
  • Favero Assioma Duo
  • Tacx Neo Bike (very tight alignment with Assiomas)

Power meters I’ve used and can’t recommend due to accuracy issues

  • Stages Gen 2 (read 20w high)
  • Kicker original (read high to the point where it took 4 years to break some power PRs
  • Kickr v5 (read 5-10w higher than Favero pedals, which is silly given the power measurement location)

I’m not the authority here, @dcrainmaker is, but interestingly enough my small set of results aligns pretty well with his findings.

662

1000 hours is a huge commitment. I’d be content with 650hrs.

663

Fitness 121 tho! That’s a lotta miles. Nice work

665

Not saying it can’t be done, but I don’t think you’re going to get from 4 (or 4.4W/kg) to 5 on TR plans. You’re going to need a lot more volume and less intensity for a while, to grow the ability to handle a higher workload overall.

To be clear, not saying you can’t get to 5 on TR, but your plan of doing a TR plan and supplementing with a bunch of zone 2 is probably not going to get you there based on it blowing you up already, and especially if a “training camp” for you is 3 days of 3-4hrs of riding. To get a 40W bump from where you were at your peak is going to take a sizable increase in load and sustaining that for probably a couple of years.