Interpreting Your Power Curve

My numbers are not far from yours: 225lb, 199W FTP, started riding about 15 months ago, now I’m generally at about the first or second percentile… all right around what you’re saying.

From what I’ve learned around here, these are my answers:

  1. If you’re at your ideal body weight, then TrainerRoad’s SSB (Sweet Spot Base) will help you increase your overall available power. Combine that with as many hours as you can of Zone 2 (endurance) rides at roughly 70% of your maximum HR, or 60% of your FTP in watts. The combination of SSB and Z2 (on different rides) will make you better and faster.

  2. If you’re overweight, then losing weight in a healthy and sustainable fashion will certainly help… but you still have to combine it with #1 above.

  3. Getting significantly better is going to take a long time (for me, at least a couple more years). Focus on the process and the input: do the right thing each day, be consistent in your training, mind your sleep/recovery, and so on. And do NOT focus on the results or output (whether that’s your FTP, speed, whatever). Results will come in time, but draw your satisfaction from the work, not the results! Failure to follow this advice is setting yourself up for frustration and failure.

  4. And always remember that, on TR and Intervals.icu, you are comparing yourself to serious athletes. You and I may be at the very bottom of the chart, but we’re still already competent cyclists by the standards of most of the public. You may be in the last 10 riders, but you’re probably already in the top half of results compared to the general population. Chill… it’s OK to be near the bottom of a great group. As an extreme illustration: wouldn’t you still love to be the very last guy in an Olympic race?

1 Like