WVA must have a pretty monstrous FTP given his TTing prowess and ability to set the pace and hang with the GC leaders even on long mountain climbs at close to 80kg.
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Do not know the eligibility but there is a photo of his unit from 2019 with FTP of 460. Given that in 2019 his Strade Bianche ride was 5h at 363W it seems legit.
I remember him saying something similar in an Instagram post at one point.
@cartsman Sure, but back to my point that in that race WVA attacks by riding 1.5min at ~600w then rides 5w/kg for 15-20mins to the win. These other rides with just as big or bigger of a diesel engine but lacking the ability to create separation usually dont or wont win races.
Does anyone have good data on the median ftp in w/kg for the world tour? I imagine its ~5.5 w/kg and the outliers / GC riders are ~6 w/kg.
Not questioning this, Tim Declercq probably has one of the biggest FTP in the peleton and huge engine, and does an amazing job, but he does not have any abilities to create any kind of separation. FTP is one metric and as vo2 max is not a good predictor of success.
For the avg FTP there is some list circulating but not sure about validity of it:
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Interesting list. Some much more likely than others (I’m assuming the unlikely ones are from Strava estimated avg power rather than actual PM data). Neilson Powless 295 FTP would be really… funny
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This is the part that cast the shadow on the validity of the list 
Given his TdF effort: https://www.velonews.com/events/tour-de-france/power-analysis-neilson-powless-on-stage-6-of-the-tour-de-france/
I would assume his FTP is not 295.
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Thanks for mentioning this. Podcast covered all of the stuff anyone whose followed Lance already knows, but it was a really good listen anyway. Subscribed to Peter Attia as well
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Yeah I scrolled through and see VdP at 6.46 w/kg and Wiggins (former TdF winner) at 5.3 and Im like… oh.
lol
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Ha,
That w/kg list is total comedy…
One could do a far more accurate list by just randomly guessing.
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Google Translate … you’re warned.
This is actually on intramuscular fat but it also provides some nice insights on elite physiology.
Well, taking into account all this, especially the important bioenergetic argument, the question is: How to train and eat to improve the composition and localization of GIMTs? To answer this question, we can only look at professional endurance athletes. What are they doing?
Training a lot, but well. If we look at the history of any World Tour cyclist, we can see months in which they train from 80 to 110 hours. Similarly, if we analyze the records of the best runners or triathletes in the world, we find weeks of> 180 km or> 35h, respectively. A long, long time, a lot of volume. But at what intensities? Important. Is it possible to train 90 hours a month at a high intensity? Or even at a medium intensity? No. If we go back to these records we see that the distribution of the intensities is very significant: The time line elapsed at low intensities (Z1-Z2) is> 5 times higher than that of a medium intensity (Z3) and> 10 times more than that of high intensities (Z4-Z5). And we professionals who dedicate ourselves to working with them know this well.This large volume makes it easier for them to mobilize metabolic resources related to the use of fatty acids and, more specifically, to TGIM, generating adaptations that allow them to oxidize them in the mitochondria with high efficacy and efficiency.
What about nutrition? Do we look again at the best athletes in the world? This time, I can also bring in more information from my own work, so let’s take a deeper look. Training at a low intensity does not mean that the metabolic demand is low. Do you know at what relative intensity a professional WT cyclist has his ventilatory threshold 1? At the same, or even above, that an amateur athlete can obtain his ventilatory threshold 2. But, also, do you know that a quality of these athletes is their high capacity to produce energy? They are Formula 1 engines, so their production is very high, but without losing efficiency, on the contrary, improving it. A professional cyclist can generate more energy (kcal / min) than an amateur athlete at the same intensity, and that is a very good thing (contrary to what it may seem) because it translates into more mechanical energy (with more% than the amateur, by the way), in more watts. These cyclists are better at everything, at producing, at spending, at doing it efficiently, and at creating and resynthesizing what they spend. All this means that, despite training at low-moderate intensities for them, the metabolic stress they endure is very high. For example, an athlete can consume 18-20kcal / min at a moderate intensity. If you multiply by a 3h workout, you can get a calculation of> 3000 kcal. Do you understand the high demand for these athletes? How do they supply it?
One of the main factors that most determine the ability to train is taking in a lot of energy. Of course these athletes do. But, in addition, eating an energy that allows you to train a lot of volume at high metabolic stress. And these cyclists do this too. They consume high amounts of carbohydrates, not only during exercise, but also outside of it (although to a much lesser extent). But at low and moderate intensities? Let me ask you one more thing. How many g / min of glucose do you think a “motor” of these consumes at an intensity of VT1? The answer is a lot, exactly> 1.8-2g / min. Do hourly calculations, if you want. Therefore, the oxidation of glycogen and glucose is high at these intensities, as much as we want to understand this zone as a “magic zone” in which only fatty acids are used. Therefore, its replacement is decisive. As for the “magic zone”, by the way, we should not think that carbohydrate intake limits fat oxidation, or rather, the ability to generate related adaptations, because that is not the case. L he athletes with the highest rates of fat oxidation that I have been able to measure are those who ingest carbohydrates the most, especially during exercise. In addition, the role of glycogen in muscle contraction, recovery, subsequent signaling and metabolic adaptation related to mitochondrial biogenesis is so important that directly compromising it leads to states of overtraining and the inability to train which necessary to generate the adaptations of which we speak.
Summarizing. Improving the TGIM will depend, to a large extent, on the volume and distribution of the intensity of the exercise. High volumes are associated with better adaptations. To train these volumes, especially as the athlete’s level increases, it is necessary to provide energy and, more specifically, sufficient carbohydrates, always ensuring a considerable availability of lactate and liver and muscle glycogen.
Source:
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Now that it’s cyclocross season (finally), I’m curious if you are following any of the top pros in that discipline outside of Pidcock, WvA, and MvDP.
Quinten Hermans of Wanty/Tormans–who rode the Giro this year and had a top 5 stage finish–just took his first elite World Cup victory at Fayetteville. A defining victory from a very talented cyclist who’s always been just behind WvA and MvDP in this discipline.
I’m curious how these CX’ers train for their discipline and how it varies from a classics-type WT rider. The obvious, like riding more CX, notwithstanding.
It’s also worth noting that outside the top 3 mentioned above mostly all of the top CX’ers don’t really have large road campaigns. Interesting, I wonder if that’s a skillset/talent thing or something else? Assume their w/kg and FTP are very very respectable to be racing at this level.
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It looks that big aerobic engine is descisive even in 1h full throttle CX races.
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Top cx riders don’t post their power data. Looking at MvdP’s brother David, who posts everything, there is nothing special. Simply a lot of racing, already now. Once a week a spikey CX session and a moto pacing session. No overly long endurance rides. Longish rides include some efforts every once in a while.
Simply a lot of racing. And they all race so much on the road during the spring/summer, engine is always up and running.
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From my understanding, CX pros race so much during the season (usually twice a week, plus around 10 times in 14 days around the Kerstperiod) that their weekly schedule is centered around recovering and having 1-2 hard sessions (one of them incorporating skills as well). That’s also why in November-Early December, when there used to be a gap in the schedule, most pros tended to go to a sunny place and do a block of 1-2 weeks of endurance riding, to try and offset the loss in aerobic capacity from the low volume and focus on high intensity of the previous months.
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I think they do have decent summers on the road, however the events aren’t all that. Didn’t Lucinda Brandt ride Roubaix? I know that Pauwels Sauces ride a lot of French National Series and Belgian Cup events, also Belgium so there’s Kermese to ride - which is nice as you don’t have to travel far.
Most definitely. Like any type of racing aerobic is king. I do think that crossers have an innately higher amount of fast twitch fibers which translates to incredible 10-90s power.
It seems like they probably train very similar to other pros, outside of GT racers. Lots of volume, some racing, build a massive FTP, and then get specific. Kind of what we all should do!
Yep
True. The women seem to have more of a road focus. Look at Brand, Vos, etc. Vos just finished runner up in Roubaix and World Champs. I was just browsing the top male riders and noticed that outside of Hermans, most of them only have around 15 race days this season so far on the road, which I thought was pretty low. Maybe COVID related? Or perhaps ProCyclingStats isn’t showing the local, smaller events they are doing.
Yeah - I don’t think that PCS does anything that is an “National” level event (as opposed to a UCI / International event).
I had a quick look at Toon Aerts, PCS has him racing from the end of May to early September on the road, with two 5 day stage races, Tour of Belgium and Tour of Wallonie. He was racing CX until the end of Feb this year. Give a month for R&R, 2 months of base and back at it by the very end of May. Those 2x 5 days stage races are probably top quality fitnesses, so I guess they were no accident.
I think some of it is that there is big money to be made in CX - so specialising in it is not a bad way to make a living. Also the CX teams are pretty locally focused - they’re big in Benelux, but I can’t get Pauwels sauces, nor Baloise Insurance where I live so no pressure from the sponsors to go race away from home.
I think this also may be the case because the women’s road calendar has so much less racing and no 3 week GTs. There are some crazy people like Wout who can race a full road calendar and then still show up and win Cross races but I imagine most of those road guys need several months to recover physically and mentally from the 80-100 race days they can do in a year.
Return on investment. If I had to choose between 4 - 6 hrs of tempo per week vs. 40 - 60 minutes of threshold per week, then I would ALWAYS choose the former…as long as I’m still doing Z5 work. You can simply spend far more time and accrue far less fatigue over multiple days…which means you can be fresher for Vo2. Trying to do 4 - 6 hrs per week of threshold will simply wreck you…and you can then forget about Z5. This fatigue cost has slowly turned me off to Z4. Increasingly, I see it now as more of a no man’s land…because the cost in terms of fatigue is really not great when you are on a 20 hour week…meaning 5 rides of 3 - 4.5 hrs. Between Z5 and the long Z2 rides something has to give…and that is where Z3/Tempo comes in.
That said…obviously if you have fewer hours to train then threshold can be a good place to hang out, but the more hours you can ride, the less sense it makes to ride there.