Sure, having a running background (or any endurance sporting background, really) gives someone a big advantage when transitioning over to the bike.
Very good buddy of mine is a fast runner…has gone 2:37 at Boston in his prime. But while he is an above average cyclist, I can still put the screws to him regularly, sooo…
Flip side is that we recently had a kid join our semi-weekly early AM rides…he is on he US National Jr. team for Speed Skating and he absolutely crushes us when he wants to. His watts are immense. Thank god he can’t corner for schitt and doesn’t really grasp tactics yet. But lord help us when he figures it out.
Point being that any background in endurance / aerobic activities gives one a good base for cycling but is not a golden ticket to huge w/kg.
@KonaSS & @Power13 ya, roger that, I guess it translates much better than I thought it would!
Well, I mean… he has done 1 - 2 full IMs, and a few 70.3s, and finished in “decent” time. So I guess, no, he didn’t win the race; so others were faster, even in his AG… but even going mid-pack AG on something like that at is insane, to me.
I’m never sure what anyone means when they say “longer distance” !! I mean, to me, that’s long-a$$ distance, esp. after a swim… but some ppl do multi-day ultra rides in the hundreds of miles… so on that, like… no… not that kind of distance!!!
Surely there’s a ton of selection for “the folks you ride with” though? It’s not like that’s an even cross section of the population…
I wonder what the bell curve would look like for watt/kilo[lean mass]. This thread has focused a lot on natural variability of the engine, but I wonder if a lot of the lower end of that curve is people trying to lose weight, i.e. solid watts but too many kilos.
I don’t know, I don’t think people get into cycling because they are ‘good’ at it. They get into it because they like it. I guess it’s fair to say that people that race competitively probably only stick with it if they can achieve at least some sense of progression and/or fun. But I we aren’t out there testing people’s vo2max as children to see if they’ll make good cyclists…
People have a tendency to drift toward their ‘specialty’ and by that I mean the thing they have the most fun doing. I’ve been ‘obese’ according to BMI my entire life (I know, bmi is problematic) and by ‘report’ anyway I’ve hovered around 20-30 lbs heavier than any reported weight I’ve heard from people my height. It’s almost comical and nearly incomprehensible to me that people my height (just over 6’ 2") weigh less than 195 lbs. But I’m at 15% bf now, and 194 lbs. so obviously…who’s right?
Anyway, I wasn’t able to compete with my friends that weigh half what I do. (joke, only 25kg less than me) so I tended toward long flattish hard efforts, a lot of miles, tt type stuff. But straight up…I’m not athletically gifted. I’m analytical and dedicated and can be horribly single minded.
The point is. I sincerely believe nearly anyone can get to 4 w/kg. Here we have to play fast and loose with can. Will they want to? Probably not. But I bet with the right motivation anyone could do it. (age > 60 and infirmity possibly excluded). No judgment regarding people that don’t want to prioritize this arbitrary number, life is too short. People have family, and…interests…and can be busy. I think a lot of the reason you see these older dudes rocking the 4 w/kg is their kids might be out of the house, they’ve prioritized training… They have the time and inclination to stave off the specter of old age. :D. Can everyone get to 4 w/kg at 10 hours or less of weekly training? Probably not. I didn’t seem capable. But at 15 hours I’ve fairly ‘easily’ crossed it. 15 hours and 2 years of consistent progressive overload to get to 15 hours. But who among us wants to spend that many hours getting to mediocre power numbers? :D.
I read these posts ascribing volume and aside from when I go on a week biking holiday, I feel shocking doing lots of volume. That’s shocking doing easy volume at barely 55% FTP. Felt run down before Christmas trying to up the volume and decrease from 3 intense sessions a week to 2.
So I’ve gone back to standard TR low volume with a long weekend ride plus a few extra recovery sessions.
The year I hit my highest FTP and 4.5w/kg, I was actually down to 2 Intense 1hr - 1.5hr sessions a week (thats sweet spot, not even threshold or VO2) a few easy half hours in the days in between plus a long weekend ride. And a couple of body weights sessions per week.
I’ve tried to replicate that year so much and never has it been such hard witchcraft to get the same results
This is essentially my plan, LV Masters adaptive plan, 2 intensity workouts, 2 low Z2 workouts and 1 long 3-3.5 hour Z2 progressive PL workout. Today will be Marsh.
If I hit Castle Rock and haven’t had a AI FTP increase by then I might do it manually lol.
My intensity workouts at present are VO2 and SS. As I get into race reason that will shift into VO2 and Threshold, VO2 x2 and VO2 and Anaerobic.
All relative. I’m 6ft 2 and counting race weight as a about 165lb (normal walking around weight while training normally is around 168)…HOWEVER amongst most of my running friends I’m huge! My ftp (40min recent test) is 285W and 5k time usually around 18:20.
This is an interesting thread with a lot of thoughts of increasing volume and I’m curious of people’s thoughts.
I’m 6’6” and about 240lbs right now and trying to get back to about 220lbs, current FTP of 250w so I’m a little under 2.5w/kg at the moment but hope to be at 3.0w/kg by the end of the year.
Following a mid volume masters plan for the year with some of the endurance rides outside and some extra rides sprinkled through.
How does everyone on this thread suggest I get to 4.0w/kg
If you take an offseason, some time to build the volume back up when you start your base season, a recovery week every 4th week, taper for races, recover from races, maybe a vacation, etc., then you’re going to end up with ~550 hours for the year if your “on” weeks are 15 hours. I don’t think many amateurs average 15 hours a week or 780 hours for the entire year.
Agree with all that, but they are certainly out there and I know more than a handful. And 500-650 is really common for serious amateurs (at least among the ones I know and follow on strava).
Anyway, my point was that the OP is averaging ~375 hours per year and it sounds like he’s only been doing it for ~2.5 years. Saying he’s tried high volume and it didn’t work (and should reduce it in favor of intensity) is not correct in my opinion. Everyone has their own definition for high volume I guess, but that’s not mine and doesn’t jive with athletes I know. Regardless, 2.5 years is just getting started regardless of whether you are doing high volume or not. Likely lots of gains yet to be had as years/miles go into the legs.
My last two years (22 months). Started riding again (after a year off), TR may 19, 2022 (was probably over 100kg, 239 ramp test ftp). mid volume - Burned out in Dec (rlgl went nuts, but I did make good gains before the wheels came off). January my own thing for a while, long z2, zwift. In july did what I called the old fat guy vrtual half tour de france (3 hours riding zwift every day the tdf was on, with climb portal climb efforts to start every climby day, sprints from robopacers on sprinty days).
got Covid in Sept. Rode easy in oct/nov and tried to drop weight. Started mid-December trying to ramp up the volume.
intervals.icu data, 2022 was 87% z1/2 (not sure this is reliable), 2023 92% z1/2, 2024 classified as “threshold”, 50+% z1/2 ~43% z3/4 and like 1-3% z5.
2022
This has been posted before, but there’s a very interesting Alan Couzens blog post about FTP and CTL. Volume vs Intensity | Alan Couzens
Bottom line: the ‘average’ guy will take a CTL of 100 to hit 4w/kg. Simplifying, that’s 700 TSS per week more or less in perpetuity.
If we mock that up as a training week, it probably looks something like 12 hours a week at 0.65IF (~500 TSS) plus a couple of hard interval sessions (~90 min and 100 TSS each).
I don’t think that many people put in that kind of training for years on end.
Those that do, however, usually turn out pretty quick.
Thanks for sharing, that study is pretty much dead on for me. My CTL will typically max out about a month before my A event at ~100 and my FTP will be right around 4 w/kg, maybe as high as 4.2 if I’m disciplined on my diet/weight. I guess that makes me an average responder to training, but maybe a bit above average for my age group since I’m in my mid 50’s. I never got close to 4w/kg back when I was doing <400 hours a year even though I was younger.
And while I don’t follow others’ CTL numbers, 15+ hours a week seems pretty standard during the season for strong amateurs (at least here in Texas). And many don’t drop off too much during the off season since winter is some of our best riding. At 500-600 hours a year, I’m probably top 10 in my local club in annual volume, but there are a few doing much more (like 800+ hours a year).
There’s no secret special workout approach that’s gonna get people to their genetic potential even at a relatively high 500 hours a year. More volume done in a progressive way is almost always going to drive more fitness. There is nothing fundamentally different about a pro’s physiology that makes them respond to years of huge volume training, they just have a much, much higher genetic ceiling and lots of time to train since it’s their job.
I love that post, and it’s really cool to see the data.
It’s worth noting though that the total variability of the trend line (which runs from ~3.2-4.5 w/kg going from no to lots of CTL) is much smaller than the variability at any specific CTL value. Relevant to this post, drawing the horizontal at 4 w/kg shows folks with basically zero CTL hitting that number, and folks sub-4 w/kg on >150CTL.
All to say, training more will definitely make you stronger, but 4w/kg is not a given, and there’s no magical amount of CTL that can guarantee that (or any) number for all.
I guess the real punchline is. If you want to know if you can get to 4 w/kg, get to 100+ ctl and see: 1. How close you are and 2. Do you REALLY want to get to 4 w/kg?
I mean, to me, that’s long-a$$ distance, esp. after a swim… but some ppl do multi-day ultra rides in the hundreds of miles… so on that, like… no… not that kind of distance!!! 
