New cyclist here. 19 years old. I got my first road bike about three weeks ago and have clocked up around 800km so far. I did an FTP test yesterday. It has my current FTP at 257 watts or 3.21 w/kg (since I weigh 80kg). What sort of level is this at for someone untrained with no previous cycling or endurance experience?
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Thatâs fantasticâŚyou can browse through these in this thread.
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That is about my situation when I got my first road bike at the age of 35. First FTP test a couple months later came in at 250W. At the moment at the age of 43, my off the couch FTP is about 240W (which I recently experienced as I started training again).
At this level you are above average of untrained people and at the low end of people that train. But as others have mentioned it is an excellent base for starting with structured workouts.
Just ride your bike a lot and do not focus on FTP. FTP will rise automaticallyâŚ
Not sure this is true. FTP will just plateau.
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âJust rideâ will work to a point, but the principle of progressive overload applies; i.e you have to do more and more (effort and volume) over time. Most people donât have the time and/or will find it hard to push themselves enough. The naturally very gifted will still get very good JRA - most of us wonât. I think there was a study somewhere that said most runners who didnât start significantly overweight, and didnât follow a specific program plateaud after c. 12 months; Iâm sure it would be similar for cyclists. Iâll see if I can dig it out.
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Man, you just ruined my day.
Iâm doing some research on chess clubs in my area at the moment.
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Someone who just started, should do a lot of base training (endurance). Not a structured program which focusses on FTP
Pretty average, maybe slightly above.
One thing to be aware of is that at your age, the TR ramp test is especially likely to overestimate your FTP.
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Try telling that to all pro athletes who got there by starting serious training at a young age.
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Great numbers for a newbie, def not just average and likely have lots of potential to get better still. For reference it took me about 3 years of unstructured riding to get to the same w/kg, but once you start training itâs just a whole other animal. All uphill from here!
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They correspond to a VO2max of 45-50 ml/kg/min. For a 19 year old male, thatâs only slightly above average.
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Who cares? Iâm just trying to be encouraging, if you want to be nit picky thereâs plenty of other threads
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Thatâs as may be, but you started by saying âJust ride your bike a lotâ. Isnât base training structured?
And in any case, I think you missed my point. I wasnât saying donât just ride your bike; I was saying that will top out pretty quickly without some kind of built in overload.
Do you love it?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why? <âalways remember that in your pursuit, progression, successes, failures, good days, bad days, injuries, etc. and youâll find the right cycling path for you.
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Itâs not being ânit pickyâ to answer such a request with factual information, rather than misinforming them just to feed their egos.
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Whatâs average for a healthy but untrained 18-20 year old? About 45?
Pulling a random statistic which wasnât even asked about to label someone average makes you look like the hungry one.
That would be the textbook value. An estimated VO2max of up to 50 is therefore no more than ~10% greater, or âslightly aboveâ average as I originally stated.
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Itâs not a random statistic. The OP provided their estimated FTP, from which it is possible to estimate their VO2max. They wanted to know where their aerobic fitness currently stands, and I answered them correctly and factually.
As for being hungry, well, I retired after I earned my avatar.
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