Untrained FTP for a New Cyclist

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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That’s fantastic…you 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 automatically…

Not sure this is true. FTP will just plateau.

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‘Just ride’ 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 don’t 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 won’t. I think there was a study somewhere that said most runners who didn’t start significantly overweight, and didn’t follow a specific program plateaud after c. 12 months; I’m sure it would be similar for cyclists. I’ll see if I can dig it out.

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Man, you just ruined my day.
I’m 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 it’s 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, that’s only slightly above average.

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Who cares? I’m just trying to be encouraging, if you want to be nit picky there’s plenty of other threads

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That’s as may be, but you started by saying “Just ride your bike a lot”. Isn’t base training structured?

And in any case, I think you missed my point. I wasn’t saying don’t 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? <—always remember that in your pursuit, progression, successes, failures, good days, bad days, injuries, etc. and you’ll find the right cycling path for you.

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It’s not being “nit picky” to answer such a request with factual information, rather than misinforming them just to feed their egos.

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What’s average for a healthy but untrained 18-20 year old? About 45?

Pulling a random statistic which wasn’t 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 “slightly above” average as I originally stated.

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It’s 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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