Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

"my FTP from 95% of best twenty minutes during Zwift races at the moment is 293 so about 4.7w/kg"

"If Zwift/Turbo is to be believed my five minute power is about 350w / 5.5wkg"

Yeah, nah. One or both of those is almost certainly wrong.

SS isn't a bad idea for most people but given your events are shorter and spikier if you did start with SS you'd want to move away from it at some point to harder shorter stuff and if I were you I'd be doing at least one set of VO2 efforts or some other higher power intervals per week now.

Are you thinking his 5 minute power should be more like 400w?

@Kelvin bear in mind that a max 5 minute power is unlikely to be the same as your best 5 minutes during a zwift workout/race.

I'd expect a bigger difference for sure.

FWIW

FTP 290w @ ~60kg

Haven’t done a 5 min effort this season. These are all from HC races. FTP from a TR ramp test. Kickr says 290w (which is what I’m going with as I always use that metric) Rotor Inpower thought it was more like 297w. Rotor is the outdoor power source.

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What type sessions are you lot getting on with for improving sub 5 min power? Mine is really poor. Heavy lifting compound stuff, strength/stability and conditioning style lifting,pylometrics, hill repeats, peak and fade intervals, power ramp intervals, or just steady state vo2 intervals or anything else you like doing to get a bit of extra oomph in the legs? I'm currently about 95% fit and have an important race for me in a month so should be able to get in 10-15 High intensity workouts and a tiny taper by then and I've have had results before on just 2-3 weeks of the really hurty stuff. For your information and amusement my current numbers I'm working from are at 66kg and 40 years old
10s=15 wkg
30s=11.6
1 min=8.48
2=5.98
3=5.6
5=5.3
20=4.43
1hr=4.24
2hr=3.93
3hr= a theoretical 3.63 wkg
What kind of pain are you enjoying at the moment?

His FTP is 83% of his five min max. That’s similar to mine when I was fit (330/400). I was about 75kg so my five min power was 5.3w/kg - rubbish, essentially. And it got even worse as the duration got shorter.

My power profile was the product of too many long intervals on the turbo and training for specific races i.e. long climbs when I lived in Hong Kong.

Sweet spot won’t do you any harm but it won’t help you to produce top end. I’d suggest some gym work in the winter and then training specifically on four/five min climbs.

With those numbers, I'd say Vo2/aerobic.
Compared to @dbr's numbers, you're short power strength is really good, but falls off quite quickly from 1 minute. Though as the data is from hill climbs, and @dbr doesn't favour short sprint climbs, maybe the 30s and 60s powers are not peak power?

You're probably able to tap into a decent amount of anaerobic power to boost your 2/3 power, but 5 minutes is mostly aerobic.

I can burn my legs up with lactic up to about 2m, but power drops fast after that.

Quite similar to mine.
5s = 20.4wkg
10s= 16.6wkg
30s= 12.2wkg
1m = 9.2wkg
2m = 7.5wkg
3m = 6.3wkg
5m = 5.5wkg

According to Coggan's power chart, 5.3w/kg is Very Good/cat 2, not so rubbish!

Quite close to mine;
FTP 292 on turbo @ 76kg

Outside power curve;
10s = 1024 for 13.47
20s = 936 for 12.32
30s = 823 for 10.83
1m = 680 for 8.95
2m = 573 for 7.54
3m = 531 for 6.99
5m = 437 for 5.75

As documented I’ve struggled to replicate this in races. Whether that’s lack of familiarity with hills or going a bit gun shy for fear of blowing up I can’t quite work out.

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Yeah the five minute efforts have been from mid-zwift race rather than all out effort, I think the best was from the first five minutes of the climb of Alpe, so prob not "all-out"

The intervals "curve" doesn't seem to suggest my 5 minute power is that in-consistant with the longer efforts?

I've not been doing much specific work on vo2, which prob hasn't done me many favours, but there's plenty of that sort of effort in the races

5s = 2.1wkg
10s= 2.1wkg
30s= 2.0wkg
1m = 1.9wkg
2m = 1.5wkg
3m = 1.3wkg
5m = 1.1wkg

Currently 69kg and napping

I die a horrible lactic induced death post 3m or so for higher power numbers, but I think I could probably train to get to 6w/kg at 5m.

I'm probably best at 5-50s efforts, 1000w for 22s (14.7w/kg), 700w for 51s (10.3w/kg)

FTP of 290 at 68kg.

Everyone has their strengths, and although I'm on the sprinty scale, maybe I'll respond better to aerobic training, and rather than having a good sprint for an decent rider, I'll have a great sprint for a climber.

Could do with losing 4kg of chub though.

Does sleep typing use 70w?

I go out and ride for about 2 1/2 hours as hard as I fucking can. If use Strava's free avg watts calculation with my weight I get about 2.4 w/kg. Those numbers won't even get me in the EC1 Collective. It's still fun to get outside and ride my bike though.

Mine does

EC1 Collective

RIP

If you could continue climbing the rest of the Alp after the first 5 minutes, definitely not your max. Your 3m and 5m shouldn't be so close either I don't think, but maybe your legs are super aerobic, and don't provide my anaerobic assistance (see @dbr not knowing what lactate burn is)

Surely you are the sole battery source for the Matrix?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auVjzVNRtX4

That Coggan chart is a bit of a joke - based on US categories about 15 years ago. Anyway - I didn’t have enough watts to stop me from getting binned in 2/3/4 races.

With those numbers have you ever tried going for long one like emptying the tank with 1km to 1 mile to go has that ever worked out for you? Do you have any go to sessions for your good 1-3 min power? Or are you just built that way I'm 5"10 and 66kg and not sure i even own a fast twitch muscle fibre at the moment

Yeah I've found the Coggan chart only reliable for steady state stuff really. In races I've had disappointing results (which is nearly every race I've ever done) I've often thought i could have hung in there fine on 10% less at ftp and if i could have swapped that for 20% more on my 20-30s sprint I'd have done better

My Coggans chart numbers generally suck (mediocre 3rd cat according to it) but I'll score points fairly consistently in E12 crits and podium 2/3s. Good short power and repeatabilility goes a long way...

Yeah that was my conclusion so the bad news for me is not only do I have to improve my short term power i need to be able to repeat it 😭