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Dissipation of Watts

thekidduxcthekidduxc
in General Training Discussions

We are all unique, but is there a rule of thumb for how many watts you lose over a 3 week layoff of no cycling? 

Comments

  • Peter GreaggPeter Greagg
    I lost 18 watts over 5 week layoff (from around 200), so less than 10%.
  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    I can't give exact numbers, but it goes away quickly and then come back slightly less quickly. When I started riding again in March after my crash in Feb (was already very very bike unfit, so basically starting from zero). My watts on the same ride every Tuesday increased by about 5w each week. 

  • MattAaronsonMattAaronson
    I'll find out soon and let you know. I'm planning for tomorrow to be my first ride in 18 weeks. I'm going to try to get on the bike 3x/week from now until the OS in January so I'll see how quickly it comes back. I'm hopeful but not optimistic about this...
  • tgarsontgarson
    I haven't done any formal FTP tests but I've found Strava to be quite 'helpful' in quantifying both my build and fitness decay post Ironman through the personal leaderboards.



    I don't really care about the overall leaderboards but the personal ones will show where you are at in relation to your PR on any segment you've completed before. With a 5 second glance I can basically see where my fitness is relative to both my recorded personal bests and worsts. Once you have a few seasons worth of data in there this becomes quite a powerful tool to gauge your overall fitness versus your fitness at different times of the year and previous years.

    During a race build, if I continue to rack up PRs on my regular routes I know that I'm constantly setting the bar higher. Conversely, after a month of basically sitting on my ass since Tahoe my performance on my regular segments has already started to fall off a cliff. I'm already 10% off my pre-race watts in <4 weeks.</p>

  • Coach RichCoach Rich
    Yep, what Trevor said. I pretty much ride routes vs workouts/intervals so I have a long history of times and wattages across a number of the same routes. Pretty cool to remember what I was/wasn't doing at different times of the year and to see that expressed as times on courses.
  • thekidduxcthekidduxc
    That's it - I need to get on strava
  • scott dinhoferscott dinhofer
    I took off for nine months to beat my cardiac diagnosis. Started riding again June 10, started riding hard, when allowed to around July 8, tested in late August at old watts (230) FTP interval sessions validated test. I don't know if I got back to watts sooner, suspect not much sooner as I was clearly moving up the curve based on performance of a weekly TT I do.
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