W'-Plain English Definition?
I asked Google, but must have used bad words. W' is cycle code for anaerobic work capacity--the number of matches in the matchbook. (Match = trip over FTP). if W'=10, what does that mean? How does that number relate to FTP? Thus, if someone's FTP=100, and their W'=19, is that the same as someone with a 200 FTP and a W' of 19? Are they in the same shape?
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It's an interesting concept. Seems tailor made for a bike racer, who must fend with surges and short sharp hills during the course of a mulrti-hour event. But how is it of value to a long-course triathlete, who must avoid at all costs burning ANY matches - meaning, trips over FTP are asking to walk on the run?
The first coach I had for IM said, "Each minute anaerobic on the bike equates to 3 minutes longer on the run." The risk might not even be with going over FTP; it is probably also present with any time spent more than about 10% above one's target IF. Meaning, if you're shooting for an IF of 0.7, avoid going any higher than 0.77.
As you say, W' you refer to is the amount anaerobic work you can do before exhaustion while operating at that anaerobic intensity. It is as Al T suggests, of no value for a long course triathlete because by definition we never race at those intensities.
BTW, it is W' that we seek to clear with the 5 min part of our 5/10/20 power testing protocol — if we didn't do the 5 min test, the 20 min test would overestimate your FTP (that is when taking 95% of the 20 min test would be higher than your FTP because W' would have contributed to the work done in the 20 min test)..
I actually hadn't ever heard of the "W'" term but assumed it was likely related to AWC and Google confirmed it for me. I haven't read through this article in detail so I can't vouch for it's accuracy but it appears to be a good explination and discussion of W', which is indeed the same as AWC That I was already familiar with.
http://cyclingcenterdallas.com/crit...apacity-w/
EDIT - just noticed who the author is - safe to consider this reliable info.
Two thoughts (OK -- three thoughts)
1. Still don't get it. I don't understand what exactly it measures. In other words, how do you read your power data to figure out how many matches you have, what a "match" is, and how many you burned?
2. @ Al--the way I look at this is as perhaps a safety net. Suppose you have two tri guys: one with a large AWC and one without. Both have the same FTP (and weigh the same). If race execution suffers, I was wondering if the one with the larger AWC has more margin for error--in otherwords, while going anaerobic is a bad idea, wouldn't the guy who could go into the red 19 times (19 matches) be better off on the run than the one with 5 matches? In other words if (and that's a big if) I understand it correctly, the question is whether AWC provides a margin of error for less than perfect race execution. I gotta say that since starting w/EN, I've gotten much better; the VI on my intervals now on the trainer are always 1.00 or really close, and on the road are not over 1.02 or 3. But I'm still worried.
http://physfarm.com/new/?page_id=563