Weight to Power Ratio goals
Simple question:
Does the watt/Kg goal of 4 hold as something attainable to shoot for after age 50 or does it decline?
As a guy nearer to 2.5 shooting for 3 I just want to have a reasonable goal.
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Simple question:
Does the watt/Kg goal of 4 hold as something attainable to shoot for after age 50 or does it decline?
As a guy nearer to 2.5 shooting for 3 I just want to have a reasonable goal.
Comments
@ Ralph....I'm with you Ralph. When I joined EN (age 46), I was at 2.87 watt/kg. Last year at IMFL I was at 3.60. The goal this year is to hit 3.85, and then shoot for 4.0 in 2016 when I turn 50. There is a part of me that is interested in the responses to your question......and there is a part of me that doesn't care or want to hear any feedback and just go for it and have fun along the way!!
A couple of Bruce Lee Quotes for you!
"A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.”
Keep in mind w/kg is just a number and your working it from two different directions... Remember to make one definite move daily toward your goal... That can be nailing your EN bike workouts , recovery , sleep , rest , nutrition , discipline!
Also urge you to track your actual w/kg ratio of a particular session/interval/ race (the watts you averaged for that session/interval/race and the weight you were on that day) as opposed to a w/kg calculated from an estimated FTP test on a particular day.
My gut feeling and experience is that chronological age is different from cycling age.
That is, your potential FTP is more related to (1) how long you've been riding and (2) what you've been doing during that riding vs how old you are.
Cyclist who are relatively new to the sport and/or have never trained with an FTP focus can still see gains that you may not expect given their chrono-age. Likewise, cyclist who've been at it a long time and/or have been hammering on the bike for years and years will find gains harder to come by, regardless of age.
Then, as we all know, most of us have additional opportunities with body composition
As 132lb (!), 30-34AG Peter Noyes was climbing away from me on MY hill on Saturday (grrrr) I consoled myself by thinking:
I have noted significant gains since last year and expect the trend to continue. I am working on the Body Composition issue but at 6 ft 4 in and 210 lbs I have been doing the math and it seems like a stretch for me. at 90 kg (198 lb) 3 w/kg would mean my FTP would be 270 - that is definitely doable by the end of the season Hitting 4 w/kg for me would mean FTP of 316 at a weight of 79 Kg (175 lbs).
So I am going to do what Tim (Bruce Lee) Cronk, Steve, and Juan said and keep moving forward. If the goal is reachable and I live long enough, I will get there.
PS you guys are my freaking role models.
PPS Coach - Peter Noyes weighs the same as one of my legs.
just want to add...IMO, don't try to do it all at once.
interesting study proved that if you try to aggressively ramp up your power and at the same time you aggressively try to drop the weight, well, you can figure out the rest.
the authors showed that working on the weight side for the few months before a race build had desired results. One, before the other. 4 groups in the study. 1 worked on power alone. 1 worked on 'diet' alone. 1 did both. 1 did nothing different. The 'alones' got the best results. The 'both' showed minimal gains. Obviously, the 'nothing' had no improvement. Then, once you move into a race build, fuel for performance. This is a performance/results based goal, not just a magic number. Luckily, volume usually ramps up in the race builds. The weather usually heats up. Both of those help with continuing weight loss but try to focus more on the power improvement and just let the plans sweat a few extra kilograms off.
Just a thought/reminder. My 2cents, keep the change.
The key phrase is "aggressively" lose weight. That can mean anything. In my experience:
MyFitnessPal.
We love/promote these great apps for logging calories and quality of food because they are so easy to use AND very effective.
Ironically, these apps help me monitor how I need to eat MORE when training is picking up. So, it's not just about restricting. Once I saw my tendencies to have a day or two per week of coming in 1000cal under, I started making adjustments. I believe it's these adjustments have kept my roller coaster binges at bay for several months now.
I am not aggressively doing anything but the OS and I can't run hard due to a hamstring problem. But i seem to be able to bike hard with minimal difficulty. I have noticed a significant bump in my power compared to last year's OS workouts so it will be interesting to see what the next test cycle shows.
I am on the Myfitness pal routine and shoot for a 500 cal deficit per day. Most days I get that, some days I come out even but am down 3 lbs since Jan 1 (although that still leaves me 5lbs over IM race weight in Oct.
I really am just following the training plan and trying to get faster and I was just wondering what a reasonable "max" would be for down the road. I see these guys talking about 4 w/kg and I am doing the work to go in that direction but I have "tempered" expectations shall we say.
I have had the modest goal of 3.5 w/kg, and at my 5'2", 110 lb build I don't have much choice but to do it by gaining power. At this point in JOS, I am struggling just to get back to my 3w/kg from last year. So, can I extend the question by asking, can someone who started cycling in their mid 50s reach that higher goal as they are approaching 60??
I will definitely keep trying-doing all the wkos. And my focus for 9 months is power, as I only start my build for IM in late august
And Ralph, p 54 of Allen and Coggan's book has a power profile chart that places elite international males at the 5.78-6.4 w/kg FTP, females at 5.12-5.69. At my peak I was at the top of category 4 (or bottom of cat 3, however you want to look at it)-for what thats worth
It sounded a bit like sour grapes to me but I decided to give it a go anyways. Started my own "doping" program and am using caffeine as my performance enhancer. I'm up to 2 cups a day and I can already tell the difference, I don't fall asleep on the trainer.
.... I guess I have been "doping" for the past 4 decades. Currently I need 32-48 oz per day just to feel 'normal'. Without it I feel like I have a bad case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. No way could I SBR or even do my day job without it.....
Caffeine as a PED is no joke - it used to be considered a banned substance by WADA:
"Olympic officials first limited caffeine use in 1984, for the Los Angeles Summer Games. From then until 2004, athletes could be thrown out of competition if their urine contained more than 12 micrograms per milliliter of caffeine...Evolving science has revealed that performance-enhancing doses of caffeine were practically indistinguishable from everyday use—that’s why the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) moved caffeine off the list of prohibited substances. "
From http://www.menshealth.com/health/are-olympic-athletes-legally-doping
To answer the OP question (had to go back and look at it - this thread has evolved!), YES! personal experience I was @ 4 w/kg in my early-mid 50s, after starting to train seriously on the bike @ age 50. Kept it at 3.8 until about age 57, then have seen slow decline since.
Slippery doping.
Good going Ralph!
some thoughts from my perspective.
I am 6-6. around 185 lbs. usually around 182 racing weight. fairly slender upper body frame.
have approached 4 w/kg ftp at times. newish to biking a few years ago.
hard for me to lose weight during O.S. easier during ironman build. though adding the swimming seems to add beef.
for pointy end racers, for bike phase of an ironman race, a np of around 3 watts/kg seems to be around the magic number. which makes sense as this is 75% of a 4 w/kg ftp.
6 foot 6 inches and 185 lbs is a Body Mass Index of 21.4. by no means underweight. I am hoping to push my racing weight to 177-8 lbs. this is a BMI of 20.5. still not considered underweight. (though the epidemic of obesity makes this seem underweight in comparison). will see how my running durability holds up as I try to get lighter. (note Macca's comments on not getting too light)
I'm glad that i read the last posts to get clarity on where this is measured. I'm at 3.23 right now on the trainer. Was up to 3.6 last year at my peak. Got something to work towards. At 194 lbs, 5 11, I have some room to drop.
Where is a reasonable goal for a 52 year old woman? Right now I'm seeing 1.89 W/kg at 149 pounds (heavy for me) and 5'7"...
I'm coming off a totally slacker fall and feeling the effects of Jan OS already as we start down Week 3!
In Triathlon 2.0 by Jim Vance there are tables with recommended w/kg needed to qualify for Kona.
For men, the range is 4.0+ for under 40, 3.75+ for over 40, and 3.0+ for over 60.
For women, the range is 3.9+ for under 40, 3.7+ for over 40, and 2.8+ for over 60.
YMMV.
1) It takes a lot of hard work over time to gradually change your body, build your mental skills and not break anything along the way....mentally prepare yourself for that and prepare yourself for set backs as they are part of the normal evolution to making progress.
2) It is a balance......you're not a pro biker but an AG triathlete balancing running, swimming, and LIFE along the way..... balance being the key word here.....slow progress is good progress that allows you stay sane, move forward on run durability and find time to swim as well....
3) Body comp - no question around this, to raise that w/kg, improvement here will be required....but don't malnourish yourself and deprive your transformation of those muscles from the ingredients they need to be successful and handle the load you are placing on them....lot of smart folks here on this string and in the haus that have figured this one out.
KMF!