FTP W/kg - per gender, age

William Jenks

Curious about something that some of the real power geeks might be able to answer...

A while back I did some reading on what was plausible vs good vs great for W/kg FTP values for what I was at the time - a man in the 40s...neither young, nor aged.  I think it was Joe Friel who summarized it, but I can't remember for sure.  Anyway, what I took from it was that a relatively young healthy male who focused entirely on cycling could probably count on getting somewhere near 3.9-4.0...and that many triathletes were more like 3.3-3.4 and newbies under 3.  Stronger and weaker cyclists (or people with higher or lower weight for various reasons) would have correspondingly different numbers.  That has struck me as pretty good guidance.  Some time over 45 or 50, the W/kg starts to slowly fade.  OK, fine.  Makes sense.

What was not clear to me was whether that guidance holds for women.  Are these still reasonable numbers for women as well because of the lower weights?  Or are women's W/kg a little higher or a little lower?  Typically women are ~10% slower (very round number) at the elite level, so I assume it's probably a bit lower, but there could be other factors...and it could be that elite men and elite women differ, but "average" men and women are more comparable.

And what about teenagers?  Is there wisdom out there about kids who are still in the midst of growing?  Does this proportionality remain because of their lighter weight?  Or are there significant differences expected (up or down)?

Part of my curiosity, I admit, comes from an FTP test my 14 year old daughter did yesterday, where she came in at a touch north of 3.5. This (pleasantly) surprised me because she's a very good freestyle swimmer and a reasonable runner, but not an especially trained cyclist.  This trainer-based test correlated well with a recent race performance, using different PM systems, so it's real.  Darn, those kids embarrass us, don't they?

kimmydct

I would think aside from the reasons you mentioned above, women in general have a higher body fat %, therefore more weight that ISN'T contributing to power, therefore I might guess w/kg might even be lower than just the 10% slower you mentioned.

My current w/kg is about 2.6. Highest is roughly 2.7. I dream of 3.0 but the willpower to work on the kg is eluding me at this time. Luckily watts are on the right track, but not as fast as I can eat.

Congrats to your daughter!! Wow!

Al Truscott

You've probably seen this table somewhere before, but as a point of reference ... note the w/kg listed are not based on FTP. So, to compare, FTP might be 90-95% of the 20 min column. 

 

 

William Jenks

Al - you're right, I should have remembered that exact chart. I was thinking about it from a slightly different angle, but that does have the gender-based info. Looks like the 20 minute powers are almost 20% lower for women than men. Very interesting!