My Power Profile is Embarrassing

[Malkmus]

I guess these little power things reveal the truth even when we don't want to acknowledge it.

I am a fifth year Cat 4 from the East Coast. For the most part, I am pack-fill. I have no desire to improve my climbing or time trialing. I just want to be able to mix things up a little bit more in the races. I love crits for many different reasons. Mostly because they are fast, wild and dangerous. Also, because they are easy and I don't have to train much for them. I've developed pretty good set of skills that usually allows me to do better than would be expected given my typical fitness level.

Despite my affinity for crits, my power profile is upward sloping. Yep. To my shame, my time-trialing abilities far exceed my sprinting abilities. Not that I am a good time-trialist. My 20 minute FTP is at the lower end of Coggan's Cat 4 range. My one minute power is low cat 5 and my 5 second power is pretty much in the untrained range.

I know what it takes to get my short term power where I need it to be in order survive the races. I just focus a bit on intervals of two minutes or less with tons of micro-intervals so I get used to recovering quickly. I've been doing this for years and it does the job. However, I realize that it is probably a short term fix and my real problem is lack of overall power given my relatively low 20 minute FTP and the fact that I train about 3 to 4 hours a week. It also doesn't help that I did very little base training this winter due to surgery.

If this were not mid-season, I would probably start doing tons of SST and then layer in some shorter intervals. However, I want to see some results before the end of the year.

So, I'd like to try to balance my admitted shortcut of focusing on short intervals with a desire to actually build some deeper fitness and power. I am planning on trying to do a sort of microwave training progam for the next month that looks sort of like this:

Saturday: Hard tempo for two hours
Sunday: Hard tempo or race
Monday: 2 or 3 x 20 minutes
Tuesday: 4 x 8 minutes
Wednesday: Two minute intervals or Micro Intervals
Thursday: Off
Friday: Off

Any thoughts on what might work better? By the way, I respond well to block training and this workload is doable for me.

Thanks

 

[MintID]

I guess these little power things reveal the truth even when we don't want to acknowledge it.

I am a fifth year Cat 4 from the East Coast. For the most part, I am pack-fill. I have no desire to improve my climbing or time trialing. I just want to be able to mix things up a little bit more in the races. I love crits for many different reasons. Mostly because they are fast, wild and dangerous. Also, because they are easy and I don't have to train much for them. I've developed pretty good set of skills that usually allows me to do better than would be expected given my typical fitness level.

Despite my affinity for crits, my power profile is upward sloping. Yep. To my shame, my time-trialing abilities far exceed my sprinting abilities. Not that I am a good time-trialist. My 20 minute FTP is at the lower end of Coggan's Cat 4 range. My one minute power is low cat 5 and my 5 second power is pretty much in the untrained range.

I know what it takes to get my short term power where I need it to be in order survive the races. I just focus a bit on intervals of two minutes or less with tons of micro-intervals so I get used to recovering quickly. I've been doing this for years and it does the job. However, I realize that it is probably a short term fix and my real problem is lack of overall power given my relatively low 20 minute FTP and the fact that I train about 3 to 4 hours a week. It also doesn't help that I did very little base training this winter due to surgery.

If this were not mid-season, I would probably start doing tons of SST and then layer in some shorter intervals. However, I want to see some results before the end of the year.

So, I'd like to try to balance my admitted shortcut of focusing on short intervals with a desire to actually build some deeper fitness and power. I am planning on trying to do a sort of microwave training progam for the next month that looks sort of like this:

Saturday: Hard tempo for two hours
Sunday: Hard tempo or race
Monday: 2 or 3 x 20 minutes
Tuesday: 4 x 8 minutes
Wednesday: Two minute intervals or Micro Intervals
Thursday: Off
Friday: Off

Any thoughts on what might work better? By the way, I respond well to block training and this workload is doable for me.

Thanks

I'd take monday and friday off, and saturday I'd ride recovery with one hard 2-5 minute effort at AT/FTP to wake up the legs for the race.

 

[Alex Simmons]

from what I can see, your training reflects your power profile.

 

[Steve_B]

from what I can see, your training reflects your power profile.

Yup.

I don't see a lot of "balance" in there and the OP said he wanted balance. If you want to try to even out the profile, you need to tilt your training against where it is now to some extent. You need some L5-L7 in there. I would chuck some of the L3 and L4 and instead replace with L5-L7. Take Saturday as an easier day, just opening up before the race on Sunday. Train on Thursday and maybe Friday too, if Sunday's race is a "don't care about" race. Take Monday off or easy.

 

[thekgb]

..with a desire to actually build some deeper fitness and power. I am planning on trying to do a sort of microwave training progam for the next month...

on first glance, those statements seem like a tall order, but i guess it's how you define "deeper fitness and power". I think of "get fit quick" regimenes like i do "get rich quick" ideas. Get you feeling good for a while then leave you empty handed. What you wrote looks a bit aggressive for someone who admittedly lacks base/aerobic conditioning. In my head on a cycliingpeaks PMC i foresee a quick rise in CTL and ATL, with the resulting TSB tide pulling you under pretty quick, which then translates into poor workout performance, conversion to race/recover mode and in the end burn-out. But again, that's without much else to go on. Is this part of any periodization into the season? this is kinda a tough call mid-season. I guess, when all else fails, train your weaknesses.

Best of luck

-Mike

 

[doctorSpoc]

Saturday: Hard tempo for two hours
Sunday: Hard tempo or race
Monday: 2 or 3 x 20 minutes
Tuesday: 4 x 8 minutes
Wednesday: Two minute intervals or Micro Intervals
Thursday: Off
Friday: Off

Any thoughts on what might work better? By the way, I respond well to block training and this workload is doable for me.

Thanks

you said you respond to block training, but you also said that your numbers are pretty sucky and not where you want them so maybe it's time for a change. and you need to change around the order of what you are doing.. shorter, higher intensity should always comes before longer lower intensity... that's within the workout and in the week. that's how you get the highest quality workout for the intensity and duration.

if you don't have a lot of time the best bang for your buck lay off the racing for a month to 6 weeks and train. 2x10s and 2x20s

Edit - if you can't sprint, then where's the L7 workouts in your schedule?

Example:
Monday: OFF
Tuesday: 3-4 x 10 minutes
Wednesday: 3hrs with 2-3x20 min (or if you have the time.. 2hrs w 2x20 morning + 2-3hr Tempo evening)
Thursday: Active Recovery
Friday: 1.5hr with L7... 5-8 10-15 sec sprints (flying starts... roll down hill and sprint on flat or slight uphill)
Saturday: 2hrs hard with L4/L5
Sunday: 4hrs tempo/endurance


OR if you are racing...

Monday: OFF
Tuesday: 3-4 x10 mins OR 5-10min hills or L4/L5 (if you're racing on the weekend let that take care of your L4/L5)
Wednesday: 3hrs with 2-3x20 min (or if you have the time.. 2hrs w 2x20 morning + 2-3hr Tempo evening)
Thursday: Active Recovery
Friday: 1.5hr with L7... 5-8 10-15 sec sprints (flying starts... roll down hill and sprint on flat or slight uphill)
Saturday: 1.5hrs temp... not hard if you don't care about the race hard if you don't
Sunday: don't know how long your crit is if it's less than 2hrs... go do another 2hrs of temp endurance after your race.

people use a 3/2 blocked week because they work... you can change the days to Tues/Weds/Thurs... Sat/Sun as well... but it's always short intense to longer less intense within a block of days or within a workout.

 

[Malkmus]

Thanks guys. I think the unamimous opinion is that I should be doing sprints. Its so obvious, but I missed it. I think I am going to through them in at the beginning of the longer weekend rides. I will be fresher and will be able to do them on the road instead of the trainer. Then I will flip the order to do the more intense stuff at the beginning of the week.

I am not concerned about burnout because I don't ride enough to burn out and I recover very quickly which may be one of my only strengths.

Thanks

 

[BullGod]

3 x 20 then 4 x 8 the following day?

That's all L4 right guys?

why not change the 4 x 8 to 6 x 4?

i'm having a lot of success switching between 3 day blocks, and one day hard, one day easy, one day hard, one day easy.

Why not try this once in a while?

Sat - 1hr easy with a few light sprints
sun - race
mon - 1 hr easy (recovery)
tues - 3 x 20
weds - 2 - 3 hr endurance (on the inner ring!) but mix in 6 x 15 second sprints from a standing start on 53 x 17/19 - get the revs up, and repeat these every 2 minutes.
thurs - 6 x 4
Fri - rest

 

[Simone@Italy]

3 x 20 then 4 x 8 the following day?

That's all L4 right guys?

why not change the 4 x 8 to 6 x 4?

it's the same hint I would have written

 

[Spunout]

Looking at your training, category, and problems, I would say that obviously do not respond well to block training.

 

[jsirabella]

Honestly to me the power profile is kind of deceptive as if you are like me and still building an aerobic engine and focusing on intervals of 20 minutes or higher you will not see much movement in any of the categories except ft which is where I am now making most of my gains. When I start to race or start to work in the shorter intervals than I will see movement on those other parts of the chart.

For me Dave showed me some adjustments I can make to the performance management chart and I find that chart with the power distribution chart to be the most helpful. As I start to see the buckets getting higher and moving to the right I know I am heading in the right direction...

I can always loose a few pounds which should not kill my power output but bring up the watts/kg real easy and not as much of the pain!

-js

I guess these little power things reveal the truth even when we don't want to acknowledge it.

I am a fifth year Cat 4 from the East Coast. For the most part, I am pack-fill. I have no desire to improve my climbing or time trialing. I just want to be able to mix things up a little bit more in the races. I love crits for many different reasons. Mostly because they are fast, wild and dangerous. Also, because they are easy and I don't have to train much for them. I've developed pretty good set of skills that usually allows me to do better than would be expected given my typical fitness level.

Despite my affinity for crits, my power profile is upward sloping. Yep. To my shame, my time-trialing abilities far exceed my sprinting abilities. Not that I am a good time-trialist. My 20 minute FTP is at the lower end of Coggan's Cat 4 range. My one minute power is low cat 5 and my 5 second power is pretty much in the untrained range.

I know what it takes to get my short term power where I need it to be in order survive the races. I just focus a bit on intervals of two minutes or less with tons of micro-intervals so I get used to recovering quickly. I've been doing this for years and it does the job. However, I realize that it is probably a short term fix and my real problem is lack of overall power given my relatively low 20 minute FTP and the fact that I train about 3 to 4 hours a week. It also doesn't help that I did very little base training this winter due to surgery.

If this were not mid-season, I would probably start doing tons of SST and then layer in some shorter intervals. However, I want to see some results before the end of the year.

So, I'd like to try to balance my admitted shortcut of focusing on short intervals with a desire to actually build some deeper fitness and power. I am planning on trying to do a sort of microwave training progam for the next month that looks sort of like this:

Saturday: Hard tempo for two hours
Sunday: Hard tempo or race
Monday: 2 or 3 x 20 minutes
Tuesday: 4 x 8 minutes
Wednesday: Two minute intervals or Micro Intervals
Thursday: Off
Friday: Off

Any thoughts on what might work better? By the way, I respond well to block training and this workload is doable for me.

Thanks

 

[Steve_B]

Looking at your training, category, and problems, I would say that obviously do not respond well to block training.

He hasn't precisely laid out how he has trained, only how he proposes to train. Maybe I'm stupid today but I'm not sure why you would say that.

 

[nmcgann]

.... My one minute power is low cat 5 and my 5 second power is pretty much in the untrained range.

That's quite good - my 5min and FT is at the top of cat4, my 1min is in the centre of "untrained" and I haven't even got my 5s on the chart at all

So muscular strength has no part in cycling performance?

Neil

 

[swampy1970]

That's quite good - my 5min and FT is at the top of cat4, my 1min is in the centre of "untrained" and I haven't even got my 5s on the chart at all

So muscular strength has no part in cycling performance?

Neil

Odd... back in 93, I was on a booth at a science fair at the University of Manchester and they had a Kingcycle rig (what the BCF used - industrial looking trainer hooked upto a PC for power metering) and they did several "tests" during the day. For some of the shorter tests they had Joe Public get on one of the bikes with toe straps on and they were getting higher numbers for 20 seconds (some over 1100watts in dress shoes, pants and shirts) than we were. One guy puked his lunch all over the hallway going to the next display about 5 minutes after getting of bike.

That was the only day I got to ride in BCF kit, representing the BCF....

 

[Malkmus]

That's quite good - my 5min and FT is at the top of cat4, my 1min is in the centre of "untrained" and I haven't even got my 5s on the chart at all

So muscular strength has no part in cycling performance?

Neil

Damn. You caught me exagerating my abilities. I am not on the chart yet as well.

 

[velomanct]

If you Can jump 12 in, you Can do 20w/kg for 5s. anyone who doesn't believe me, PM me. my keyboard is shot, will reply Mon.

 

[john979]

That's quite good - my 5min and FT is at the top of cat4, my 1min is in the centre of "untrained" and I haven't even got my 5s on the chart at all

So muscular strength has no part in cycling performance?

Neil

Neuromuscular power and muscular strength are two distinctly different concepts.

Keep in mind that an individual's power profile has a strong genetic component and training can only do so much. For example, Chris Boardman is alleged to have never broken 1000 watts.

I have very poor neuromuscular power. While I do not perform much true L7 training, I do a lot of 30-second interval training, yet I never seen any significant increase in my 30 second power.

 

[Malkmus]

I've heard that before about Boardman. I guess that means he can only jump about eight inches.

 

[velomanct]

Why do you roadies even care about 5 sec power? Seriously, it has such LITTLE to do with road racing performance.

If you have trouble producing 800watts for 5 sec, and you aren't an 80lb 12 yr old girl, then you sure must have trouble climbing a flight of stairs briskly.

I'm talking like this because I believe all of you have the potential to vastly improve your neuromuscular power. Since you are endurance athletes to begin with, your neuromuscular power is going to be garbage. You have SOO much room for improvement.

Get out there, and hit the f'n pedals hard like you have never done before. No, don't just push it, I mean tear the f'n bike apart. I don't care if you have 10in arms and 18in thighs, doesn't matter. Sprinting is so mental, there is such a wide range of performance for what I can do, depending on how I feel and a lot of other factors. But if you don't give it 110% and go apesheet on the bike, of course your 5 sec will suck.
I see a lot of 'older' guys out there, and just by obversing them on the bike it's no wonder many of you have trouble with sprinting. Endurance cycling teaches you to be SLOW, not eXplosive.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Why do we even care about 5 sec power?

BTW, I bet Boardman could of gone over 1000w if he had the slightest interest in it, which he didn't. Why would he?

 

[velomanct]

Power (hp) = [(height of stairs (ft) / Time to climb (s) ) * weight (lb)] / 550

So, take a 12 foot high staircase. If you weigh 150lbs and can complete the staircase in 3 seconds, that = 813 watts. If you take 2 or 3 stairs at a time, this 4ft/sec shouldn't be hard to do for 3 seconds, or 5 seconds.

That's just another way to visualize power output. Of course if you already have a powermeter, then there's no need.