Power output/ weight Reference

is this the chart you have seen?
http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/power/power_profiling.html

because
fair ~ cat 5
moderate ~cat 4
good ~ cat 3
very good ~ cat 2
excellcent ~ cat 1 / Div 3 pro
exceptional ~ Div 1/2 pro
world class ~ world class ;-)

Andy removed the categories from the table because he says it was not meant to be used in that way. But it still gives you a good idea. btw, this is for male cyclists.

Thanks-the chart which I've seen relates power output in W/Kg in various groups of cyclists. I think this is fascinating but I would like to see the data on which it is based. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it might be published somewhere. A reference to the literature is what I'm after. I hope it's not just anecdotal information.

gholl said:

Thanks-the chart which I've seen relates power output in W/Kg in various groups of cyclists. I think this is fascinating but I would like to see the data on which it is based. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it might be published somewhere. A reference to the literature is what I'm after. I hope it's not just anecdotal information.

Andy Coggan, the brain-dad of the chart(and plenty of other cycling related research), wants you to read: http://cyclingpeakssoftware.com/profile.html (based on his reply on another thread). ;-)

Since he's around the forum, you might ask him for a more detailed rundown of the data or any articles he's published relating to the chart project. Perhaps something can be found on the watttage mailling list over at topica.com?

Thanks "toa"-I've also been informed by private email that the data I've seen was in fact prepared by Dr. Coggan; however, I'm led to believe that the data is anecdotal and has never been published or been the subject of scientific review. However, I may well be wrong. I'd very much like to reach Dr. Coggan but don't know how. His profile on this website indicates he doesn't accept email.
I think it's important to clarify the real scientific status and meaning of the data used to compile this Power output/weight chart since apparently it's been widely disseminated and cited.
Don't you agree?

If you've read the explanatory material accompanying the table, you know that it based on an "anchor point" approach. Specifically, the very top of each column was set based on the known powers of current/recent world champions/world record holders, while the middle of the lowest range was set to what your typical healthy but untrained individual can generate. The rest of the values were then simply spread equally in between. Since data on elite women have been harder to come by, their columns were fixed at 85% of the men's values (although a slightly higher value might be more appropriate). Anyway, it hasn't been published in any scientific journal (and in fact the people who shared their data with me probably wouldn't want it to be, since that would likely require providing more hints to their identities). However, I wouldn't say that it hasn't undergone any sort of peer review, as it's been disseminated fairly widely among coaches in various countries, and the feedback I have received has invariably been quite positive. I therefore believe that the data and concepts are valid and the tables are quite useful, although I recognize that convincing somebody who questions these conclusions might be difficult.

If you have any specific questions or problems with the table, please let me know, as I will be happy to address them.

Thanks Dr. Coggan-I think I now know what this chart is about. You've taken some "anchor values", in this case Power/ Weight ratios from male cyclists of varying abilities, ages, etc. and extrapolated a chart. Neither the anchor values, how they were measured, or the identities of the measured subjects have been made known. Furthermore, this data has never been published or peer reviewed-(to protect the identities of some of the cyclists).
I would imagine that some people might have "a problem" with the chart since, among other things, the selection of the anchor values is too vague to have any general utility, e.g. what were the ages of the subjects?
Another "problem" might be the entire idea of using the anchor method at all.
Seems a more scientific approach to the real relationship between power and weight in cyclists is in order. Hopefully, in the form of a paper that could be published and peer reviewed.

I agree, a database approach might be more accurate. However, I wouldn't necessarily consider collecting and publishing such descriptive data to be more "scientific", since there really isn't any hypothesis to test or general principles to be illuminated. I therefore don't really see how you would get this sort of data into a journal even if that was your goal (and I review enough papers and sit on enough editorial boards that I think I have a pretty good feel for what is/isn't publishable in a quality journal). Perhaps more to the point, nobody I know presently has access to enough data to really utilize such an approach, and I was interested in putting a tool in the hands of coaches and athletes sooner rather than later. If you don't find it useful, that's okay - lots of other people do (including a number of elite coaches), and that's enough to satisfy me.

BTW, all of the data are for young individuals, with, as I indicated before, the top of each range based on SRM data from current or recent world champions or world record holders. The bottom "anchor point", OTOH, was based on data from a wide variety of studies published in the scientific literature, with the actual means used to measure power varying widely - however, the literature in this area is so vast that it is hard to imagine that any significant bias or error could have influenced the results.

Dr. Coggan-Thanks for your prompt and forthright reply. I fully understand and sympathize with what I have now seen and understand to be your efforts to give a more objective data based approach to bicyle-race training. I also feel that some more usable guidelines are necessary for power-based training. I suspect that the information and guidelines we have now are quite primitive and need improvement (I suspect you agree).
Like you I think that data based guidelines are a critical step in the evolution of objective training goals.
While you inform us that no power output data base currently exists, I think that the construction of such a base is critical. Wise choices have to be made in data categorization, and that data must include power, weight, age, sex and many other parameters (perhaps hemoglobin and other chemical parameters might be included).
It seems to me that there are many hypotheses that can be tested-what's the relationship between age and power output, power output and any number of hematologic and biochemical parameters, etc. I see quite a few doctoral papers here-don't you agree?

Assuming such a database existed, you could undoubtly use it to mine for relationships. Personally, however, I would find that approach rather ungratifying, because as a scientist I have a strong mechanistic focus. Moreover, I think if you dug into the scientific literature a bit you'd find that many of the questions that seem to in the forefront of your mind have already been answered, at least to a large degree. For example, it is well-established that many physiological abilities decline at a rate of about 1% per year starting around age 30, and at least on a population basis there's really no reason to expect that cycling power would be any different. Similarly, it is already fairly clear that, at least in healthy (and non-EPO-using) individuals, there is either no or even a slight inverse relationship between VO2max (and hence sustainable power) and hemoglobin/hematocrit, but a strong positive relationship between VO2max and total body hemoglobin content (i.e., hemoglobin concentration times total blood volume).

Anyway, as I indicated before, if you or anybody else has any problems or objections to the tables (beyond the theoretical, that is), I'd be happy to hear about them* - they are obviously always going to be a bit of a "work in progress", although at the same time that doesn't mean that they can't be useful now.

*In particular, I continue to seek solid data on the performance abilities of elite female competitors, but so far people like, e.g., Sarah Ulmer have been unwilling to share. I did, however, hear recently from an elite coach who reported that the power of one of his pro women was "off the charts", so we're currently working through why that might be/what (if anything) needs to be done about it.

BTW, have you ever seen Dr. Jack Daniels' 'Vdot' tables for rating/equating running pace over varying distances? They were part of the inspiration for the 'power profiling' tables I put together, and are directly comparable, at least in the sense that 1) they aren't based on any formal scientific research and have never been published in a peer-reviewed publication but 2) are still found to be very useful by runners/running coaches.