AWC vs FTP

Squint said:

Are they mutually exclusive to a certain extent?

Good question!

From a physiological perspective, I would say that should tend to be, as having too many slow twitch fibers would likely compromise your anaerobic capacity while at the same time enhancing your functional threshold power. That said, there will always be exceptions, such as my wife: everything points to her having a high percentage of slow twitch fibers (e.g., low neuromuscular power, decline in AEPF as a function of CPV that is comparable to mine, etc.), yet her anaerobic work capacity is/was phenomenal (almost 400 J/kg, vs. ~250 J/kg for the average untrained man).

Punching my 5 and 20 min tests into the Monod CP spreadsheet gives me an AWC of around 400 J/kg. It might be higher now that I've done some L5/6 workouts but I haven't tested recently. I'm pretty sure my neuromuscular power is terrible since I've never done better than 1000W in a sprint and my 1 min power isn't as high as the Monod formula predicts.

I'm just concerned that I may have a lot of fast twitch fiber which would make it difficult for me to raise my FTP, which is what I need to do to get to the next level.

acoggan said:

Good question!

From a physiological perspective, I would say that should tend to be, as having too many slow twitch fibers would likely compromise your anaerobic capacity while at the same time enhancing your functional threshold power. That said, there will always be exceptions, such as my wife: everything points to her having a high percentage of slow twitch fibers (e.g., low neuromuscular power, decline in AEPF as a function of CPV that is comparable to mine, etc.), yet her anaerobic work capacity is/was phenomenal (almost 400 J/kg, vs. ~250 J/kg for the average untrained man).