Odd and Embarrassing Question re: Power improvement

germanboxers said:

3.) Should I only focus on FTP and VO2 max improvement this summer or should I try to improve my sprint as well?
4.) Do I have a power profile that could be competitive in non hilly cat 4 races?

First off, THANK YOU for quitting smoking.

Second, your power is pretty good, especially in the sprints, but your w/kg is a little low so you should focus on sheding any excess weight.

I lost 14kg since last year and i'm holding at a steady 77kg without even being a picky eater, if my deep fried butt can do it so can you. The fastest way to do that is stick to FTP workouts, and longer endurance rides with maybe one vo2max workout a week. As you lose weight that "snap" will just come back to your sprints naturally cause of the lower weight. The other key i found that worked for me was riding as much as possible, 6 days a week, even if 3 of those rides were recovery rides at 140w, my butt was still in the saddle for 50mins burning off the calories and optimizing my legs and body over all for cycling.

I'm no coach, and maybe i'm wrong, but to me it makes sense to take things gradually, losing weight, both excess muscle in the upper body, and body fat takes quite a few months, it makes sense to get started on that now, then focus on the top end power once you're ready for it. COULD you go out and just start doing vo2 intervals, sure. Would you get good at them? probably. Will it be unecessarily hard on your body, i'd say yes.

As it stands, you'd probably fair pretty well in a cat4 race even if you didn't specifically train for it (lv5 work), although i think you'd probably fit into master A/B, unless that's only in canada. Maybe keep your eye open for races that also have TT's, great way to get in a good FTP workout.

Krazyderek, thanks for the encouragement. Wow, losing 14kg is a lot!! Congratulations…that takes a great deal of discipline. How long did it take to lose the first 7kg?

I’m not sure what my healthy/fast cycling weight could be? In my mid-20’s I weighed 84 kg, 1.8m height, and was at a healthy bodyfat (ab-muscles evident through stomach fat). I haven’t lifted weights since I was 21, so I assume my muscle mass should be less now? I would love to get to 80kg, but don’t know if my frame would support this low of weight?

I will likely focus on Tempo and Threshold workouts when I’m feeling the need to push myself and ride longer distances otherwise. I agree, Krazyderek…it’s probably a good idea for me to get lots of miles in for the weight loss.

Not sure I’m really ready for cat 4 yet. Last year I raced twice in cat4/5, once in a fast crit (no sharp turns so really fast, but more steady than normal crit… 40kph avg speed) and then again in a rolling hills road race. I finished 11/35 (sprinting from the back of the pack) in the crit, but got dropped in the road race fairly early. Last year I did not recover well. This makes sense being a smoker as Andy Coggan said in another thread…something to the effect of recovery being entirely aerobic, relying on the bodies ability to transport and use oxygen to create depleted ATP?

I would really like to get my FTP up to 300w by the end of summer if that is possible? I’m probably at 235w right now in a detrained state. That equates to a year-to-year absolute power increase of 11% (reasonable); however, the increase in power-to-weight ratio from detrained (235w)/91kg now to 300w/84kg is like 41%. Is that even possible??

Thanks,

Jordan

germanboxers said:

Krazyderek, thanks for the encouragement. Wow, losing 14kg is a lot!! Congratulations…that takes a great deal of discipline. How long did it take to lose the first 7kg?

I seem to remember changing my diet almost over night, and it's pretty easy if you make the right substitutions. I wouldn't say so much discipline as a choice was made on my part and if you beleive in that choice it's really not hard at all.

Starting in march:
Fat Free yogourt instead of ice cream, vector and just right instead of corn puff's and fruit loops. A bowl of babby carrots instead of a bowl of popcorn. I also started baking alot of food instead of deep frying it. And pasta quickly replaced many meals that ended with the words "and fries".

I think the first 7kg melted off in something like 3 months, if that by june i was down to 184ish. the following 7kg took another 3 or four months. By sept i was down to 169lbs in time for a end of season local century ride.

Then i had a little run in with a car and that kinda side tracked my winter trainning, i spent a month or two healing, then 3 months messing around trying to get a new bike and get it working.

I wanted to get down to 160 this year but it's getting harder and harder to lose weight and i seem stuck at 170lbs, especially with protein suplements making my legs bigger and bigger.

I thought i was still doing pretty good at 170 until i looked up the stats on some of the pro rides/cat2 riders i trainned with today, and they weigh in at around 140-150lbs :eek: being the same height as me. So i can understand that build certainly comes into play, some people just have big or thick bones, or vise versa.

What you're saying about recovery and oxygen is exactly why i personaly think you'd benefit from taking things gradual and focusing more on developing your aerobic engine, not only to help shed excess weight, but also to help improve lung and heart efficiency. The longer you spend trainning at that upper limit of your aerobic capacity the better. And if you're not going to be racing this seems to make even more sense to me.

Anyways, getting back to the POWER aspect of things...
Some of my favorite workouts i found helped me tone down this spring were 2x20m lv4, 4x12m upper end lv4 boarderline lv5, 6x5m lv5, and of course the all mighty recovery ride. Oh, and a special ride i also think i read somewhere i like to call "criss cross" where you spend 2min 10 or 20w below your FTP, then 2 min 10 or 20w above your FTP, do that with no rest between for 20-40 mins non stop, pretty brutal. I also found that spinning on the rollers at a higher cadence then usualy say like 100, or 105 had a bit more of an impact on my cardio system vs, 90 or 95 which focused more on just making my legs burn. And of course spin to warm up and cool down for at least 5 mins, i like to use 90-100w to spin in to get my legs moving before i do anything on the bike.

As for % increase in power, i really don't know i've only been playing with my power meter since march, i'm kind of curious to see where my ftp ends up come sept. I still think that toning down would be much more valuable and help you get the best bang for buck out of the power you can already produce.

Again this is just my opinion i'm no coach, or health professional.