Power Profiling -- why does my 1M power suck?

shawndoggy said:

OK so here's the thing... in WKO+, using the magic ego crusher button, my power profile shows that my 5s, 5min, and FT powers are all within about three rows of each other (I anticipate that FT is somewhat understated by 5-10%, but I've not undertaken a full-blown 1 hour test in quite some time).

But my 1M power has only gotten ON THE CHARTS once in the last six months. Meaning that I'm completely untrained? The power 411 entry on power training suggests that this is highly unlikely (a V pattern). So what am I doing wrong and what can I do to bring my 1:00 power in line with the rest of my power profile?

I would've liked to ask for a bit more details but here is a question to start it out with:

- Did you completely go all out for the 1 minute test? When I say all out - I mean by an truly explosive jump with a sprint afterwards, then you try to hang in till it's over.

If you can post more details about your powerprofile, that'd be great as well.

To see a typical 1 km effort, here's the summary: thresholdpower.comcs dougnorthcott.htmlOpen ↗

WKO File: thresholdpower.com091606A.wkoOpen ↗

Robin

shawndoggy said:

OK so here's the thing... in WKO+, using the magic ego crusher button, my power profile shows that my 5s, 5min, and FT powers are all within about three rows of each other (I anticipate that FT is somewhat understated by 5-10%, but I've not undertaken a full-blown 1 hour test in quite some time).

But my 1M power has only gotten ON THE CHARTS once in the last six months. Meaning that I'm completely untrained? The power 411 entry on power training suggests that this is highly unlikely (a V pattern). So what am I doing wrong and what can I do to bring my 1:00 power in line with the rest of my power profile?

The first question that I would ask is, have you really gone all-out for 1 min from a complete rest during the last 6 mo? Such efforts are obviously quite painful, so most people avoid them whenever possible (I know that I do!). 🙂

(BTW, note that the "...from a complete rest..." is important, i.e., you can't necessarily count on routine hard efforts during races to reveal your true 1 min power.)

nrhorwitz said:

I would've liked to ask for a bit more details but here is a question to start it out with:

- Did you completely go all out for the 1 minute test?

😄 😄 😄

shawndoggy said:

... So what am I doing wrong and what can I do to bring my 1:00 power in line with the rest of my power profile?

Have you been doing L6 work or races that push you to maximum anaerobic efforts of a minute or more?

The problem with the power profiler is that it only shows you AP for efforts you've actually done. If you don't do any one hour TTs, you don't get a good FTP entry, if you don't do L6 work or don't give it your absolutely best effort for a full minute, you don't get a decent 1 minute entry. I wasn't doing any L7 work over the winter when I was stuck indoors on the trainer. My MMP and profile entries for 5 seconds to a couple of minutes sucked. My MMP topped out at about 400 watts and the profiler showed I was a completely untrained sprinter. Then I got back outside and added sprints to my week. Hey, I'm suddenly back up in the Cat IIIs for NMP! The point is the profiler only shows what you've actually done, not what you're capable of doing. If your one minute power numbers are really low then it sounds like you've got to bust out some really hard one minute efforts.

The cool thing is you can look at the profiler either as a way to see how well you're doing or when you fall low on the chart as a way to see what you need to be doing. If you're very low for a particular duration it probably means you really need to do some work for that duration. Whether that's because you haven't done any work at that level or because you need help there, either way it helps you figure out what to add to your weekly schedule. You can think of it as your skills profile or your electronic conscience 🙂

-Dave
P.S. or what those guys said......

nrhorwitz said:

- Did you completely go all out for the 1 minute test? When I say all out - I mean by an truly explosive jump with a sprint afterwards, then you try to hang in till it's over.

This is a good question and I guess that the answer is NO -- all of the numbers on my power profile have been generated through training and validated in race type situations (I'm usually good for within 50w of my max 5s power (1190w / 16.99w/K) at the end of a race, I typically see my max 5M power (350w / 5w/k) in a road race or hard group ride or crit, my FT on the profile (280w / 4w/K) is based on an actual 60m trainer run, though I suspect it to be understated (on the power profile, not my FTP) by about 20w).

For 5s and FT powers, these are by definition all out efforts. On my 5m power I can typically hold within 10w on 5x5 efforts (does this indicate that 5m power may be understated because I haven't gone out with the specific intent to set a 5m pr?). But the best I've seen on 1m power under my "regular training" conditions is 420w/6w/K. Couch potato territory.

If the profile is intended to reflect a 1m ride-puke-go home test (which results in a type of effort I never see in a race) I should be able to see around 600w/8.5w/K?

shawndoggy said:

If the profile is intended to reflect a 1m ride-puke-go home test (which results in a type of effort I never see in a race) I should be able to see around 600w/8.5w/K?

Maybe, let's just give it a try 🙂 If you can get back us with the results, I'm sure we all would love to see how this works out.

I know when I do 1 minute tests, I really want to get off my bike afterwards and throw up.

acoggan said:

(BTW, note that the "...from a complete rest..." is important, i.e., you can't necessarily count on routine hard efforts during races to reveal your true 1 min power.)

If the 1m profile reflects a power output that never sees practical use, what's the value of knowing that number? Like what's my 1m power doing single leg drills... who cares? Not trying to rag on you but trying to understand the value of testing in this way....

shawndoggy said:

If the 1m profile reflects a power output that never sees practical use, what's the value of knowing that number? Like what's my 1m power doing single leg drills... who cares? Not trying to rag on you but trying to understand the value of testing in this way....

Coggan probably has a more detailed answer for this but I can think of few things:

1. Kilo Trackie
2. A very long sprint? Take off from the group and break away with about 1 km to go.

shawndoggy said:

If the 1m profile reflects a power output that never sees practical use, what's the value of knowing that number? Like what's my 1m power doing single leg drills... who cares? Not trying to rag on you but trying to understand the value of testing in this way....

One way to think of it is this: even if you can only access XX% of your maximal 1 min power during a race (due to not being able to "launch" from a complete rest"😉, XX% of a bigger number is still a bigger number than XX% of a smaller number.

(Of course, the above is in addition to the usefulness of "fresh" 1 min power as a predictor of, e.g., kilometer or pursuit performance.)

shawndoggy said:

... trying to understand the value of testing in this way....

In addition to the practical examples just given, it represents a way to do repeatable tests. It's hard to measure the mean or median power typical cyclists could put out for various durations. It's a lot easier to measure and tabulate their max powers. Unless you're doing 40k TTs you probably won't race with an AP at your FTP. But having a high FTP is still real useful and a good measure of your ability to ride fast during a race. Same thing for all the other durations. You might not need your max 5 minute power in a flat RR, but it's still a good indication of what you can do for 3 to 4 minutes or how well you can go at 7 minutes at some percentage of your best 5 minute power.

1 minute power is the same. The test and the tables attempt to record your best possible 1 minute power but unless you're riding track or taking long flyers you probably won't see your best in racing very often. It's still a good test metric and good way to characterize your longer anaerobic efforts. Trying to estimate and tabulate folk's best useful efforts while a bit tired would be very hard to do.

Andy probably has a better answer but that's my 2 cents worth....
-Dave

shawndoggy said:

If the 1m profile reflects a power output that never sees practical use, what's the value of knowing that number?

Because it's a piece of the 'shape' or profile when compared to the other numbers. Not that you'd typically pace at that wattage during a race, but it gives insight into one's physiology, capability, or state of training when compared to the other columns.

As you said, that one column might mean the difference between a 'V', flat, or '^' profile, and the implications that go with each.

nrhorwitz said:

Maybe, let's just give it a try 🙂 If you can get back us with the results, I'm sure we all would love to see how this works out.

I know when I do 1 minute tests, I really want to get off my bike afterwards and throw up.

OK, OK, so I put the bike on the trainer and did my homework this morning. I had the PT CPU on current watts on the first attempt and I think this messed me up mentally -- power started to wane after about 40 seconds and I gave up (still got 514w / 7.34w/K / Cat 5 for a minute).

Decided to try again after softpedaling at 100w for 9 minutes. Turned off the current watts display on the second attempt. Again felt blown at about 40 seconds, but stood up and grunted out what I could on the "sprint" and managed to complete an entire minute. Ended up with 590w / 8.28w/K / Cat 3 for one minute power.

So now all 4 entries are within 4 rows of each other. After a winter of working on SST, 5M and FT are higher than my sprint, but that's a complete switch from years past, when my sprint was my strong point and my aerobic efforts were my weak spot.

In short, my 1M power doesn't suck as bad as I thought it did, but half an hour later I still feel like puking.

shawndoggy said:

...

In short, my 1M power doesn't suck as bad as I thought it did, but half an hour later I still feel like puking.

Good work, Shawn! And I'm sure you could do better if you were outdoors, particularly giving it full-stick up a hill.

You've got me curious what I could do as a rested, 1m training effort - my best is 8.4 w/kg which came from an effort I did for giggles at the end of hard training ride. Race efforts have so far been more like 7.8. Personally, I think 5s and 5m w/kg which are the two durations on the profile I think I actually max out in race efforts.

peterpen said:

Good work, Shawn! And I'm sure you could do better if you were outdoors, particularly giving it full-stick up a hill.

Thanks! I've pretty much focused exclusively on threshold power this year and have just started working in L5 stuff into my routine, so there's clearly some ways to go. I'd figured on "racing into" these sorts of efforts (group rides, training races, etc.), but that seems like it may not be the best idea. Looks like the top end will take some honest to goodness interval work too.

Off topic -- I saw your copperopolis result and would love to hear your take (from the perspective of someone with a mere mortal's #s racing with the bigs).

SGP

shawndoggy said:

OK, OK, so I put the bike on the trainer and did my homework this morning. I had the PT CPU on current watts on the first attempt and I think this messed me up mentally -- power started to wane after about 40 seconds and I gave up (still got 514w / 7.34w/K / Cat 5 for a minute).

Decided to try again after softpedaling at 100w for 9 minutes. Turned off the current watts display on the second attempt. Again felt blown at about 40 seconds, but stood up and grunted out what I could on the "sprint" and managed to complete an entire minute. Ended up with 590w / 8.28w/K / Cat 3 for one minute power.

So now all 4 entries are within 4 rows of each other. After a winter of working on SST, 5M and FT are higher than my sprint, but that's a complete switch from years past, when my sprint was my strong point and my aerobic efforts were my weak spot.

In short, my 1M power doesn't suck as bad as I thought it did, but half an hour later I still feel like puking.

Congratulations! I have a hunch it will go up even more when you give this area some attention.

About puking, that happens to everybody. If you don't feel like puking - you're not doing it too hard. 😄

My 1 was sucking also. I never did an all out 1 till the other day. I have never felt so [censored], what an effort. After the 1 Min I unsnapped my helmet strap gasping for air and wanted to fall off the bike. 1 min never seemed so damn long. I felt nauseous for hours after that. I rather do a 1 hour TT then a 1 min lol.

zaskar said:

My 1 was sucking also. I never did an all out 1 till the other day. I have never felt so [censored], what an effort. After the 1 Min I unsnapped my helmet strap gasping for air and wanted to fall off the bike. 1 min never seemed so damn long. I felt nauseous for hours after that. I rather do a 1 hour TT then a 1 min lol.

Now you know why a person has to be nuts to be a Kilo specialist or do them regularly.🙂

richvoss said:

Now you know why a person has to be nuts to be a Kilo specialist or do them regularly.🙂

I'd like to introduce you all to Stephen Hill who's called "a sick puppy" by a former World Champion, Gord Singleton. Stephen Hill once ruptured a disc in his back but kept on squatting with lighter weights, of course. So the pain he experiences in the kilo events pale in comparison.

His training plans are legendary and I've benefitted a great deal from it.

shawndoggy said:

..
Off topic -- I saw your copperopolis result and would love to hear your take (from the perspective of someone with a mere mortal's #s racing with the bigs).

SGP

Sorry, missed this - can't figure out why I don't get email notifications of replies? 😕
Anyway, I basically had a bad day at Copper - first time up the main climb people crashed right in front of me, forcing me to unclip and stop completely. Was in a short-lived break leading into the second time up the climb, got swarmed halfway up, then some knucklehead dropped his chain right in front of me and I had to unclip again! 😠 By the time I got rolling, the leaders had punched it over the top. Worked too hard in the chase group and ended up getting dropped, rode the last lap solo, cramping like a b!tch.

It didn't feel like the Masters 1/2/3's are that much faster, but the attacks are constant and the pace is much less forgiving of mistakes/ mishaps. Also, I need to be better with rationing my efforts - I got too frisky on the first lap chasing stuff, popping off the front, etc. and paid for it later. Them mutant geezers is wiley - and they show no mercy! :p