High Short Term Power, Low FTP

spredy

Hi there,

I know there are a million power threads, haha, and I've probably read most of them, but I don't recall seeing one that addressed this issue. Actually, there may have been one, but they didn't reach much of a conclusion.

Anyway, I've noticed high-ish power numbers for my shorter durations, 3 minutes at 430 watts at 70kg being my best example to date (although I still feel I currently have a little more to give). 5 minutes around the 390 mark, although we don't have any hills that take 5 minutes round here, and so power was lost on the descents. In terms of longer durations I've had NP for an hour around 280, but have only ever managed 265 watts in terms of actual power, which seems kind of low. Oh, and I have no sprint, neuromuscularly I have very little going on, lolol.

My question is, is the decent short term power indicative of potential in long term power (I've been cycling just under a year, some people say it takes a while to build a good engine) or is it just that I may be more anaerobically inclined? And if the latter is the case, what types of events would you recommend, as I would like to start racing and obviously competing to my strengths.

I know that's quite rambly, but any help would be brilliant, thanks!

jibberjim

What's your 1 minute power, (and 50second or 80 second, wherever a serious kink around 1 minute is on your MMP as you probably don't have a good 1 minute test)?

You would currently be very low on the range of percentages between 5 minute and 60 minute power, that could be because of a very high 1 minute power - in which case you can road race and smash up everyone on any of the 1 minute drag finishes. Or it could be because you have long term adaptations missing in which case you'll likely be able to get significantly higher 1 hour power.

JayKosta

Do you train with longish duration sessions? Perhaps continuous 30-50 mile rides.
Intervals and hill training will certainly build strength and power.
To build long term endurance, you need to include some long duration training sessions into your routine.

And yes, physiology and genetics exert a lot of influence.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

spredy

I've never actually tested it, or ever really gone crazy for a minute straight, but according to Golden Cheetah, the best I've done is 542 watts, so 7.42 watts per kg? Not great.

And duration wise I do all sorts from 2 X 20 intervals (in an attempt to bring that FTP up) some longer 2 or 3 hour tempo rides, and more recently as it's been getting warmer some 4 hour high end endurance/low end tempo rides, all continuous as I'm not a fan of stopping, I find it difficult to get going again, haha.

The first time I used my power meter I hit 306 watts for 20 minutes, and have struggled to get near that since, where as the 3-5 minute and 2 hour + durations have just gone up in power continuously. Which raises another question of mine.

Peak 60 minute power = 265
Peak 90 minute power = 257

How can they be so close?! Maybe this is normal to just have different strengths and weaknesses, but there doesn't seem to be any pattern to mine, haha.

BrandonA

The book "Training And Racing With a Power Meter" might be of interest to you.

They have a charge which lets you plot your 5 second, 1 minute, 5 minute and FTP so you can see how you rate on all the different durations. Once you know how you rate for each you can determine if you type of rider you are. The options are "All-Rounder", "Sprinter", "Time Trialist, Climber or Excellent Steady-State Rider" and "Pursuiter".

From what you've stated, I imagine you are possibly more of a "Sprinter" than say a "Time Trialist".

Myself, I have quite a high 20-60 minute power but am crap at the lower ones. On the chart I mentioned I am in the middle of Cat2 for FTP but unranked for the lower ones. I don't race so I'm happy to be able to churn out mile after mile of fast pace. You however would whoop me on a sprint.

Grill

I'm heavier than you and my FTP is around 240w with no sprint and rubbish peak, and I still put down half decent times in TT's. Just get aero and power isn't as much an issue.

jibberjim

BrandonA wrote:

From what you've stated, I imagine you are possibly more of a "Sprinter" than say a "Time Trialist".

As described he's a pure pursuiter... but I suspect it's more to do with lack of testing at short durations and lack of training / motivation / conditioning or something over the longer durations. As that 1 minute is pretty woeful for someone with a 3 minute only 120% of it, but that's why I asked for where the kinks in the power profile are as they are indications of what actually was tested.

It may also be that an uphill is required for the OP to put out any watts, and there's no long uphill, find a mountain and he might have a 330watt ftp no problem.

That 60/90 is not particularly odd, most people don't decay much as long as they can keep eating and are motivated to do it. What are the NP's for the longer durations?

spredy

jibberjim wrote:

What are the NP's for the longer durations?

I can't find a way to rank them by NP in Golden Cheetah, so I'll just pick some I think are my recent better ones.

1 hour = 270 NP
2 hours = 259 NP
2 hour 41 minutes = 237 NP
3 hours 50 minutes = 230 NP

And sorry, what did you mean by 'kinks in the power profile'?

spredy

Oh, and:

90 minutes = 269 NP

jibberjim

Look at the critical power chart, in fact, just post a picture of it...

spredy

http://edscarrow.tumblr.com/image/115138963175

jgsi

From my angle , I dont see what you are concerned about for taking part in racing be it crits or road.

jibberjim

spredy wrote:

http://edscarrow.tumblr.com/image/115138963175

If that's unsmoothed, then you either don't have much data at all and few max efforts, or your power meter has a few over-readings which have heavily influenced the short durations such that the swamp them.

Either way, I think you need to go out and do a few more max efforts at various durations to see. Does your time up that 3 minute climb match the times others do, at the moment it's looking a bit of an outlier, with your other durations all making more sense, but that one say 20% lower?

jibberjim

JGSI wrote:

From my angle , I dont see what you are concerned about for taking part in racing be it crits or road.

Certainly, even if that is an outlier, the other durations suggest you have plenty enough power to do some racing.

spredy

I have 115 rides loaded into GC, so I assume there's enough data there for it to work from?

My current time up that climb is 42 seconds faster than the previous KOM, it's a reasonably contested hill too, with 894 different people on the leaderboard, so I don't think it's my PM reading excessively high, because I did try pretty hard. Could 3 minute power just be my forte? :L

jibberjim

With 115 it looks more like an outlier... but as you say the strava time suggests not (894 isn't that many... but probably enough) I think you need to do more 8, 6, 4 and 2 minute max efforts, to start seeing some kinks in the power profile - kinks appear where you do a max effort for a particular duration - because it's unlikely that as well as a 5 minute effort, it's unlikely that you'll do a 5:10 and a 5:20 etc. so there'll be a steep fall off.

See Dan Connelly's graph here, with various kinks highlighted that were his max efforts


You don't have those in the graph you showed - that's odd and can be caused by an overreading pm on a hard effort (as it's also better than your 4 minute max effort that's real even though you weren't doing much for the other minute) but it could also be caused by you not doing many hard efforts.

spredy

http://edscarrow.tumblr.com/image/115154404190

I think the curve I sent you was the computer's prediction of what my best performance at each duration could be, this is a plot of my actual best efforts, and isn't smooth. Although I will take your advice and do some max efforts at a range of durations, and see where the decay occurs.

spredy

Also, I know in well populated areas you can have thousands of people on a segment, but we live rather rurally, so you can have only 20 people to a segment in places, so relatively speaking it's a well contested segment, haha :P

colinsmith123

OP, as another has said, the book "Training And Racing With a Power Meter" might be of interest to you.

Fill this in (co-author's website) and you can get an idea of where your perceived weaknesses are. Yes, work on your weaknesses, but don't lose sight of your strengths, especially when racing.

http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/FP.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1