Want to ride like a pro? Concentrate on watts, not weight

[nickyboy]

I happened upon a Strava file uploaded yesterday by top pro, Ben Swift. He has subsequently deleted it but the numbers were frightening.
He rode around the Peak District; about 250km at an average speed of 37.9km/hr with about 3,500m of climbing.

What I found amazing was that he averaged about 350W. Now he weighs (according to Wikipedia) a shade under 11 stones. He probably weighs less than most cyclists, but not massively so. He's only 25% lighter than me. But the big difference between him and regular cyclists is the Watts he can sustain. 350W is about double what I can do and if you look on Strava (I know this is not very accurate), few club riders can sustain more than 200W.

37.9km/hr is so wildly more than anyone else it is worth thinking about the fact that this is mainly down to his Watts, not his weight. So if there is an objective to get quicker, even on hilly rides, it is training up the power output that needs concentrating on, not getting the weight down. Too many folk worry about saving a few hundred grams here and there. The big gains are to be had in training to get the Watts up. Hill intervals anyone?

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

I know this might sound like a daft observation but, if you're riding faster than most people, then surely your power power output as measured in watts is going to be greater.

I suspect that people like Ben Swift are physically superior to the rest of us and can therefore produce better figuress - that's why they're professional sportsman!

 

[BigonaBianchi]

he may be just lighter stronger and younger than most of us ......little git

 

[Dogtrousers]

This is a restatement of the saying "Don't buy upgrades - ride up grades". Which is commonly attributed to Eddy Merckx.

However seeing that he is (was?) in the business of selling upgrades, I somewhat doubt that he actually said it.

 

[zizou]

Watts per kg is the important figure and if someone is a bit overweight but is already 'trained' then its far easier for them to lose a couple of stone than it is to add an extra 50 watts.

 

[nickyboy]

Watts per kg is the important figure and if someone is a bit overweight but is already 'trained' then its far easier for them to lose a couple of stone than it is to add an extra 50 watts.

I wonder if that is actually true or not though?
I could lose a couple of stone I guess if I really tried hard. This would reduce my weight by 15%. Increasing my power from 175W to 206W would have the same effect. So what's easier, 2 stone off in weight, or 31W watts on in power.
Based on the pro's stats, there is a lot more "headroom" for improving Watts than reducing weight.

FYI, increasing Watts from 175 to 225 as per your example would be the same as going from 13.5 stones to 10.5 stones.

Sounds to me that whilst losing weight is of course a good thing, we have much greater performance gains to be achieved by finding ways to push up the Watts

 

[Rob3rt]

I wonder if that is actually true or not though?
I could lose a couple of stone I guess if I really tried hard. This would reduce my weight by 15%. Increasing my power from 175W to 206W would have the same effect. So what's easier, 2 stone off in weight, or 31W watts on in power.
Based on the pro's stats, there is a lot more "headroom" for improving Watts than reducing weight.

FYI, increasing Watts from 175 to 225 as per your example would be the same as going from 13.5 stones to 10.5 stones.

Sounds to me that whilst losing weight is of course a good thing, we have much greater performance gains to be achieved by finding ways to push up the Watts

If you are reasonably well trained, it would be hugely more difficult to gain power than to drop weight. By dropping weight, you may also reduce your CdA since you will become smaller and/or won't have a fat gut getting in the way of riding in the drops properly.

 

[nickyboy]

I know this might sound like a daft observation but, if you're riding faster than most people, then surely your power power output as measured in watts is going to be greater.

I suspect that people like Ben Swift are physically superior to the rest of us and can therefore produce better figuress - that's why they're professional sportsman!

Yes they are physically superior and the vast majority couldn't aspire to even get close to sustaining 350W. My point is that maybe 250W is possible if an "ordinary" cyclist works hard at it. And for the vast majority of cyclists, you can't lose enough weight to get the same performance improvement so maybe we should be spending more effort on training to get the watts up and less time worrying about the odd kg of "comfort" around the waistline

 

[nickyboy]

If you are reasonably well trained, it would be hugely more difficult to gain power than to drop weight. By dropping weight, you may also reduce your CdA since you will become smaller and/or won't have a fat gut getting in the way of riding in the drops properly.

Sorry I missed the "reasonably well trained" bit. Large majority of cyclists are not, I would suspect, "reasonably well trained" and so have plenty of Watts headroom. In your experience, what sort of Wattage improvement could be expected by going from normal social cycling to a program to improve performance?

 

[ColinJ]

I have been really struggling on the power side (for well-documented reasons!) but have improved my cycling a lot over the past couple of years by losing nearly 5 stone in weight. There isn't a lot of scope for much more (sensible) weight loss - maybe another 7-10 pounds - so most of any future improvements in my cycling performance will have to made by increasing my power output. There is plenty of room for improvement since I can only sustain about 225W for 30 minutes at the moment.

Actually, there is another factor which nickyboy hasn't mentioned and it is one that affects me badly on hilly rides - a lack of flexibility and core strength. My back muscles get very painful after a couple of hours on the hills, and that prevents me using what power I do have. I can ride up some hills twice as fast at the start of a long ride as I can at the end, and it is not fatigue which is the problem. I just end up with my back muscles torturing me and forcing me to slow down. I have started doing some stretches and it should become evident pretty quickly if they help. (I have placed a pile of books against my bedroom wall and adjusted its height so that I can just get the knuckles of my clenched fists down onto the top of the pile when I stretch down as far as I can. I was shocked at how bad the problem is - I can only get my knuckles down to 32 cm above the floor! When I am comfortable with stretching to that degree, I will remove one book from the pile and spend another few days stretching down to the lower book. I'll report any progress at a later date.)

 

[Rob3rt]

Sorry I missed the "reasonably well trained" bit. Large majority of cyclists are not, I would suspect, "reasonably well trained" and so have plenty of Watts headroom. In your experience, what sort of Wattage improvement could be expected by going from normal social cycling to a program to improve performance?

I increased my FTP by around 18% in 2013, this year (2014) I increased it by about 9% through highly structured and specific training.

I reduced my CdA by approx 14% this year as well, so my performances were much quicker than would be predicted based on the increase in FTP alone.

 

[GrasB]

Light weight feels fast, aero is fast. This is why my best 1hour effort makes me like a pro but I'm no where near that level if you look at my watts & my bike - UCI banned it in... 1934

 

[ColinJ]

Actually, there is another factor which nickyboy hasn't mentioned and it is one that affects me badly on hilly rides - a lack of flexibility and core strength. My back muscles get very painful after a couple of hours on the hills, and that prevents me using what power I do have. I can ride up some hills twice as fast at the start of a long ride as I can at the end, and it is not fatigue which is the problem.

I meant it is not due to tired legs, and my heart and lungs are also ok. It is the back muscles which get fatigued and go into spasm.

 

[Rob3rt]

I think the reality is, most cyclists could benefit from doing both and quite frankly, both would tend to go hand in hand i.e. training hard to increase power, would likely incur weight loss. When I say this, training hard needn't mean smashing it on the turbo 10 hours a week, it could simply mean riding your bike more.

Once you are a reasonably good cyclist, what will elevate your performance will be more and more individual. For example, I am not of optimal racing weight (even though many people on this forum would regard me as very skinny), I am pretty sure of this, yet loosing more weight would not really elicit a gain in performance in my choosen discipline to any meaningful degree, increasing my power would, but because I am reasonably well trained, more power is harder and harder to come by, for ME, the greatest gains to be made are improved aerodynamics. For someone else, the greatest gains could come from something else entirely.

 

[Hacienda71]

Don't rely on Strava power estimates, they are not accurate. Weighted Average Power shown will be with a power meter of some sort.