How did you 5w/kg+ riders make it there?

Interesting stuff, everyone! I’d be really curious to see how the height, weight, and FTP’s of riders in the 5 w/kg bucket stack up. My guess is many of them are tall and thin :). Having longer bones and longer muscles seems like an advantage.

As a small rider who never did competitive sports prior to starting to race bikes, I feel it is hugely unlikely I’ll ever get remotely close to 5 w/kg. I got to 4.0 w/kg fairly easy in 1 year of structured training but at 128 pounds and at 5’7’', and at 34 years old, I would need to increase my FTP from 235 to 290~ which sounds out of this world. Who knows though… Caleb Ewan is smaller and faster so maybe there’s hope? :crazy_face:

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5 W/Kg is just stupid fast. My feeling that you really need to win the genetic lottery to be able to have the potential to obtain this.

I’m currently a little under 190lbs (86.3Kg) with an FTP of 360W, which puts me around 4.17W/Kg. I’m hoping to get myself down to 180lbs, which at 360W would put me around 4.4W/Kg. A loooong way to go to get to 5W/Kg. Realistically, I don’t think I can lose the weight and gain the power to do so.

Of the people who are at or above 5W/Kg, I’m curious to what the weight distribution is like. Anybody above 180lbs?

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The greater importance of weight in the w/kg equation, from a pro perspective:

Froome turned pro weighing 75.7kg (167lbs).
He lost 10kg (22lbs), got down to 65.8kg (145lbs) and started winning the Tour with 6.25 w/kg.

Extrapolating from that, his current FTP is ~410w. If it was the same as when he turned pro, he would have had 5.4w/kg. But his power was most likely lower 10 years ago than it is now so he very well could have had a 5w/kg profile – or even less!

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This is a pretty interesting thread… I’m curious how long it will take me to hit 5 w/kg, if at all possible.

I’m definitely going to give it a go, but I have a feeling I’m at the “grind it out” stage right now, which is a bit disappointing.

My annual hours since I got Strava in 2010 have been somewhat inconsistent and I just started structured training in October 2017, but here’s where I’m at so far.

Training Hours

  • 2010 - 20 hours
  • 2011 - 204 hours
  • 2012 - 139 hours
  • 2013 - 86 hours
  • 2014 - 89 hours
  • 2015 - 26 hours
  • 2016 - 90 hours
  • 2017 - 104 hours
  • 2018 - 349 hours

W/kg from October 2017

  • 10/31/2017 - 222w/67.6kg = 3.28
  • 3/22/2018 - 245w/64.9kh = 3.78
  • 10/09/2018 - 270w/61.2kg = 4.41
  • 01/15/2019 - 259w/64.4kg = 4.02

The one thing I have noticed is my FTP always seems to peak after the build phase and then gradually slip down through specialty and sweet spot base 1 and I don’t hit a new high for FTP until the next time I do build.

My latest test from January this year I’m still pretty happy with. My weight was a bit high due to the holidays (but it’s already back down to about 61kg) and I felt like my ramp test was a bit down as that test was at the beginning of sweet spot base 2 after having not done any VO2 work since 12/3/18. I’m already feeling a lot stronger than I did in January, so I’m hoping I’ll test over 270w on my next ramp test.

Anyways, one common them I seem to see with riders at over 5 w/kg is that they put in over 10 hours per week. That’s something I’ve never done, so I’m hopeful I can get there! I think if I could get my FTP up to 300w, I can take care of the rest of the equation with weight.

All of that being said, my primary discipline is cross-country mtb and even at just over 4 w/kg I’m usually one of the fastest folks at the local trail. Obviously I’m not winning cat 1 races, but over the summer when I was around 4.4 w/kg I really had nothing to complain about in the speed department when actually out riding.

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Which brings up a great point – w/kg is based on your FTP and it doesn’t tell you anything about the rest of your power curve.

Point being, none of these different metrics – FTP, w/kg, etc. – are all encompassing; they don’t tell the story of the whole rider.

Chris Hoy’s 10s w/kg would smash Froome’s 10s.
Mark Beaumont’s 10hr w/kg would (probably) decimate Froome’s 10hr.

Focus on the right things if you want things right. :+1:

Or something like that.

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All I know is that they didn’t use Zwift or Eliptogo.

Got it wrong initially, “slightly” more than avg 22h. I did some “aerobic overload weeks” every once in a while :slight_smile:

Nope. Not at all.

I race a lot in Italy. Many fast riders there, at least “tall” is not a distinct anthropomorphic characteristic there.

Being able to suffer is a great point and on e I take for granted but thinking about it it’s quite a rare quality in my experience…can’t beat sitting in the gutter in a cross wind for 20km hanging on for grim death :joy:

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I’ll take that as a compliment! :grin:

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I think we’re about the same height/build…

Enjoying the thread even though my personal target is 4w/kg… being 6’3, 201 lb/91.2 kilos (this morning weigh in!) I can’t see any great weight loss coming in the next 6 months, though I’m still on the downward spiral…its just slowed right down, (xmas didn’t help!) think I’m plateauing… looking at some of the weight figures mentioned here I’m never going to get anywhere near 5/wkg… only 5 I’ll be seeing on my profile will be my age when I hit 50!

I think I could still lose a few kilos around the tummy, know I don’t eat the best diet… I like food and could never restrict my diet, know that would depress me, I ride/train hard so I can then eat what I like… I’m not a racer, though I do enjoy the odd Zwift race, they just push me… I also want to get fit for endurance rides (again you can eat loads!) and hopefully just add a few more watts to the ftp and if/when I achieve my 4w/kg, I know I’m going to be in the best condition for me I could be for those biking challenges.

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That goes for whatever your tested ftp value is IMO!

@Captain_Doughnutman you sir are the envy of many a testosterone challenged, wrinkled, bitter, fatigued yet ever hopeful for that one magical season masters racers everywhere. :grinning:

Seriously though I’m literally in awe. You guys suck. I’m 99.99% sure I could never make 5.0 with the best coach, nutritionist, no career, no family obligations. Not joking…5.0 has always been one of those goals I always aspired to but, at around 4.5 it’s so apparent that no amount of liposuction would get me there that I give up. :grinning:

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The thing is not all 5w/kg are created equal.

You’re probably better with a 4.5w/kg (350w @ 77kg) than a 5w/kg (300w @ 60kg).

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Yes I fully agree. I’m mostly concerned with durability/repeatability late in the game. But, so many races I want to do that I’d never make it to the end with the front group unless much better w/kg…I get it though.

360W/90kg… 4w/kg that’s my target :slight_smile:

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There’s probably a couple major factors behind my personal (soon to be?) 5:

  1. I’ve only returned to racing & training after a 15yr lay off, which means I haven’t beat up my body for years on end and I’m “fresh”.

  2. Because of 1., I’m perhaps over-zealous in my pursuit of maximum gains. I also have an end date for all this silliness so time and effort are highly valuable and not to be wasted.

  3. Because of 2., I view sacrifices as gains, esp. in the diet dept. Yeah, I’d love to eat pizza and doughnuts every week but the desire to smash it on the open road over-rules.

  4. My cycling goals just happen to coincide with the FTP/kg metric. My power curve is really flat! :weary:

In the end, most 4w/kg-ers would beat me in a crit or MTB race. Oh well!

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Are you on the lighter end? And yes, power is good and call but you have to make the bike go faster than the people you are racing :wink:

I’m not one of the 5w/kg riders but at my current trajectory it would take two more successful offseasons. Considering I’m 40 now it might not happen, but my goal for each successive year will be to gain 10 to 15 watts from previous year peak. So far that has equaled a 10 to 20 + bump in <=5 min part of curve which is more of a determinant of success on a mtb than ftp alone. To give myself a better chance to get up there I think I’m going to need to do a base/build/base/build type offseason from here on out, or some sort of mini VO2 specific block. I’m pretty sure that my VO2 abilities are going to be my limiting factor… I’m not trying to get down in weight much more.

1 kg to go to get down to 68 kg, which is heavier than some of the higher w/kg guys at the same height of 5’8" some of them are around 60 kg. Nino is the same weight, but he’s just a freak, and the XCO events favor raw power, since the climbs are relatively short, not much sustained.

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