How does this 4.0W/kg number track with age?
(Simon, 46)
Whatās the equivalent for women?
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Iām interested in this subject for goal setting. I started this hobby at age 32, Iām 37-now, and did not do any sort of cardio exercise earlier in life. More precisely, smoked a pack per day for 13-years prior and did zero cardio between ages 13-32.
I guess Iām wondering how to measure when to give up. Is there a certain decrease in a measurable delta in FTP or other power number that tells me I should adjust goals? Iām not sure that Iāll ever make that 4w/Kg number.
Does this mean that I need to incorporate some VO2-Max training during the cyclocross off-season with my sweet-spot plan?
Maybe, maybe not. But itās not that huge of a deal either way. Iām almost 100% sure I will never make it to 4W/Kg, but it doesnāt ruin my enjoyment of cycling, or dampen my enthusiasm. Improvement is what will drive you, bettering your own performance.
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Yup. 44% increase in VO2 max among the participants in Hicksonās study on this.
Not a training protocol Iād like to do over the long run however!
The science is that when you study the top athletes in the world, there is a point in which more training ceases to provide a training benefit. Everyone has a maximum theoretical potential.
From a practical point if view, if you donāt have the time available to train (and recover!) like a world class athlete, then it literally does not matter what your theoretical upper limit is. Instead, your practical limiter is the amount of time youāre willing to spend training, and how well youāre letting yourself recover.
So if you want to know how fit you can get on 6 hours a week? Then train well, and follow a plan for 6 hours a week, for multiple years, until you stop seeing progress. Thatās how you find your cap at the current training/recovery levels youāre providing yourself.
Itās a soft cap. You can simply train more, and/or recover better, if youād like to further improve.
After training for a while, you should get a good feel for what your limiters are. Mine is keeping motivated to follow my training plan. I tend to ride well for a month or two, slowly detrain for a month or two, and then repeat. And despite that, Iām still slowly trending upwards. Itād be a faster rate of improvement if I trained better. But Iām okay with that, since Iām doing this for fun and to be fit, and it doesnāt matter a ton exactly how fit I get.
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That training protocol might be the most brutal 10 week protocol Iāve ever read.
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It wouldāve been worse with a few wingate tests thrown in 
According to Cogganās W/kg Chart, the equivalent to a 4W/kg FTP for Male would be 3.47W/Kg for female to be comparatively āstrongā within that gender. That being said, W/kg doesnāt differentiate between gender (i.e., if your W/kg is lower than your riding partner, youāre going to get dropped on the climbs regardless of gender!).
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If you live in Canada you can borrow a free e-copy of āFasterā from the Toronto Library.
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I 
VO2max!
Even though this is an FTP threadā¦
Iām a firm believer in behavior goals rather than outcome goals. Rather than setting a 4 watt/kg goal, how about a goal of 3 strong workouts a week? Or XXX amount of TSS per week? These are things you can control.
Then the most optimum outcome just happens if you get your behavior right. What if you could be 4.2? What if your limit is 3.7? Who cares! Just get the behavior right and youāll achieve your potential!
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Thatās a great reminder. Itās easy to get caught up in those outcome goals. I fall for them way too often.
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What about having outcome based ādreamā goals. For instance I have a loose goal of if I get to ~4.2W/kg Iāll work towards qualifying for Kona. Getting to 4.2W/kg is lofty and outside of my control but itās a reasonable enabler for the arguably larger goal of qualifying, or at least being able to make a real effort at, qualifying for Kona.
Obviously day to day is plan adherence, nutrition, and short term performance goals. But the big dreams are almost required to have things outside your control.
HMKN 495P- S18- Determinants of Endurance Performance Slide.pdf (38.6 KB)
These are all the things that determine endurance performance (at least my working model when I teach Applied Endurance Training). Each is trainable (via different inputs) and has a different response time depending on the stimulus applied. All are important, especially at the upper limits of performance.
There are some old studies by Hickson showing that VO2max improved up to 30% in subjects (although the training was very, very hard). And while VO2max determines entry into a classification of performance, one youāve entered a performance group, itās not highly predictable of successā¦ if you want to be elite, you need to have an elite VO2max, but that doesnāt guarantee victory.
What Iāve seen with TR workouts, although focused on sweetspot and threshold (time-starved athletes and all), is that there is attention paid to all of these determinants depending on the phase of program.
Back to the original question though, Iām not sure how to answerā¦ small changes in all of the variables that alter threshold will have an impact on FTP and can be improved throughout oneās career. We still see elite UCI cyclists improving some of these variables year-after-year. I would guess that the majority or TR users wonāt hit their FTP ceiling (Nate might have some data to support - changes in FTP with time in the most dedicated users). However, if one does, there are many other avenues for performance improvement. Even Armstrong had improvements in efficiency over his career, which were larger than his threshold improvements (in fact his VO2max went down) [ok, I get the drugs bit, but maybe thatās more evidence to support given that the PED should improve the other variables as well].
Happy to add more, but am going to go enjoy a Collective Arts Rhyme & Reason
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Wow Iām not even on this chart, talk about an outlier! The good news is that I have a HUGE , amount of opportunity to improve.
That said, I really didnāt need this chart to know I was struggling a bit, but it is interesting none the less. I figured 3w per kg is about what i needed to hang on the rides im looking to do.
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Those are always good of course, but you need to work backward from them.
If I want to qualify to Kona I need to be:
X Fast
to be X fast I probably have to weight Y much
I then have to train W times per week
And I have to eat healthy meals Z times per week.
So of course I also have a dream of qualifying for Kona one day and Iād also like to hit 4.25 watt/kg this season, but my real goals are hitting those weekly TSS numbers (which Iām failing at 
)
Final Edit:
A reduction in anaerobic capacity can result in an improvement in lactate threshold.
Please see:
[First Edit:
A reduction in VO2/anaerobic ceiling can result in an improvement in lactate threshold.
original post:
Iāve recently read that an improvement in threshold/lactate can result in a reduction in VO2/aerobic ceiling. 
]
This is a big part of my approach to next season. Iām a big fan of finance/econ and Iāve learned to question like Charlie Munger (Warren Buffettās partner); instead of asking only āWhatās going to get me to X?ā, I also ask āWhatās going to stop me getting to X?ā.
The answers to the former are all bike related (training), the answers to the latter are all non-bike related (health): I need to be healthy so I can train so I can race so I can win.
Maybe the same line of questioning can be applied to smashing your FTP limit.
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