Normalized power higher than FTP

Is it normal for a 2 hour outdoor ride to have a higher normalized power than my FTP?

last Sunday I went on an outside ride and the resulting power was 10 watts higher then my FTP

Depending on the profile, it can happen. NP is a mathematical estimation rather than having any real physiological underpinning.

There are times where people have NP > FTP for 2-3 hours, especially if there is a hard short effort regularly on a course.

I honestly wouldn’t change any FTP assessments based on it.

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Also you may have a higher outdoor FTP, apparently this is quite common that people have two FTP’s one for the trainer and one for outdoors.

Steve and Graham have covered this pretty well.

In terms of average power, you should not be able to exceed your FTP for more than 60 minutes. If you can, then your FTP is set too low.

However, Normalized Power weights hard efforts more heavily and allows you to achieve an IF of over 1.0 for an hour. If this was a very hard ride, with intense efforts and large amounts of coasting, then I would say your data is not really a concern. If you exceeded your FTP on a very consistent and flat ride, then your FTP is likely set too low.

To learn a bit more about Normalized Power, I recommend checking out this article:

As Graham mentioned, you could also have a slightly higher effective FTP when training outside due to the increased cooling effect experienced outdoors. Roughly 75% of your body’s energy goes towards thermoregulation, or keeping your body cool. Due to the wind experienced outside, less energy is needed for thermoregulation, freeing up energy for powering the pedals.

I hope the clears up any concerns you may have! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask :smiley:

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Yep that explains it. 27 miles 2000 ft elevation gain on steep hills and it was flat out cold, but then so is my basement :sweat_smile:. Average power wasn’t that high. Now it makes sense. Thanks all!

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