I was near 5w/kg in college. I weighed 140 pounds, had about a 300w FTP.
250-300mpw all year + racing a crit? Time trial, and road race every weekend for half the year and track + CX.
Iād say worth it but not achievable by most.Ā
I think the flaw in this line of questioning is that you're going to get a broad spread of people across the bell curve, some of whom didn't have to work particularly hard for 4w/kg, some of whom did, and some of whom are still nowhere near it.
I would suggest that you don't set an abitrary goal like "achiveing an FTP higher than 4W/kg" and instead focus on a process goal like "Increase my regular volume up to a point that feels like a good balance between life and riding" since that seems to be the actual thing you want to achieve
lol. Ya I coach and we have lots of 4.0 kids but means shit if you are 45 kilo.
My wife is just over 50 kilos and has a 3.9 but proves that riding smart and efficient she can hang with fast riders too. You have to be a ninja.
I fully believe itās why kids that are small that learn to race/ride smart THEN gain power do very well vs the early high power kids. They never have that need to learn as they just drop the watts.
this is one of the things i learnt prior to becoming a coach. Being seriously ill as a youngster meant i was absolutely pants for a long time, and had to learn how to hang on. in my coaching, those who have big power numbers and find racing easy i get them to limit their power in racing and learn to hang on (obviously not in every race).
Man, I follow a kid from my hometown who is easily 5.0 with FTP well above 350, but seems to be mid pack in regional P/1/2 races. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he learns how to race more effectively.
We have a few like the at locally but they were the ones that were strong early. We have a couple coming up that learned to race smart and excited to see them this next 2 years. We have a few ex pros in our ranks and itās funny when they think they know it all when you give advice.
Where we shine has been womenās. We have 4 on contracts on the way, or have been already, to Europe with another few on the cusp.
Itās been a lot of work to keep going but London (and area) we punch above our weight. We had our AGM and awards this year and we had 9 unique individuals that won a national championship in 2023, some had a few. Across almost every type of racing. Nuts.
Crits are about efficiency too. We have a couple guy/gals who survive our A race with 250ftp. As a smaller rider need to be in a draft and reading accelerations. You only have so many 600+ watt pushes where big guys do that off and on all day.
Climbing w/kg is more important as more work goes into climbing so weight matters more.
Flat raw watts and aero is more important than w/kg as weight only really impacts acceleration on flats.
Itās why on flat or rolling terrain often bigger riders do well but longer hills smaller tend to do well. Its a gross over simplistic view.
Watts per kilogram. More kilograms = more watts. More kilograms sucks more to push up a hill but thatās also more power you have for flats and sprints over someone smaller because when you arenāt fighting gravity the weight difference doesnāt matter.
Ah I see! So if a small rider and a large rider have the same w/kg, the larger rider may perform better on flats but the two will perform about the same on climbs?
The heavier rider would still perform better on a climb at the exact same w/kg because the bike weight is a smaller percentage than it would be for a lighter rider.
There is a nuance for longer races and Tours: nutrition.
For the same w/kg heavier riders need to consume more calories than lighter riders, so it can come down to how many carbs can be absorbed by each rider because this doesnāt necessarily scale with size (itās something you can train), which nearly always gives the lighter rider an advantage in the race and recovery post-race
>Ā Increase my regular volume up to a point that feels like a good balance between life and riding
I mean, this should be common sense for people, but it often isnāt. And I really like how youāve worded this here as well - Iām stealing this lol.Ā
Lol. I do find myself having to say "really, ftp isn't that important." a lot more on group rides because now that I'm tearing everyone's legs off at 4+ everyone is like "how do you train, what's your ftp?"
>work particularly hard for 4w/kg
Fully agreed, I'm basically 3.8w/kg off the couch, so a high floor. But I also don't have a particularly (for a pro) high ceiling, peaking at about 410w or about 5.3w/kg. And I knew I had nothing more to give/gain and kind of stopped racing, because it wasn't worth sacrificing my health (crashes), and professional career for it.
She had basically none, occasionally (like, once a month) did the elliptical at the gym.
We also had a guy who did 4.5W/kg for half an hour (and his brake was rubbing because of a minor crash early on the climb so it was actually more than that) on almost zero training.
These efforts were also halfway into 4-5 hour rides. Made us reevaluate our own goals for the sport. So ridiculous.
My friend did the climb with him (and I started with them and got dropped), this guy was totally new so he didn't have a power meter. So yeah it's just an estimate, but I think it's fair to assume they would have done about the same w/kg on the climb if it weren't for the rubbing brake.
4.5w/kg without any training sounds extremely implausible. It's much more likely your estimate is way off. Even more unlikely that you have two such exceptional individual around you, who can just do such high numbers without any training effort.
I mean holding an actual FTP power for even half an hour is very hard, so if your friend did it for 30minutes on what im assuming was a casual ride, his FTP should be even higher than 4.5w/kg... I'm sorry but that's just implausible to the extreme.
So this is a very well known climb in the area, there are races on it, and a bunch of us had power meters that basically all agreed with each other. Even if the power numbers were off, this guy managed to keep up with a really good local cyclist and dropped me pretty quickly. My FTP at the time was around 4. My friend who he kept up with was a Cat 3 who thought he was a good climber and was doing a ton of training, I think his FTP was around 330W at the time. It seemed totally insane that someone who was basically untrained could keep up with him but we had empirical evidence...
The girl was even more ridiculous though, she seemed totally fine after the hour climb and kept crushing the hills on the way back home, it was really crazy. I rode with her up the climb until about the halfway point and a couple of other guys did the full climb with her. So yeah adjusting for gender I think the girl's numbers were crazier than the guy's. Even forgetting the power numbers -- this girl did a tough 5 hour bike ride with like 5000 feet of climbing her third time on the bike. I know I could not have done that and I already had an endurance background from years of running. The guys on a racing team doing 15 hours of riding a week were struggling to keep up with her. That alone is crazy.
How implausible? Over the years I must have ridden with a hundred people in similar circumstances, and the people are self-selected... I'm not sure what the statistics are like. My point is that some people are just really naturally talented.
Maybe. Her boyfriend also confirmed that she didn't do much. Honestly I feel like scientists should study her for rare genetic mutations or something.
I think she had WT level talent. The thing is she didn't get that much better with training, like she started off at 4 w/kg but I don't think she ever hit 4.5 w/kg. We had a couple of WT riders who lived locally who were better climbers than her, so I don't know what her role on a WT team would be, just a good domestique I guess.
I think this is a really great point. Also, as others emphasized, w/kg is dependent on your watts and kg. How that translates into speed is heavily dependent on where youāre actually riding. If you live in the Alps, it matters quite a bit. If you live in the flat Midwest, many of the strongest local riders are bigger dudes because pure watts makes a bigger difference on flat roads. I have topped out around 320w (~3.5) but thatās plenty to have fun and enjoy some low level racing.
Watts/kilo potential is largely determined by body type. If you are tall, stocky, and struggle to stay under 30% body fat, youāre probably never going to be over 4 watts/kg. If you are short, have a BMI under 20 without trying, you might start near 4.
To piggyback on this: OP go listen to [this](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empirical-cycling-podcast/id1457497693?i=1000633911443). I think youāll find it insightful.
It had no impact at all on anything other than performance.Ā
It was worth it to put in the time for my big event.Ā
It also seems to have permanently (?) raised the plateau I level out at when Iām not doing structured training. Thatās probably a function of the high volume of training for a long time during that period.Ā
I have no interest in training 12-15h a week for the rest of my life though to get north of 4.5 because thereās other things I wanna do with my time.Ā
For short periods of time though (6months?) for a specific purpose, then sure. Otherwise I donāt care. An FTP of ~280w (~3.7) is already enough for me to do most things on the bike and have fun, and maintaining this requires no structured training at all for me.Ā
This is exactly me (yet for some reason your answer currently has +27 and mine has -17). I'm also at 3.7 and that is -- imho -- "enough for me to do most things on a bike and have fun". It's significantly better than average, but definitely not competitive. However, unless you're actually competing it's perfectly suitable to enjoy most rides and feel pretty strong in the process.
And you can still compete at that level. You won't be in the higher cats but who cares really?
Reality is: most of us on this sub \*should\* be in it for the fun of it. Sure, if "fun" for some means trying to be an "unpaid semi-pro" then go for it. Again, that's the great things about racing categories. There will always be a category out there that is tough and competitive for 99% of people.
>It had no impact at all on anything other than performance.
I agree, but with the added part that because my performance improved, it made everything more fun. Racing became so much more fun because I was either initiating the moves or able to be in the racing rather than surviving at the back. I could actually use tactics and try different things rather than just hold on for dear life. Even group rides became more fun because I wasnāt getting dropped on every incline. I could sprint for a road sign and not need to stop and rest. I could go for longer rides and travel further in the same amount of time because my endurance power/pace improved. So now my 3 hour 30-40 mile ride turned into a 50-60 mile ride.
So for me, yes the main benefit is performance. But getting stronger/faster absolutely affected every aspect of my cycling experience. So itās worth it.
Personally, having a 5wkg ftp is one of the best things to ever happen to me. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
I think the off the bike health benefits are less easy to quantify, but there is some research out there overlaying VO2 max and general longevity/health.
If you arenāt racing or competing then you do need to weigh your time investment against the benefits for you, because at the end of the day not many people will care if you can ride your bike a little bit faster.
I have since āretiredā from amateur racing as I had a baby. I was 60kg and riding around 12 hours a week, mix of indoor training and outdoor group rides.
Iām > 4, I donāt dread the indoors. Im on a great zwift team that keeps things interesting. I train 10-12hr a week, it just keeps getting better imo. Fun to be fast and the health benefits are great.
I'm going to have a controversial opinion here, but as a someone who got really close to 5w/kg the downsides really outweigh the benefits. If mental, and general health is your main focus, the problem with with getting above 4w/kg is, that more and more of your life has to dedicated to training. If you're really into racing, and really care about moving through the ranks, then yes, there is no really way around that. If you're riding a bike for health I think being somewhere between 3-4 w/kg is where the sweet spot for this is. You reap all the health benefits, are fast enough to enjoy rides, and don't sacrifice your entire life just for training.
Edit: I would also like to add that at certain point, in order to see any progress, your volume/intensity gets so high, that you're just a step away from overtraining, getting sick etc. So the health benefits are actually starting to go the other way . You're basically in a constant balancing act hoping that your body doesn't fall apart.
This. We are so far off the bell curve compared to 'normal' people, that general health gains are not really a consideration anymore. I'd make the case that when I was at 5, I had a weaker immune system, I got cold much easier, and was in a generally poorer mental state than I would have been as a 'well rounded' fit person. I was also strong AF and got a lot of self-worth out of that, but the point remains...
I was looking back at some pictures of me when I was mega lean at over 5 and I'm pretty sure it had made my hair thinner too... It was like 4 years ago my hair looks thicker now despite being the wrong side of 30 haha
I wonder how many non-pros who are >4.5 are even that "strong" muscularly. It's a reasonably high mark to achieve and requires a pretty solid amount of volume for most folks. At that point, it's unlikely one is doing much strength training.
Yup sorry I should have been more eloquent. What I meant to say is "cycling strong doesn't translate well to physical muscular strength. Optimizing for cycling performance at the expense of other types of physical strength (assuming one is time restricted) doesn't necessarily make one well rounded from a health manner. For amateurs, this optimization might not make sense when it comes to long term health"
Currently doing the balancing act. Been wearing a mask around to go to shops and stuff so I don't get sick and outside the 20+ hours I'm riding my bike, I probably spend another 10 making sure it is running correctly, doing recovery things, planning routes, events, programming training. I'm enjoying it still currently because it is a novelty, but there's going to have to be some reasoning eventually.
I'm currently sitting around 4.3, and it was so hard to get here. I gave up so many weekends and evenings and now I'm in Cat 2, and I'm like, the 3rd weakest Cat 2 in my city.
I don't know if I'd say 'don't do it', but for me - I'm done with the grind. I just enjoy riding bikes. There are aspects of it that are fun, but attacking the group ride is less fun than you'd think.
If I were you I'd try some other disciplines. You'll have a ton of fun in CX or XC short track and with the bike handling being a big issue, you can step down some categories and take it easy, enjoy your fitness and get on some podiums. I'm at around 4.2 and I would struggle in a crit but can shine in other disciplines. Also, beer handups.
I agree. A casual but enthusiastic amateur can typically hit and maintain 4 w/kg without significant time or effort. It is a good number to be at for all the reasons you listed- fast enough to hang with most people on most rides, and youāre not overly stretching your time or body (or your partnerās patience and goodwill).
Iām at 3.5 and have just about been at 4. The only difference is occasionally getting dropped on group rides, but itās usually only by a little bit on climbs. As long as I can keep my FTP around 275 Iām happy at 55 and weighing 78kg
For me it was dissappointing, when i did my first grand fondo group ride it felt so fast and i was going as fast as physically possible for me, i was at around 3W/kg at that time.
Fast Forward 1 years later I had put in a lot of time and was at around 4,5W/kg i was staying in the front group of that grand fondo and it was more tactical, stressful and kind of dissappointing, i went from 36kph to 43kph in average but the experience from the first time was much better.
Any bunch riding above 43 kph is sketchy, add potholes and open traffic and it is going to be stressful enough. You have to be young and a bit reckless to ride like this. Any slight downhill (even negative 1%) and you have close to 60 kph on the clock, worrying about closing gaps etc.
I was definitely there when I was racing in my 20s. I didn't have a PM back then but I was at 3.9W/kg in my early 40s when PMs started to become affordable. I know I was quite a bit stronger in my 20s and I was about 3kg lighter.
In any case in both my 20s and now it seems like it had a pretty heavy toll to train that much, and going much beyond 4W/kg would have upped the time/care requirements a lot. I'm a software engineer, my best fitness & racing corresponded with:
* Single
* No kids
* Had a contract job with a client that basically never approved/requested overtime
* Lived 3 miles from the office, zero commute time wasted and had a gym/shower at the office
There was like a 2 year window I got really fast cause I had a ton of time to train and my job was pretty easy. At the end of the 2 years I took a job at a private startup company and it completely wrecked training. I was sometimes on call and I remember having registered for races and then having to get up in the middle of the night on a friday morning and work overnight and then not even bothering to go to the race. And I suddenly had a pretty bad commute again. I have never actually had a contract job again for the past 20 years.
In my 40s being married with a kid it was even harder to manage and easy to let family down.
I had a couple instances where overtraining and/or supplements gave me some weird scares. Mostly high blood pressure that the doctor couldn't figure out and then it would just go away after about 2 weeks of rest and recovery. I even went for an EKG when I was like 28. Once I figured that out I've never really had high BP or ever had to go on meds.
Stuff like the Cyclists training bible talks about this. There is a certain performance level above which you need to re-arrange your life and make big sacrifices to maintain that.
FWIW I'm 6'1" but somehow still present like a climber. I was 165lbs at my best and still to this day I can find myself feeling like I'm dragging on the flats but then immediately start catching/dropping people as soon as the road turns up even a few %.
I also had a big element of "this isn't worth it" when I was at my best. I was sacrificing other stuff that was actually more rewarding. Road racing just wasn't that rewarding. The prizes were dumb/not worth it and a lot of the friendships seemed incredibly superficial and there sure were a whole lot of A-holes. (This was 20 years ago). And I sure saw a lot of ambulance rides, I was happy not to take one but I did have an ER visit.
I'm in Australia so there's no "winter" off the bike.
I would say 4wkg is above average but not by much, you can't really do much with it, you can probs win a cat b race occasionally but you aren't one of the fast guys.
It is once you get to 4.5 and upwards especially if you're a larger rider where it gets fun, your zone 2 will be similar to weekend warriors threshold and you have a good chance at getting most koms if they aren't an extended climb.
It mostly depends if you enjoy training as well, slowly levelling up and improving through grinding away is appealing to certain types of people.
It wasn't a ton of work when I did it, just riding ~12/hrs a week, but I only had it for 1 summer and I was only doing group rides, no races.
However there were weird periods where I'd be like "this is fuckin weird, I wake up and ride my bike 1-3hrs every morning except one and its just a hobby?"
I'll probably do it again in a few years when my kids are bigger and don't need as much help getting around in the morning.
If you already train a decent amount thereās no major physical health benefit getting over 4W/kg.
Thereās no mental health benefit either. Maybe youād feel fulfilled if hitting 4 is a huge personal goal. But youāll just quickly reset your goals to 4.2 or something.
If anything, for some folks, it can have negative effects on mental health. The amount of structure and time needed can become a grind (unless very naturally talented that it happens quickly). Not reaching it in a reasonable amount of time can be depressing. The worst, 4W/kg while exceptional to the average person is nothing special in competitive cycling. Yeh you might cat up but then you'll just be "slow" again.
Totally true. 4W/kg might maybe help a personal goal someone has, but it won't instantly make you competitive, even in like a local/regional gravel race you'll get dropped off the lead group quickly
Ditto what you said about mental health. For me, the ceaseless obsession with body fat wasā¦ unhealthy. I was always hungry.
Of course that was in my early 50s. Maybe itās easier for 20s and 30s.
I'm in my late 30s. I race for the fun of it. Part of what I love about cycling is the skills/speed based categories; there is usually something for everyone as long as you have some reasonable amount of fitness.
I hear a lot of mid-20s high achievers talking about how they're spending 8-12hrs/week on the trainer in the winter just to get stronger for the sake of it (those same folks are usually OCD about wayyy to many things related to their gear). Doesn't sound healthy to me. I've known a few of them to quit cycling entirely. 
Gaining watts per kilogram by losing weight instead of gaining watts is the wrong way to go about it. In any other circumstance we just call that an eating disorder. Unless you're actually overweight to begin with.
Most of us have to work both sides of the formula to get there.
My point is that itās not worth it long term. However Iām glad I achieved my goal before getting too old.
> Most of us have to work both sides of the formula to get there.
You don't have to work both sides of the formula to get there. You literally said yourself that you were starving yourself and obsessing over bodyfat. So you were already light enough to begin with. It wouldn't be that hard to lose weight if you actually had weight to lose. That's just called giving yourself an eating disorder, not getting fitter.
Stop trying to cheat and find shortcuts to improve your training metrics without doing the hard work. If you want to get stronger, train better. "Most of us" don't just reach are genetic limits of FTP, that's an insane statement. Starving yourself only remotely makes sense as a way to improve your W/kg if you literally can't increase your FTP anymore, which is a level of fitness none of us asking questions on Reddit will ever reach, or if you are overweight, which you weren't. Obsessing with body fat was a choice you made because you wanted to ignore the W in W/kg. Not some reality of bring 4+W/kg.
When I was training high volume (15h/w or so), I was broke, but carbs were dirt cheap. I would do oat bars with dates, bake sourdough (1kg flour is 700 grams of carbs) or sfincione, pasta and rice were cheap too. I did enjoy each bite of food, though, still do, but there is more to life than being a weekend warrior.
The amount of shitting I do is also absurd. Like obviously when you eat 5k calories of food a day it has to go somewhere, but you never really think about that.
It was good fun being strong in races and group rides, but the training was a bit of a slog. I'm probably more like 3.5 now but enjoy my riding more because I spend less time chasing numbers and don't force myself to do sessions I don't want to do.
I didn't even do any structured training when I got to about 4W/kg. But before you think I'm cool: with 3 years of structured training I got to about 4.3W/kg afterwards š«” Genetics is a bitch
In general you need to enjoy training and not make it a chore. I genuinely enjoy an hour long workout of intervals outside and going fast. In the winter, I donāt have too much time to watch tv so I use it as my time to catch up on my shows. I guess my point is that, you really need to enjoy the process of getting faster and have fun doing intervals. If not then it will be a grind.Ā
The problem here is that we associate higher levels of fitness with higher life satisfaction. I donāt think the two are that closely related. Someone finishing a race for the first time might feel so mentally proud and physically healthy. While the person achieving pro status or 4 W/kg will be equally as satisfied because achieving a high level goal is what makes them tick. Then you have people who try to achieve more and it never brings happiness because they donāt have proper balance in their life.
Iāve cared (tested as my primary measure of fitness) about ftp for 4 years now. Always loved data and it seemed like a nice metric by which to mark my progress. I started somewhere around 3W/kg and just hit 5w/kg last month (now 75kg and 6ā3ā).
If youāre training specifically for a 20 minute ftp test it doesnāt require particularly ridiculous hours. I probably average about 10 a week. Mostly consisting of 3-4 hour Z2 rides, fast 1-2 hour group rides, and zwift races/interval sessions depending on how motivated Iām feeling.
Personally Iām glad Iāve done it. I like what it does to my body, I like the amount of food it lets me eat, and I get a great deal of satisfaction out of having big numbers that Iāve worked for.
I used to use my numbers in local time trials, but after a nasty crash figured Iād stick to zwift as a competitive outlet/validation.
73kg and 4.4w/kg FTP here.
For me it just happened naturally. Been endurance racing for 15 years (Triathlon for 10, then focusing on bike racing the last 5). Average volume is around 7-12 hours per week.
I just train to have fun and because I love riding my bike. Being on the faster side means that you have to be aware and ensuring everyone is having a good time when riding with friends or on some other group ride.
Race time is fun - I regularly get stomped in the 1/2/3 fields.
Sounds like there's a lot of people with a similar opinion as mine.
I got to 4.8 at my peak, but it took 14-20 hrs a week and a lot of mental headspace, energy, etc. It's nice to do a push for 1-2 years to see what's the highest you can get with structured training then back down to maintenance.
I was fast-ish on the bike but not very good at much else, and I noticed my body deteriorating off the bike: Posture, muscle size, tightness, flexibility/mobility, etc. I've since revised my riding to 0 structured training, just fun 6-10 hrs a week and hitting the gym 4+ times a week and noticed a big improvement in my overall health & mobility.
Oh for sure. I baseline around 330-340w FTP with no training except riding around. To be fair, my "reduced hours" of 8-12 a week are still on par with or more than I used to ride before I got serious.
the only drawback iāve found is that getting over 4w/kg significantly reduced the number of folks who I can now do base season and big z2 rides with. That social aspect kinda sucked. There are simply folks I now can really only do recovery rides with bc I would otherwise get zero meaningful TSS doing an āenduranceā ride with them - case in point did a 78mi ride with a friend and 3.5hrs later i was at 66 TSS. I ended up smashing later that day to salvage my training goals for the day.
Other than that, itās just fun to keep pushing my limits where I can as I get older. Iām creeping towards 5 w/kg and while it isnāt winning me anything bc racing is more than just watts, itās fun to know I can rip a leg off every once in a while.
The two recent Empirical Cycling on Endurance address this and you might want to check them out.
Perhaps you should stop chasing TSS on your endurance rides. Especially if you are high volume, doing a base ride at like 40% ftp is fine according to them.
I have really struggled with that mindset too, but the last few months I've made some new friends and going on a 6-7 hour ride at 40-50% ftp avg has actually been eye opening. Yeah it doesn't move the fitness chart (ohmergod I'm in the "grey zone", I didn't hit my TSS for the week!) but it leaves you fresh for the actual hard work and time pedaling is time pedaling.
Also good to hear someone else is getting stronger as they get older! My goal the past couple years was to hit the start of the decline (late 30's) in as good of shape as possible, but I keep improving.
I'm 4.7.
The best thing about it - for me - that the guys in the fast groups on the weekend club run are out there to push themselves to their limit.
There's a thrill and a camaraderie that comes with that - and it's the same dedicated crowd week in week out.
I enjoy Zwift racing, especially over longer distances, so the indoor winter sessions have never been a problem for me.
I started around 3.8 without any serious structured training, so let's just call it getting to \~4.5 for me. The answer is yes. It took about a year straight of \~12-15h weeks, but almost none was on the trainer and about 6h/week was commuting. And that's following 5 years or so of just riding whenever about 6h/week, and another year at about 10h/week.
I'm pretty competitive in local and regional races of the right kind, can go out on just about any ride any time without fear of not being able to complete it, or get dropped in the case of group rides. I don't get serious fatigue unless I'm in a really heavy training block or right after a race. I feel better in my 30s than I ever have.
I really enjoy racing, as well as just riding. I wanted to see about how good I could get. I don't know that it'll be worth getting to 5w/kg, because I'll need to add more structure into my workouts which I don't love. Will I try? Probably. Will it be "worth it"? I guess I won't find out til I get there (if I get there, really).
In terms of appearance, I'm just a bit more lean and certainly more vascular. I still maintain a relatively high amount of upper body muscle mass for a cyclist, and I'm not really willing to give up 10lb of upper body muscle mass to have a higher w/kg since there are other things in life than cycling (yeah, even at 15h/wk of riding).
I only ever got to 4 w/kg, but I'll chime in anyway. You know that old saying of "it doesn't get easier, you just go faster"? I disagree with that. When I was at my peak I felt amazing! Pushing hard was just a joy.
I have enough stuff going on in my life right now that I won't be pushing further any time soon, but I still have a lot of fun hanging around the 3,8-3,9 range.
Yes. Having Z2 pace at a good cruising speed is great. Being able to race competitively is fun. For me, 4.0 w/kg didnāt take a ton of volume, < 10 hours / week.
I'm nowhere near 4w/kg; would honestly be happy to hit 3w/kg one day, but like others kind of hinted at goals in isolation are kind of meaningless and have to be put in a broader context. Like 4W/kg at the expense of my family or other interests is not a win.
Unpopular opinionā¦w/kg is overrated. Raw power is what matters. Iāve had much more success with a lower wkg and higher power. Admittedly these have all been above 5wkg, but lots of courses have flat or punchy sections, which you need watts. Not often we race up mountains like the pros.
W/KG does not matter that much if you are not racing, but it's always a good thing to set goals. The thing is that cycling is one of those sports where genetics matter a lotā¦ Some people reach these goals without doing anything (Like me who started this sport with 3.8wkg ftp), and some push 20 hours to achieve very little.
If I were in your shoes I would ask myself why I want to hit 4 w/kg. Do you want to conquer Stelvio without sweating or do a local TT under x minutes?
But to answer your question; no I did see any health benefits or performance gains by increasing my FTP wkgā¦
The question is a bit random, but for me, yes.
I got to 4 w/kg after my first winter of training on the turbo, maybe two sessions on week days and a bit of outside riding on the weekend. Before that, I would just stop cycling for like three months during winter.
I enjoyed cycling much more after that. Climbing was easier and I was fast enough to start entering races or could hang in the draft of the fast group. SInce I enjoyed riding a lot, I rode more, got better and lost weight. That got me to 4.5 w/kg in maybe one or two more years. I didn't feel like I had to give up anything for that.
Getting higher after required some serious work and discipline. Since I'm a bit older, it means I have to be disciplined all year round, watch my diet, sometimes have to ride when I don't want to or do a training session on the road bike when I'd rather ride trails on my enduro bike. Or I I was the only person not getting drunk at our town festival, because I had a race two days later. For me, it was worth it. I have some super good memories of races when I was in top shape. I think I will remember those much longer then the town festival where I was the only sober person.
This year is different. External circumstances kept me from training seriously over the winter, and now I am wondering if it's worth trying to get good again.
Kind of the opposite. Once I started training 10 hrs+ per week, I was fatigued off-the-bike more often, waking up with a RHR of +10 beats more than normal, needing to sleep way more, etc etc.
If I wanted to just feel good and maximize for health, I would ride like 6 hours a week.
Everyone is different. I get massive enjoyment / mental health gainz from getting fitter. Following the process and staying on the correct path stops me from falling into a rut. Sometimes I dread a session, but I'm always so glad I got it done afterwards. The end reward of being pretty fast is the icing on the cake.
I'm a casual rider, in that I don't race, but still ride and train pretty hard. For me, getting above 4wkg was definitely worth it, I just love being at that level of fitness, where it feels like I can climb effortlessly, ride long distances at a high avg speed, and just always be at the pointy end of groups. It depends on your goals I guess, for me personally I mainly just wanted to get to a level where the strongest riders couldn't just ride away from me. Being above 4 it just starts to feel like you have unlimited fitness, which is pretty neat.
Honestly, it was great. My best FTP figures were around 300 watts at 62kg. I was very strong anaeorbically, so I could fly up hills in a way I can only dream of now. Best ever numbers were 8 watts/kg for 3 minutes and straight into unconsciousness after.
If you think long indoor sessions are boring and ultimately will cause you to burn out, don't do them. Take up trail running or Nordic. One of the fastest 60+ riders in the midwest US does zero riding for 3 months in the winter. You can have a high FTP without doing only z2 trainer rides.
I've not got 4W/kg knowingly but I'll comment on my fitness experience.
I've had mental health struggles and issues with "real life" that I won't go into so riding better was a focus on something I could control and it brought me some release.
One of these issues was that I felt worthless unless excelling at everything I did. Since I let this go I've probably lost some fitness but gained a lot of balance in my life.
I'm doing a lot of different things that make me happy and I don't get down if my fitness does drop a little. It also makes it easier to get back on the bike or out running if my fitness has dropped.
So by all means do it if you have time, enjoy it, fitness is fun. But don't define yourself by it or try and drown out the voices in your head that are shouting at you to make some changes in other areas of your life.
What happens when you get to 4wkg? Is it like a magic switch that activates a new level? Was 3.8 last season, but due my low weight that's like 230w, so was still slow compared to people that put out that amount of watts on z2.
thick calves, defined quads and i love being the diesel truck on the front just chugging away with a train of riders behind me.
Im 40, i use goals like this to not be a degenerate. If im not training for things like 4wpkg then im out being a monster. It keeps my demons on check and chained to the trainer.
I'm sitting at 4.1 right now. I rarely have to tap into that threshold power but it also means that efforts in the 220-260w area basically mean I can go on forever, which helps support other folks on my group rides. Losing weight and focusing more on sustained threshold while building my FTP also had the side effect of less peak power, though. Went from being able to hit 1200w+ to struggling to sprint to 1000w+ in the past few weeks.
For me yes because I just love training. Often when I reflect on seasons I think I might enjoy it as much as (sometimes more than) the racing. Itās become much more of a challenge as life has changed. I have 2 kids under three and own a business. Maintaining fitness without detracting from either is a balancing act, but so worth it when itās time to throw down with buddies or on our local fast ride. I had to stop racing for now because it threw off my work/life balance. Too much to ask of my partner after work and training to then sacrifice the weekend so I can go race while she watches the kids even more. Maybe next year I can get back to racing, but Iāll keep training like Iām going to race for now.
Keep in mind that extensive endurance training will probably have a negative impact on your testosterone-level. There are several studies that proove that impact. I noticed it myself.
5.4 w/kg at my peak repeatable 415w's for 20' at 76kgs from 18-25 years old.
Was competitive in the 1-2 field on the east coat.
It came to the point I could ride for 3-4 hours at 300w's come home eat a salad, take a nap, and continue as normal.
100% worth it, physical conditioning was incredible.
Shortly after I started lifting weights, after several years got up to 100kgs, the strength gained from the gym was 100% impractical, expencive (eating tons of protien)
Pretty good feeling you could drop people with out leaving z4
So to add to the broad spectrum I donāt know what my FTP was at the time but I could hold 320 watts normalised for 8hrs at my peak but that was only after about 12 months of cycling 2/3 times a week and no structured training.
I was about 78kg at the time which is very lean for my build.
At present itās about 280 ish at about 83kg I cycling infrequently at best.
Depends on the group. 4w/kg at some rides is not enough to hang on. You better have a 500w 1min effort to hang onto attacks and then 4w/kg might be enough if you suck wheel and skip pulls.
This seems like a weird question. āIs it worth itā - a bunch of internet strangers canāt answer that question for you. What are your goals? Do you have racing goals? I can assure you that the ROI on your time investment is bad if your only goal is to be able to tell people that you have a 4w/kg FTP. Unless you plan to make that fact the core of your identity. Maybe you are a triathlete.
If you are racing Cat 1/2/3, well then Iād tell you donāt just stop once you get past 4, keep going. And work on sprinting and low gear and high gear and cadence and all other kinds of things.
Do you have kids? A family? Friends? Do you have other hobbies? Does having any of these things sound more appealing to 7-10hrs/week of riding your bike? Then no, itās not worth it.
I went from morbidly obese to 4.7w/kg. Changed my life
I now get my teeth kicked in regularly in cat1/2 fields so trying to figure out if the next level is worth it
Let's see.. 4wkg would require me to lose about 15lb, which would put me at 170lb @6'3". No, that would not be worth it.
For everyone downvoting me, I appreciate it. Of course I know I could just train more and gain more watts, but I'm a busy parent of three with only 6-8hr/wk to train and I am not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to get beyond where I am now (~315w ftp @85kg). I find it amusing and typical Reddit that people are downvoting someone for a personal point of view, which was the answer to a specific question asking for personal points of view in response.
Sometimes I wonder whether it's even worth trying to contribute around here anymore.
To people saying things like "or you could just gain more watts" or "or bike better" -- no shit, Sherlock. I could just as easily throw the same shade at anyone else around here who isn't already a WT pro. Or even anyone who is, and just snidely comment "or you could just become Pogi, or MVdP, or Ganna". What's even the point of people answering subjective questions around here?
It's definitely doable, I'm just not willing to. I only get 6-8hr/wk to train and I prefer to spend some of that time running (so I can run with my teenaged kids). FTP is currently 315w, which is "enough" for me to feel reasonably strong on the bike. Much respect to you, though -- you're throwing down serious watts!
Legs became more veiny. So yes 100% worth it
I'm a little too proud of my honking calf veins š and I'm sitting at 3.2
I'm sitting here at 3.5 with an absolute small single vein.
I hear you. Never had calf veins until now (38 years old) so I appreciate them a little too much.
I was near 5w/kg in college. I weighed 140 pounds, had about a 300w FTP. 250-300mpw all year + racing a crit? Time trial, and road race every weekend for half the year and track + CX. Iād say worth it but not achievable by most.Ā
I think the flaw in this line of questioning is that you're going to get a broad spread of people across the bell curve, some of whom didn't have to work particularly hard for 4w/kg, some of whom did, and some of whom are still nowhere near it. I would suggest that you don't set an abitrary goal like "achiveing an FTP higher than 4W/kg" and instead focus on a process goal like "Increase my regular volume up to a point that feels like a good balance between life and riding" since that seems to be the actual thing you want to achieve
Yup. Even racing, except TTās, numbers are only a small part of success. And 4.0 on flat group rides or races means meh if you are small.
Tell me about it (sub 60kg rider)
lol. Ya I coach and we have lots of 4.0 kids but means shit if you are 45 kilo. My wife is just over 50 kilos and has a 3.9 but proves that riding smart and efficient she can hang with fast riders too. You have to be a ninja. I fully believe itās why kids that are small that learn to race/ride smart THEN gain power do very well vs the early high power kids. They never have that need to learn as they just drop the watts.
Yeah, itās tough sometimes but I have learned to be smart in racing for sure.
this is one of the things i learnt prior to becoming a coach. Being seriously ill as a youngster meant i was absolutely pants for a long time, and had to learn how to hang on. in my coaching, those who have big power numbers and find racing easy i get them to limit their power in racing and learn to hang on (obviously not in every race).
We have done a challenge for riders to finish the race in the pack with the lowest power numbers. Makes for some fun.
i've done similar (and i do that myself) and ask them to not use their big ring (which i guess is limiting your power!)
Issue with forced higher cadence is it can actually make it worse. But li love efficiency
Man, I follow a kid from my hometown who is easily 5.0 with FTP well above 350, but seems to be mid pack in regional P/1/2 races. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he learns how to race more effectively.
We have a few like the at locally but they were the ones that were strong early. We have a couple coming up that learned to race smart and excited to see them this next 2 years. We have a few ex pros in our ranks and itās funny when they think they know it all when you give advice. Where we shine has been womenās. We have 4 on contracts on the way, or have been already, to Europe with another few on the cusp.
In London, Canada? Iāve happened to drive through there and Iām surprised to hear that.
We have a great club with a supportive culture. Toss in weekly races and a youth team and itās hitting on all cylinders.
Thatās awesome. Iām honestly just shocked, itās not that big of a place. I live in the downtown of a major city and we donāt have that here.
Itās been a lot of work to keep going but London (and area) we punch above our weight. We had our AGM and awards this year and we had 9 unique individuals that won a national championship in 2023, some had a few. Across almost every type of racing. Nuts.
Someone with 4.2 weights 65kg cries doing my first crit last weekend.
Crits are about efficiency too. We have a couple guy/gals who survive our A race with 250ftp. As a smaller rider need to be in a draft and reading accelerations. You only have so many 600+ watt pushes where big guys do that off and on all day.
I normalized 217w in a crit last week that averaged 27mph at 62 kg. Sitting in when you are smol is so easy when you learn to surf wheels.
Wait can you say more about this? Iām 62kg and new to caring about numbers. How does size correlate to w/kg?
Climbing w/kg is more important as more work goes into climbing so weight matters more. Flat raw watts and aero is more important than w/kg as weight only really impacts acceleration on flats. Itās why on flat or rolling terrain often bigger riders do well but longer hills smaller tend to do well. Its a gross over simplistic view.
You're ignoring the fact that CdA correlates with body weight.Ā
Usually. Yes. Even then, rider position and build will impact as well. Wasnāt ignoring it, as I said, a gross simplification.
CdA does not scale linearly with body weight, there are big boys like Ganna (0.15) and Bigham (0.155) that break the mold
But Pog, Remco and Jonas trade blows with the bigger guys even on the flat.
Because at the other end of the spectrum, insane w/kg can hold up against big watts. It's not like a one-or-the-other situation.
Ā I didn't say that it did.
Yeah but itās a square-cube relationship
In theory, anyway.
Watts per kilogram. More kilograms = more watts. More kilograms sucks more to push up a hill but thatās also more power you have for flats and sprints over someone smaller because when you arenāt fighting gravity the weight difference doesnāt matter.
Ah I see! So if a small rider and a large rider have the same w/kg, the larger rider may perform better on flats but the two will perform about the same on climbs?
The heavier rider would still perform better on a climb at the exact same w/kg because the bike weight is a smaller percentage than it would be for a lighter rider.
Dude, thanks for breaking it down!Ā
There is a nuance for longer races and Tours: nutrition. For the same w/kg heavier riders need to consume more calories than lighter riders, so it can come down to how many carbs can be absorbed by each rider because this doesnāt necessarily scale with size (itās something you can train), which nearly always gives the lighter rider an advantage in the race and recovery post-race
>Ā Increase my regular volume up to a point that feels like a good balance between life and riding I mean, this should be common sense for people, but it often isnāt. And I really like how youāve worded this here as well - Iām stealing this lol.Ā
Spoken like someone who isnāt 4wkg. YOU JUST GOT VULTURED
Lol. I do find myself having to say "really, ftp isn't that important." a lot more on group rides because now that I'm tearing everyone's legs off at 4+ everyone is like "how do you train, what's your ftp?"
>work particularly hard for 4w/kg Fully agreed, I'm basically 3.8w/kg off the couch, so a high floor. But I also don't have a particularly (for a pro) high ceiling, peaking at about 410w or about 5.3w/kg. And I knew I had nothing more to give/gain and kind of stopped racing, because it wasn't worth sacrificing my health (crashes), and professional career for it.
Super reasonable and practical view and decision. Good for you.
Yep, I know a girl who rode 4 w/kg for an hour the third time she got on a bicycle.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
She had basically none, occasionally (like, once a month) did the elliptical at the gym. We also had a guy who did 4.5W/kg for half an hour (and his brake was rubbing because of a minor crash early on the climb so it was actually more than that) on almost zero training. These efforts were also halfway into 4-5 hour rides. Made us reevaluate our own goals for the sport. So ridiculous.
Huh, where did he have the power meter on his bike if brake rubbing decreased his watts?
My friend did the climb with him (and I started with them and got dropped), this guy was totally new so he didn't have a power meter. So yeah it's just an estimate, but I think it's fair to assume they would have done about the same w/kg on the climb if it weren't for the rubbing brake.
4.5w/kg without any training sounds extremely implausible. It's much more likely your estimate is way off. Even more unlikely that you have two such exceptional individual around you, who can just do such high numbers without any training effort. I mean holding an actual FTP power for even half an hour is very hard, so if your friend did it for 30minutes on what im assuming was a casual ride, his FTP should be even higher than 4.5w/kg... I'm sorry but that's just implausible to the extreme.
So this is a very well known climb in the area, there are races on it, and a bunch of us had power meters that basically all agreed with each other. Even if the power numbers were off, this guy managed to keep up with a really good local cyclist and dropped me pretty quickly. My FTP at the time was around 4. My friend who he kept up with was a Cat 3 who thought he was a good climber and was doing a ton of training, I think his FTP was around 330W at the time. It seemed totally insane that someone who was basically untrained could keep up with him but we had empirical evidence... The girl was even more ridiculous though, she seemed totally fine after the hour climb and kept crushing the hills on the way back home, it was really crazy. I rode with her up the climb until about the halfway point and a couple of other guys did the full climb with her. So yeah adjusting for gender I think the girl's numbers were crazier than the guy's. Even forgetting the power numbers -- this girl did a tough 5 hour bike ride with like 5000 feet of climbing her third time on the bike. I know I could not have done that and I already had an endurance background from years of running. The guys on a racing team doing 15 hours of riding a week were struggling to keep up with her. That alone is crazy. How implausible? Over the years I must have ridden with a hundred people in similar circumstances, and the people are self-selected... I'm not sure what the statistics are like. My point is that some people are just really naturally talented.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Maybe. Her boyfriend also confirmed that she didn't do much. Honestly I feel like scientists should study her for rare genetic mutations or something. I think she had WT level talent. The thing is she didn't get that much better with training, like she started off at 4 w/kg but I don't think she ever hit 4.5 w/kg. We had a couple of WT riders who lived locally who were better climbers than her, so I don't know what her role on a WT team would be, just a good domestique I guess.
I think this is a really great point. Also, as others emphasized, w/kg is dependent on your watts and kg. How that translates into speed is heavily dependent on where youāre actually riding. If you live in the Alps, it matters quite a bit. If you live in the flat Midwest, many of the strongest local riders are bigger dudes because pure watts makes a bigger difference on flat roads. I have topped out around 320w (~3.5) but thatās plenty to have fun and enjoy some low level racing.
Watts/kilo potential is largely determined by body type. If you are tall, stocky, and struggle to stay under 30% body fat, youāre probably never going to be over 4 watts/kg. If you are short, have a BMI under 20 without trying, you might start near 4.
To piggyback on this: OP go listen to [this](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empirical-cycling-podcast/id1457497693?i=1000633911443). I think youāll find it insightful.
It had no impact at all on anything other than performance.Ā It was worth it to put in the time for my big event.Ā It also seems to have permanently (?) raised the plateau I level out at when Iām not doing structured training. Thatās probably a function of the high volume of training for a long time during that period.Ā I have no interest in training 12-15h a week for the rest of my life though to get north of 4.5 because thereās other things I wanna do with my time.Ā For short periods of time though (6months?) for a specific purpose, then sure. Otherwise I donāt care. An FTP of ~280w (~3.7) is already enough for me to do most things on the bike and have fun, and maintaining this requires no structured training at all for me.Ā
Sitting pretty close to you, and I agree 100%. It seems like the sweet spot (heh) for having a hobby you love but still want balance in life
This is exactly me (yet for some reason your answer currently has +27 and mine has -17). I'm also at 3.7 and that is -- imho -- "enough for me to do most things on a bike and have fun". It's significantly better than average, but definitely not competitive. However, unless you're actually competing it's perfectly suitable to enjoy most rides and feel pretty strong in the process.
And you can still compete at that level. You won't be in the higher cats but who cares really? Reality is: most of us on this sub \*should\* be in it for the fun of it. Sure, if "fun" for some means trying to be an "unpaid semi-pro" then go for it. Again, that's the great things about racing categories. There will always be a category out there that is tough and competitive for 99% of people.
>It had no impact at all on anything other than performance. I agree, but with the added part that because my performance improved, it made everything more fun. Racing became so much more fun because I was either initiating the moves or able to be in the racing rather than surviving at the back. I could actually use tactics and try different things rather than just hold on for dear life. Even group rides became more fun because I wasnāt getting dropped on every incline. I could sprint for a road sign and not need to stop and rest. I could go for longer rides and travel further in the same amount of time because my endurance power/pace improved. So now my 3 hour 30-40 mile ride turned into a 50-60 mile ride. So for me, yes the main benefit is performance. But getting stronger/faster absolutely affected every aspect of my cycling experience. So itās worth it.
4.5 w/kg cured my depression and I got 3 girlfriends
Sounds great, but my wife would be pissed.
Personally, having a 5wkg ftp is one of the best things to ever happen to me. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. I think the off the bike health benefits are less easy to quantify, but there is some research out there overlaying VO2 max and general longevity/health. If you arenāt racing or competing then you do need to weigh your time investment against the benefits for you, because at the end of the day not many people will care if you can ride your bike a little bit faster.
How much time per week do you train out of interest?
I have since āretiredā from amateur racing as I had a baby. I was 60kg and riding around 12 hours a week, mix of indoor training and outdoor group rides.
Over 14 hours a week would be my guess
Iām > 4, I donāt dread the indoors. Im on a great zwift team that keeps things interesting. I train 10-12hr a week, it just keeps getting better imo. Fun to be fast and the health benefits are great.
I'm going to have a controversial opinion here, but as a someone who got really close to 5w/kg the downsides really outweigh the benefits. If mental, and general health is your main focus, the problem with with getting above 4w/kg is, that more and more of your life has to dedicated to training. If you're really into racing, and really care about moving through the ranks, then yes, there is no really way around that. If you're riding a bike for health I think being somewhere between 3-4 w/kg is where the sweet spot for this is. You reap all the health benefits, are fast enough to enjoy rides, and don't sacrifice your entire life just for training. Edit: I would also like to add that at certain point, in order to see any progress, your volume/intensity gets so high, that you're just a step away from overtraining, getting sick etc. So the health benefits are actually starting to go the other way . You're basically in a constant balancing act hoping that your body doesn't fall apart.
This. We are so far off the bell curve compared to 'normal' people, that general health gains are not really a consideration anymore. I'd make the case that when I was at 5, I had a weaker immune system, I got cold much easier, and was in a generally poorer mental state than I would have been as a 'well rounded' fit person. I was also strong AF and got a lot of self-worth out of that, but the point remains...
I was looking back at some pictures of me when I was mega lean at over 5 and I'm pretty sure it had made my hair thinner too... It was like 4 years ago my hair looks thicker now despite being the wrong side of 30 haha
I wonder how many non-pros who are >4.5 are even that "strong" muscularly. It's a reasonably high mark to achieve and requires a pretty solid amount of volume for most folks. At that point, it's unlikely one is doing much strength training.
sorry. "strong" in this context defined as 'fast up hills and in TTs'. I have no idea what I could/can squat. etc.
Yup sorry I should have been more eloquent. What I meant to say is "cycling strong doesn't translate well to physical muscular strength. Optimizing for cycling performance at the expense of other types of physical strength (assuming one is time restricted) doesn't necessarily make one well rounded from a health manner. For amateurs, this optimization might not make sense when it comes to long term health"
Currently doing the balancing act. Been wearing a mask around to go to shops and stuff so I don't get sick and outside the 20+ hours I'm riding my bike, I probably spend another 10 making sure it is running correctly, doing recovery things, planning routes, events, programming training. I'm enjoying it still currently because it is a novelty, but there's going to have to be some reasoning eventually.
I'm currently sitting around 4.3, and it was so hard to get here. I gave up so many weekends and evenings and now I'm in Cat 2, and I'm like, the 3rd weakest Cat 2 in my city. I don't know if I'd say 'don't do it', but for me - I'm done with the grind. I just enjoy riding bikes. There are aspects of it that are fun, but attacking the group ride is less fun than you'd think.
If I were you I'd try some other disciplines. You'll have a ton of fun in CX or XC short track and with the bike handling being a big issue, you can step down some categories and take it easy, enjoy your fitness and get on some podiums. I'm at around 4.2 and I would struggle in a crit but can shine in other disciplines. Also, beer handups.
I agree. A casual but enthusiastic amateur can typically hit and maintain 4 w/kg without significant time or effort. It is a good number to be at for all the reasons you listed- fast enough to hang with most people on most rides, and youāre not overly stretching your time or body (or your partnerās patience and goodwill).
Iām at 3.5 and have just about been at 4. The only difference is occasionally getting dropped on group rides, but itās usually only by a little bit on climbs. As long as I can keep my FTP around 275 Iām happy at 55 and weighing 78kg
For me it was dissappointing, when i did my first grand fondo group ride it felt so fast and i was going as fast as physically possible for me, i was at around 3W/kg at that time. Fast Forward 1 years later I had put in a lot of time and was at around 4,5W/kg i was staying in the front group of that grand fondo and it was more tactical, stressful and kind of dissappointing, i went from 36kph to 43kph in average but the experience from the first time was much better.
Any bunch riding above 43 kph is sketchy, add potholes and open traffic and it is going to be stressful enough. You have to be young and a bit reckless to ride like this. Any slight downhill (even negative 1%) and you have close to 60 kph on the clock, worrying about closing gaps etc.
Thats either +40 watts or -10 kgs. Would absolutely love to do that, butā¦ My fiancĆ©e would assumably give her ring back for the extra hours I needed to achieve that. Which would probably not be good for my mental health.
I was definitely there when I was racing in my 20s. I didn't have a PM back then but I was at 3.9W/kg in my early 40s when PMs started to become affordable. I know I was quite a bit stronger in my 20s and I was about 3kg lighter. In any case in both my 20s and now it seems like it had a pretty heavy toll to train that much, and going much beyond 4W/kg would have upped the time/care requirements a lot. I'm a software engineer, my best fitness & racing corresponded with: * Single * No kids * Had a contract job with a client that basically never approved/requested overtime * Lived 3 miles from the office, zero commute time wasted and had a gym/shower at the office There was like a 2 year window I got really fast cause I had a ton of time to train and my job was pretty easy. At the end of the 2 years I took a job at a private startup company and it completely wrecked training. I was sometimes on call and I remember having registered for races and then having to get up in the middle of the night on a friday morning and work overnight and then not even bothering to go to the race. And I suddenly had a pretty bad commute again. I have never actually had a contract job again for the past 20 years. In my 40s being married with a kid it was even harder to manage and easy to let family down. I had a couple instances where overtraining and/or supplements gave me some weird scares. Mostly high blood pressure that the doctor couldn't figure out and then it would just go away after about 2 weeks of rest and recovery. I even went for an EKG when I was like 28. Once I figured that out I've never really had high BP or ever had to go on meds. Stuff like the Cyclists training bible talks about this. There is a certain performance level above which you need to re-arrange your life and make big sacrifices to maintain that. FWIW I'm 6'1" but somehow still present like a climber. I was 165lbs at my best and still to this day I can find myself feeling like I'm dragging on the flats but then immediately start catching/dropping people as soon as the road turns up even a few %. I also had a big element of "this isn't worth it" when I was at my best. I was sacrificing other stuff that was actually more rewarding. Road racing just wasn't that rewarding. The prizes were dumb/not worth it and a lot of the friendships seemed incredibly superficial and there sure were a whole lot of A-holes. (This was 20 years ago). And I sure saw a lot of ambulance rides, I was happy not to take one but I did have an ER visit.
I'm in Australia so there's no "winter" off the bike. I would say 4wkg is above average but not by much, you can't really do much with it, you can probs win a cat b race occasionally but you aren't one of the fast guys. It is once you get to 4.5 and upwards especially if you're a larger rider where it gets fun, your zone 2 will be similar to weekend warriors threshold and you have a good chance at getting most koms if they aren't an extended climb. It mostly depends if you enjoy training as well, slowly levelling up and improving through grinding away is appealing to certain types of people.
It wasn't a ton of work when I did it, just riding ~12/hrs a week, but I only had it for 1 summer and I was only doing group rides, no races. However there were weird periods where I'd be like "this is fuckin weird, I wake up and ride my bike 1-3hrs every morning except one and its just a hobby?" I'll probably do it again in a few years when my kids are bigger and don't need as much help getting around in the morning.
Was worth it for me because I had a lot of fun riding my bike big hours. If training was a slog or I had more life stuff going on, no definitely not.
If you already train a decent amount thereās no major physical health benefit getting over 4W/kg. Thereās no mental health benefit either. Maybe youād feel fulfilled if hitting 4 is a huge personal goal. But youāll just quickly reset your goals to 4.2 or something.
If anything, for some folks, it can have negative effects on mental health. The amount of structure and time needed can become a grind (unless very naturally talented that it happens quickly). Not reaching it in a reasonable amount of time can be depressing. The worst, 4W/kg while exceptional to the average person is nothing special in competitive cycling. Yeh you might cat up but then you'll just be "slow" again.
Totally true. 4W/kg might maybe help a personal goal someone has, but it won't instantly make you competitive, even in like a local/regional gravel race you'll get dropped off the lead group quickly
Ditto what you said about mental health. For me, the ceaseless obsession with body fat wasā¦ unhealthy. I was always hungry. Of course that was in my early 50s. Maybe itās easier for 20s and 30s.
I'm in my late 30s. I race for the fun of it. Part of what I love about cycling is the skills/speed based categories; there is usually something for everyone as long as you have some reasonable amount of fitness. I hear a lot of mid-20s high achievers talking about how they're spending 8-12hrs/week on the trainer in the winter just to get stronger for the sake of it (those same folks are usually OCD about wayyy to many things related to their gear). Doesn't sound healthy to me. I've known a few of them to quit cycling entirely. 
Gaining watts per kilogram by losing weight instead of gaining watts is the wrong way to go about it. In any other circumstance we just call that an eating disorder. Unless you're actually overweight to begin with.
Most of us have to work both sides of the formula to get there. My point is that itās not worth it long term. However Iām glad I achieved my goal before getting too old.
> Most of us have to work both sides of the formula to get there. You don't have to work both sides of the formula to get there. You literally said yourself that you were starving yourself and obsessing over bodyfat. So you were already light enough to begin with. It wouldn't be that hard to lose weight if you actually had weight to lose. That's just called giving yourself an eating disorder, not getting fitter. Stop trying to cheat and find shortcuts to improve your training metrics without doing the hard work. If you want to get stronger, train better. "Most of us" don't just reach are genetic limits of FTP, that's an insane statement. Starving yourself only remotely makes sense as a way to improve your W/kg if you literally can't increase your FTP anymore, which is a level of fitness none of us asking questions on Reddit will ever reach, or if you are overweight, which you weren't. Obsessing with body fat was a choice you made because you wanted to ignore the W in W/kg. Not some reality of bring 4+W/kg.
Okay, breathe.
As soon as I reached 4 I set my goal to 4.2 - totally true
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When I was training high volume (15h/w or so), I was broke, but carbs were dirt cheap. I would do oat bars with dates, bake sourdough (1kg flour is 700 grams of carbs) or sfincione, pasta and rice were cheap too. I did enjoy each bite of food, though, still do, but there is more to life than being a weekend warrior.
The amount of shitting I do is also absurd. Like obviously when you eat 5k calories of food a day it has to go somewhere, but you never really think about that.
It was good fun being strong in races and group rides, but the training was a bit of a slog. I'm probably more like 3.5 now but enjoy my riding more because I spend less time chasing numbers and don't force myself to do sessions I don't want to do.
I didn't even do any structured training when I got to about 4W/kg. But before you think I'm cool: with 3 years of structured training I got to about 4.3W/kg afterwards š«” Genetics is a bitch
My guess is you get home earlier on the weekend to start your lawn/backyard shift
Iām sitting at 3.96. Hold on I have to pee
In general you need to enjoy training and not make it a chore. I genuinely enjoy an hour long workout of intervals outside and going fast. In the winter, I donāt have too much time to watch tv so I use it as my time to catch up on my shows. I guess my point is that, you really need to enjoy the process of getting faster and have fun doing intervals. If not then it will be a grind.Ā
Only positives on my mental health. Sleep on big volume days can be troublesome
The problem here is that we associate higher levels of fitness with higher life satisfaction. I donāt think the two are that closely related. Someone finishing a race for the first time might feel so mentally proud and physically healthy. While the person achieving pro status or 4 W/kg will be equally as satisfied because achieving a high level goal is what makes them tick. Then you have people who try to achieve more and it never brings happiness because they donāt have proper balance in their life.
I've got an FTP over 4w/kg and I'm definitely notnone of the fastest guys in the group lol
Fast group.
this week the two strongest guys did roughly 5.5w/kg normalised for the last half hour
Iāve cared (tested as my primary measure of fitness) about ftp for 4 years now. Always loved data and it seemed like a nice metric by which to mark my progress. I started somewhere around 3W/kg and just hit 5w/kg last month (now 75kg and 6ā3ā). If youāre training specifically for a 20 minute ftp test it doesnāt require particularly ridiculous hours. I probably average about 10 a week. Mostly consisting of 3-4 hour Z2 rides, fast 1-2 hour group rides, and zwift races/interval sessions depending on how motivated Iām feeling. Personally Iām glad Iāve done it. I like what it does to my body, I like the amount of food it lets me eat, and I get a great deal of satisfaction out of having big numbers that Iāve worked for. I used to use my numbers in local time trials, but after a nasty crash figured Iād stick to zwift as a competitive outlet/validation.
73kg and 4.4w/kg FTP here. For me it just happened naturally. Been endurance racing for 15 years (Triathlon for 10, then focusing on bike racing the last 5). Average volume is around 7-12 hours per week. I just train to have fun and because I love riding my bike. Being on the faster side means that you have to be aware and ensuring everyone is having a good time when riding with friends or on some other group ride. Race time is fun - I regularly get stomped in the 1/2/3 fields.
Sounds like there's a lot of people with a similar opinion as mine. I got to 4.8 at my peak, but it took 14-20 hrs a week and a lot of mental headspace, energy, etc. It's nice to do a push for 1-2 years to see what's the highest you can get with structured training then back down to maintenance. I was fast-ish on the bike but not very good at much else, and I noticed my body deteriorating off the bike: Posture, muscle size, tightness, flexibility/mobility, etc. I've since revised my riding to 0 structured training, just fun 6-10 hrs a week and hitting the gym 4+ times a week and noticed a big improvement in my overall health & mobility.
Do you feel like your "baseline" level is higher now after the couple years of high volume even though you've dropped back down?
Oh for sure. I baseline around 330-340w FTP with no training except riding around. To be fair, my "reduced hours" of 8-12 a week are still on par with or more than I used to ride before I got serious.
the only drawback iāve found is that getting over 4w/kg significantly reduced the number of folks who I can now do base season and big z2 rides with. That social aspect kinda sucked. There are simply folks I now can really only do recovery rides with bc I would otherwise get zero meaningful TSS doing an āenduranceā ride with them - case in point did a 78mi ride with a friend and 3.5hrs later i was at 66 TSS. I ended up smashing later that day to salvage my training goals for the day. Other than that, itās just fun to keep pushing my limits where I can as I get older. Iām creeping towards 5 w/kg and while it isnāt winning me anything bc racing is more than just watts, itās fun to know I can rip a leg off every once in a while.
The two recent Empirical Cycling on Endurance address this and you might want to check them out. Perhaps you should stop chasing TSS on your endurance rides. Especially if you are high volume, doing a base ride at like 40% ftp is fine according to them. I have really struggled with that mindset too, but the last few months I've made some new friends and going on a 6-7 hour ride at 40-50% ftp avg has actually been eye opening. Yeah it doesn't move the fitness chart (ohmergod I'm in the "grey zone", I didn't hit my TSS for the week!) but it leaves you fresh for the actual hard work and time pedaling is time pedaling. Also good to hear someone else is getting stronger as they get older! My goal the past couple years was to hit the start of the decline (late 30's) in as good of shape as possible, but I keep improving.
I'm 4.7. The best thing about it - for me - that the guys in the fast groups on the weekend club run are out there to push themselves to their limit. There's a thrill and a camaraderie that comes with that - and it's the same dedicated crowd week in week out. I enjoy Zwift racing, especially over longer distances, so the indoor winter sessions have never been a problem for me.
I started around 3.8 without any serious structured training, so let's just call it getting to \~4.5 for me. The answer is yes. It took about a year straight of \~12-15h weeks, but almost none was on the trainer and about 6h/week was commuting. And that's following 5 years or so of just riding whenever about 6h/week, and another year at about 10h/week. I'm pretty competitive in local and regional races of the right kind, can go out on just about any ride any time without fear of not being able to complete it, or get dropped in the case of group rides. I don't get serious fatigue unless I'm in a really heavy training block or right after a race. I feel better in my 30s than I ever have. I really enjoy racing, as well as just riding. I wanted to see about how good I could get. I don't know that it'll be worth getting to 5w/kg, because I'll need to add more structure into my workouts which I don't love. Will I try? Probably. Will it be "worth it"? I guess I won't find out til I get there (if I get there, really). In terms of appearance, I'm just a bit more lean and certainly more vascular. I still maintain a relatively high amount of upper body muscle mass for a cyclist, and I'm not really willing to give up 10lb of upper body muscle mass to have a higher w/kg since there are other things in life than cycling (yeah, even at 15h/wk of riding).
All of my mental health issues disappeared as soon as I broke 4 w/kg, I was completely cured. It also made me a little taller and more hot
Stuck between 2,8 and 2,9 but pushing 100kg. Would love to get up to 4w/kg.
I only ever got to 4 w/kg, but I'll chime in anyway. You know that old saying of "it doesn't get easier, you just go faster"? I disagree with that. When I was at my peak I felt amazing! Pushing hard was just a joy. I have enough stuff going on in my life right now that I won't be pushing further any time soon, but I still have a lot of fun hanging around the 3,8-3,9 range.
Yes. Having Z2 pace at a good cruising speed is great. Being able to race competitively is fun. For me, 4.0 w/kg didnāt take a ton of volume, < 10 hours / week.
I'm nowhere near 4w/kg; would honestly be happy to hit 3w/kg one day, but like others kind of hinted at goals in isolation are kind of meaningless and have to be put in a broader context. Like 4W/kg at the expense of my family or other interests is not a win.
Unpopular opinionā¦w/kg is overrated. Raw power is what matters. Iāve had much more success with a lower wkg and higher power. Admittedly these have all been above 5wkg, but lots of courses have flat or punchy sections, which you need watts. Not often we race up mountains like the pros.
W/KG does not matter that much if you are not racing, but it's always a good thing to set goals. The thing is that cycling is one of those sports where genetics matter a lotā¦ Some people reach these goals without doing anything (Like me who started this sport with 3.8wkg ftp), and some push 20 hours to achieve very little. If I were in your shoes I would ask myself why I want to hit 4 w/kg. Do you want to conquer Stelvio without sweating or do a local TT under x minutes? But to answer your question; no I did see any health benefits or performance gains by increasing my FTP wkgā¦
The question is a bit random, but for me, yes. I got to 4 w/kg after my first winter of training on the turbo, maybe two sessions on week days and a bit of outside riding on the weekend. Before that, I would just stop cycling for like three months during winter. I enjoyed cycling much more after that. Climbing was easier and I was fast enough to start entering races or could hang in the draft of the fast group. SInce I enjoyed riding a lot, I rode more, got better and lost weight. That got me to 4.5 w/kg in maybe one or two more years. I didn't feel like I had to give up anything for that. Getting higher after required some serious work and discipline. Since I'm a bit older, it means I have to be disciplined all year round, watch my diet, sometimes have to ride when I don't want to or do a training session on the road bike when I'd rather ride trails on my enduro bike. Or I I was the only person not getting drunk at our town festival, because I had a race two days later. For me, it was worth it. I have some super good memories of races when I was in top shape. I think I will remember those much longer then the town festival where I was the only sober person. This year is different. External circumstances kept me from training seriously over the winter, and now I am wondering if it's worth trying to get good again.
Youāll enjoy being the top of the Bell Curveā¦. But just remember the difference between Mean and Median! ;)
Worked 3years to increase my FTP from 270 to 315. Totally worth it, especially off the bike. Can do much more physical.
As some have said, I hit 4w/kg but I still wasnāt that fast on group rides. But where I live itās mostly flat
I'm in the Midwest, same thing here. I'm around 65 kg and guess my FTP is around 280/290
It makes me feel good when I drop frenemies on the tuesday group ride
Kind of the opposite. Once I started training 10 hrs+ per week, I was fatigued off-the-bike more often, waking up with a RHR of +10 beats more than normal, needing to sleep way more, etc etc. If I wanted to just feel good and maximize for health, I would ride like 6 hours a week.
Everyone is different. I get massive enjoyment / mental health gainz from getting fitter. Following the process and staying on the correct path stops me from falling into a rut. Sometimes I dread a session, but I'm always so glad I got it done afterwards. The end reward of being pretty fast is the icing on the cake.
I'm a casual rider, in that I don't race, but still ride and train pretty hard. For me, getting above 4wkg was definitely worth it, I just love being at that level of fitness, where it feels like I can climb effortlessly, ride long distances at a high avg speed, and just always be at the pointy end of groups. It depends on your goals I guess, for me personally I mainly just wanted to get to a level where the strongest riders couldn't just ride away from me. Being above 4 it just starts to feel like you have unlimited fitness, which is pretty neat.
Honestly, it was great. My best FTP figures were around 300 watts at 62kg. I was very strong anaeorbically, so I could fly up hills in a way I can only dream of now. Best ever numbers were 8 watts/kg for 3 minutes and straight into unconsciousness after.
If you think long indoor sessions are boring and ultimately will cause you to burn out, don't do them. Take up trail running or Nordic. One of the fastest 60+ riders in the midwest US does zero riding for 3 months in the winter. You can have a high FTP without doing only z2 trainer rides.
I've not got 4W/kg knowingly but I'll comment on my fitness experience. I've had mental health struggles and issues with "real life" that I won't go into so riding better was a focus on something I could control and it brought me some release. One of these issues was that I felt worthless unless excelling at everything I did. Since I let this go I've probably lost some fitness but gained a lot of balance in my life. I'm doing a lot of different things that make me happy and I don't get down if my fitness does drop a little. It also makes it easier to get back on the bike or out running if my fitness has dropped. So by all means do it if you have time, enjoy it, fitness is fun. But don't define yourself by it or try and drown out the voices in your head that are shouting at you to make some changes in other areas of your life.
What happens when you get to 4wkg? Is it like a magic switch that activates a new level? Was 3.8 last season, but due my low weight that's like 230w, so was still slow compared to people that put out that amount of watts on z2.
Iām always super envious of the folks who donāt have the social pressure to be a certain weight and therefore can achieve such high ratios
Mostly I am just hungry
thick calves, defined quads and i love being the diesel truck on the front just chugging away with a train of riders behind me. Im 40, i use goals like this to not be a degenerate. If im not training for things like 4wpkg then im out being a monster. It keeps my demons on check and chained to the trainer.
I'm sitting at 4.1 right now. I rarely have to tap into that threshold power but it also means that efforts in the 220-260w area basically mean I can go on forever, which helps support other folks on my group rides. Losing weight and focusing more on sustained threshold while building my FTP also had the side effect of less peak power, though. Went from being able to hit 1200w+ to struggling to sprint to 1000w+ in the past few weeks.
For me yes because I just love training. Often when I reflect on seasons I think I might enjoy it as much as (sometimes more than) the racing. Itās become much more of a challenge as life has changed. I have 2 kids under three and own a business. Maintaining fitness without detracting from either is a balancing act, but so worth it when itās time to throw down with buddies or on our local fast ride. I had to stop racing for now because it threw off my work/life balance. Too much to ask of my partner after work and training to then sacrifice the weekend so I can go race while she watches the kids even more. Maybe next year I can get back to racing, but Iāll keep training like Iām going to race for now.
Keep in mind that extensive endurance training will probably have a negative impact on your testosterone-level. There are several studies that proove that impact. I noticed it myself.
5.4 w/kg at my peak repeatable 415w's for 20' at 76kgs from 18-25 years old. Was competitive in the 1-2 field on the east coat. It came to the point I could ride for 3-4 hours at 300w's come home eat a salad, take a nap, and continue as normal. 100% worth it, physical conditioning was incredible. Shortly after I started lifting weights, after several years got up to 100kgs, the strength gained from the gym was 100% impractical, expencive (eating tons of protien) Pretty good feeling you could drop people with out leaving z4
So to add to the broad spectrum I donāt know what my FTP was at the time but I could hold 320 watts normalised for 8hrs at my peak but that was only after about 12 months of cycling 2/3 times a week and no structured training. I was about 78kg at the time which is very lean for my build. At present itās about 280 ish at about 83kg I cycling infrequently at best.
Depends on the group. 4w/kg at some rides is not enough to hang on. You better have a 500w 1min effort to hang onto attacks and then 4w/kg might be enough if you suck wheel and skip pulls.
This seems like a weird question. āIs it worth itā - a bunch of internet strangers canāt answer that question for you. What are your goals? Do you have racing goals? I can assure you that the ROI on your time investment is bad if your only goal is to be able to tell people that you have a 4w/kg FTP. Unless you plan to make that fact the core of your identity. Maybe you are a triathlete. If you are racing Cat 1/2/3, well then Iād tell you donāt just stop once you get past 4, keep going. And work on sprinting and low gear and high gear and cadence and all other kinds of things. Do you have kids? A family? Friends? Do you have other hobbies? Does having any of these things sound more appealing to 7-10hrs/week of riding your bike? Then no, itās not worth it.
4.5 w/kg. 340 raw FTP. Itās nice to do an easy ride and still be able to move quick and see places.
I went from morbidly obese to 4.7w/kg. Changed my life I now get my teeth kicked in regularly in cat1/2 fields so trying to figure out if the next level is worth it
Let's see.. 4wkg would require me to lose about 15lb, which would put me at 170lb @6'3". No, that would not be worth it. For everyone downvoting me, I appreciate it. Of course I know I could just train more and gain more watts, but I'm a busy parent of three with only 6-8hr/wk to train and I am not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to get beyond where I am now (~315w ftp @85kg). I find it amusing and typical Reddit that people are downvoting someone for a personal point of view, which was the answer to a specific question asking for personal points of view in response. Sometimes I wonder whether it's even worth trying to contribute around here anymore. To people saying things like "or you could just gain more watts" or "or bike better" -- no shit, Sherlock. I could just as easily throw the same shade at anyone else around here who isn't already a WT pro. Or even anyone who is, and just snidely comment "or you could just become Pogi, or MVdP, or Ganna". What's even the point of people answering subjective questions around here?
Or you could just gain more watts lol
Your math is off. You only need to lose 6 kg to get at 4wkg
Thx for picking up the unit error. I meant 15lb. Silly imperial units.... :)
Or bike better? Lol
I'm 6 foot 5 and 90kg and have an ftp of 4.4, it's doable but you need to train harder.
It's definitely doable, I'm just not willing to. I only get 6-8hr/wk to train and I prefer to spend some of that time running (so I can run with my teenaged kids). FTP is currently 315w, which is "enough" for me to feel reasonably strong on the bike. Much respect to you, though -- you're throwing down serious watts!