Critical Power
P 45 Power Meter 2 book
He also talked about the watts put out by a sprinter, saying his
maximum was 1125 as of a year ago (he retired in 2000), and that the
top sprinters do around 1,400-1,500 watts, which they can hold for
seven to ten seconds. In the typical test where the wattage is
increased every three minutes he managed 450, whereas top guys can
reach 600.
FTP
Andy Coggan wrote:
...er, ways of determining your functional threshold power (roughly
in
order of increasing certainty):
1) from inspection of a ride file.
2) from power distribution profile from multiple rides.
3) from blood lactate measurements (better or worse, depending on
how it is done).
4) based on normalized power from a hard ~1 h race.
5) using critical power testing and analysis.
6) from the power that you can routinely generate during long
intervals
done in training.
7) from the average power during a ~1 h TT (the best predictor of
performance is performance itself).
BTW, another method that could be added to this list would be to do
an
incremental exercise test to determine 'MAP', then estimate
functional
threshold power as being ~75% (range 72-77%, using Ric Stern's
guidelines) of this value. You could then use this estimate as is,
or if
necessary/desired, further refine it using one of the methods
described
above (e.g., by doing a TT).
BTW, the reason this approach works is because in trained cyclists,
LT
falls within a fairly narrow range as a percentage of VO2max, and
there
is tendency for those with the highest LTs to have the lowest
anaerobic
capacities (and therefore a slightly lower MAP relative to power at
VO2max), and vice-versa. In any case, at the very least knowing your
MAP
will help 'bracket' what could be considered a reasonable range into
which you expect your threshold power to fall.
