What's your wattage?

[limewave]

I just started riding the computrainer at our local LBS. I plan to go once a week or so over the winter. Anyways, it measure's your wattage, which I thought was cool.

My avg. this week was 228.

I plan to ride the same course at the end of the winter season to see if/how much I've improved my power

[aicabsolut]

Have you done an FTP test? What is your FTP (functional threshold power, or approx. your hour TT-effort power)? It's getting to be computrainer season for me, too. I haven't tested in a long time and am thinking I need to compare to at least one test out on the road with a borrowed power meter. It seemed like I was chronically underestimating my FTP last year. Either that, or I was just testing poorly compared to my performance on the CT courses.

What does your avg. wattage translate into as W/kg (if you don't mind me asking)? I think over a 60-90 min CT workout last year, I'd tend to average around 3 W/kg.

[limewave]

Have you done an FTP test? What is your FTP (functional threshold power, or approx. your hour TT-effort power)? It's getting to be computrainer season for me, too. I haven't tested in a long time and am thinking I need to compare to at least one test out on the road with a borrowed power meter. It seemed like I was chronically underestimating my FTP last year. Either that, or I was just testing poorly compared to my performance on the CT courses.

What does your avg. wattage translate into as W/kg (if you don't mind me asking)? I think over a 60-90 min CT workout last year, I'd tend to average around 3 W/kg.

I'll have to pay attention to all the numbers when I go this week and report back. Being that my bike computer has been broken the last 3 months, all this information/feedback is really exciting to me.

[aicabsolut]

Well you can figure out your avg. W/kg if you know your weight in kg. Pure watts don't mean a whole lot except for max power for sprinting or maybe other small intervals. W/kg gives some more information. And your FTP is probably the most important number for using power as a training tool...which is why I want to be sure I get a better estimate of my FTP this winter training season. I'm just not ready to spend so many hours indoors yet!

[limewave]

Okay, so I'm at 68kg right now. So the W/KG would be 3.35?

How does one figure out FTP?

Thanks!

[aicabsolut]

I think a lot of people use a 20min time trial effort test minus something like 5% to estimate FTP. Friel advocates a 30min test: http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblo...and-power.html and argues that the average for a 30min solo TT effort is really FTP (what you should be able to maintain for an hour or 40km TT). I think this depends on how good you are at pacing for a 20km TT.


The reason I asked about your W/kg is because it's easier to compare that number across a population of people who aren't the same size for varied terrain than raw power, except when you're talking about max power. Max power is pretty hard to test on a computrainer, though, because the bike doesn't move and you can get some tire slip.