How to Learn Your Strengths & Weaknesses with Power Profile Cycling
Cycling Power
Power meters are the gold standard for quantifying how hard you are going when you are on the gas and pedaling hard. Itâs a better metric than heart rate, speed, or cadence alone because it is non-partial. A watt is a watt plain and simple, if you are going up a 20% grade or pedaling on a flat smooth road, 300 watts is always going to be 300 watts.
However, 300 watts to you might not be quite the same as 300 watts for another rider. Because weight is such a big factor in cycling, watts per kilogram(w/kg) have become a more standard way of understanding the output of a rider at a given wattage.
This isnât the last layer however! Just how long can you hold that 300 watts, or 600 watts? What are your strengths and weaknesses? How can you know where to focus your training?
There are, in fact, quite a few layers to how each of us makes our watts, and by doing some testing, and a bit of analysis with some training software (EVOQ uses WKO5), you can understand yourself much better and what sort of training you need to hit your body with the optimal training load. This is Power profiling.
We are all training using power to get FASTER and have that edge up on the KOM Strava Segment, to win races, to be our best-selves, and to quantify improvement. Power profiling takes those watts, and with tools in WKO5 you can compare yourself against your peers, make informed opinions about what those watts mean specifically for you!
If youâre new to training with power, it might be hard to know what is a good power number for cycling, what is a good power to weight for cycling, or what a power profile is. Weâll answer all those questions below!
See Also: Indoor Bicycle Trainer Guide
Cycling Power Chart
The original Power Profile from Training and Racing with a Power Meter
The chart above was originally compiled in the book, Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Hunter Allen and Andy Coggan, PhD. They gathered data from thousands of power files and came up with these average ranges for w/kg from beginner to world class. All you have to do to profile yourself with this system is to perform maximal efforts for each of the durations, 5s, 1m, 5m, and FTP then use your average power/weight in kg to see where you stack up!
See Also: FTP Exercise
This is a good start, but it doesnât tell the whole picture for a lot of reasons. What if your strength is 2 minutes and you canât quite catch that information in this chart?! Also, FTP is a historically misunderstood term that has been. That weakness is how the Power Duration cycling wattage chart gained popularity.
Power Duration Curve Cycling Wattage Chart
With the development of training software like WKO, Golden Cheetah and other cycling power profile calculators, new and more specific analysis options have become available to coaches and athletes alike. This chart illustrates your power from 1 second all the way out to your longest ride, and uses similar parameters as the original power profiling chart, but the software compiles ALL of your rides within a select time range, to get a nice sweeping curve and how your curve falls on the comparison template you can get a sense of how you compare to riders of every level. The beauty of this curve is you can do a power profile test and go full gas for any duration you want to see how you stack up.
This particular power curve is overlaid on approximations for power durations for all levels of cyclists from Cat 5 to World Class. This is useful to set long-term goals for yourself over time and can also be a great boost of confidence when you see that you are above average for your category. Youâll have the confidence to leverage that strength in your next race.
Cycling Power Curve Comparison
Another great feature from the WKO power curve calculator is the ability to compare your best efforts from season to season. This is an easy way to see in what areas youâve improved or perhaps gotten worse at over the years. This can help you make informed decisions about how to plan your training going forward and determine if things are working.
The above rider is a strong climber but struggled with shorter anaerobic efforts. After consistent strength training and neuromuscular training, he significantly improved his power duration curve for shorter anaerobic efforts (and aerobic!). Clearly heâs on a good EVOQ training program!
See also: Donât Make These Mistakes In The Gym
Power Profile
What does a power curve tell you and what is a good average power for cycling? If you donât have a sense of what kind of efforts you are good at, usually they are a duration you feel strong at and seem to continue improving at within a season or season-to-season, here are a few rider types you might want to identify with, and how you might want to use this information to inform your training approach! Outlined below are the main cycling power curve rider types.
Climber
If you are strong in w/kg in the 5-minute to 30-minute range when compared to your peers, Usually climber riders are lighter and therefore go quicker up hills for much less effort than larger punchy riders. Ftp and vo2 max are key here, but there are plenty of climbers that are also very punchy so donât rely on a strong w/kg value alone if this is your strength.
Puncheur
Explosive riders who lack the pure sprint ability of a true sprinter, this is a versatile rider type and the most common. Also called an allrounder, this is a good profile of an athlete who likes sharp anaerobic type efforts and repeated âfull gasâ efforts. Power in the 20 second to 3 minute range stands out as a specialty of this rider type. Raw watts and repeatability are the name of the game for a puncheur!
Sprinter
If you are a pure sprinter, you probably already know it. Huge anaerobic capacity coupled with a sizable Pmax and you would most likely want every race to come to the line because if it does you will either win or land on the podium. Sprinters spend a lot of time working on their pace change, and big accelerations are their specialty. Since we are talking about road racing, even sprinters need to have good aerobic adaptions in order to make it to the end of the race, but their strength is 5 second power to 2 minute power. Think last lap of a crit. The gym work for sprinters is a critical component of their speed.
All Rounder
Itâs worth noting that you really need to work on EVERYTHING when you are a road cyclist. Sprinting, short efforts, long efforts. Even if your strength isnât a sprint, you need to be able to get up and go sometimes to jump on wheels without gassing yourself, to attack up a climb or out of a corner. Cycling is Stochastic, meaning itâs never the same pace for the entire ride, so make sure your training has some variety!
See Also: VO2max Training For Cycling
Cycling Power Curve and Fixing Weaknesses
Now that you know how to do a cycling power curve analysis, how does that translate to what you choose to do with your training schedule? Using this knowledge, how do you individualize your training program? Training load needs to be a balance of building up your strengths, and not letting your limiters hold you back from riding strong for your events, be it weekend rides, crits, fondos, or whatever you like to do on two wheels!
Let's look at two different athletes for a basis of discussion.
Athlete 1
This rider is 69kg, and a strong climber. He races at a category 3 level, yet when referring to w/kg is on par with almost a cat 1 level for short climbs, and cat 2 for any longer durations. However, this American racer has historically had a hard time with big attacks, large pace changes, and positioning. When you look at the power peaks from 1s-3m you can see that reflected as his max outputs are really low compared to his peers, at only a cat 4-5 level.
With this knowledge, you can see that the main training goal should be to improve raw power for these short durations, otherwise even if the athlete makes the race or group ride selection, they will never have the power to seal the deal on the line! Raw power can be addressed with short FRC intervals, and plenty of gym work during the off season/non competition phase.
Power profiling also tells us something else: even after training with intention to improve the anaerobic capacity, this athlete probably wonât ever have that raw sprint that his peers might, but DOES have an aerobic capacity that gives him a few different options. This athlete could use their aerobic durability to execute more attacks than a more powerful sprinter. Their best bet for winning or making their competition suffer is to kick on just a bit more over the crests of climbs, rollers, or turns. These matches burned wonât be quite as big or take as large of a toll on this athlete as compared to the others. Training in season can therefore reflect that.
Athlete 2
Athlete 2 is also a category 3 racer, however their power profile looks much different. Strong in the 15s to 1m range, this rider has a gym background and was a track and field sprinter younger in life. They didnât know it at the time, but they had been building their anaerobic capacity for many years before becoming a cyclist!
This rider fares well in short races, and during group rides as long as the course isnât too punchy and there is plenty of draft, however if the ride stays hard and strung out, or the field is attacking up climbs or into a headwind/crosswind, this athlete will have trouble staying on the rivet and often gets dropped after around 5 minutes.
Seeing this discrepancy of aerobic/anaerobic power production makes it obvious that the rider needs to build his aerobic capacity. Their off season can be very traditional. Plenty of base miles early on, tempo intervals, and sweet spot intervals. As is common for riders with a high 30s -1 minute, power this riderâs FTP Time to exhaustion is relatively short. Assuring that most intervals are below this level, is a sure fire way to improve their aerobic muscular endurance, and make sure they are getting to the end of their events, where they can unleash that short power.
Problems with This Basic Power Profile for Cycling
The basic power profile, measuring your 5s, 1m, 5m, and FTP is a good place to start if you have never used your power meterâs information for anything other than live data before. The PD curve method is also a helpful way of understanding yourself as an athlete. However, there are more layers that canât quite be understood here with these cycling power charts.
Repeatability
Itâs one thing to measure max efforts at any duration, but how about repeatability? This is determined by multiple factors: fueling, overall training volume, and FTP, but nothing can replace actually getting to work and seeing how many times you can do a certain output of watts for a certain duration. Adjusting durations and intensities of intervals can be specifically determined if you test!
Power after âxâ Kilojoules Burned
Depending on your discipline or racing level, your events will last different lengths, and you will have to fire off your winning effort from a fatigued state. Choosing a KJ burn quantity, then testing your race winning power efforts is a good idea for anyone coming out of a base/build period before racing begins. WKO5 can actually chart your PD curve AFTER âxâ KJ burned, and that is a tool we can use to determine what intervals you can choose to best suit your training and racing goals!
Raw Watts Vs. W/KG
There is still another difference in power profiles that needs to be noted: Raw watts vs w/kg. W/kg works pretty well most of the time, but itâs not perfect. On flat roads, and even on some gradients for short durations, raw power is simply going to win out as a more important performance factor. Hereâs an example:
Two riders are doing max efforts of 20 minutes on a flat course. One weighs only 65kg, and can do 5 w/kg(325 watts) and the other is 85kg and can only do 4.5w/kg (382 watts). Assuming these riders are on similar bikes, and both have a similar racing setup, the 382 watts will go quite a bit faster than the 325 watts, because the course is flat, and the main resistance the riders are dealing with is wind resistance, not gravity.
When talking about speed vs. w/kg(or climbing speed) itâs important to remember that as speeds climb, exponentially greater power to create more speed. This is where large vs small riders need to assess their strengths differently. Simply thinking w/kg might be good for Zwift but it wonât be great for crit racing or road racing with a flat finish!
Itâs true that a smaller rider will likely have a smaller frontal profile and therefore create less drag but all other elements remaining consistent, smaller riders need to be more focused on their race winning power in raw watts than in W/kg, otherwise they might be wondering all season long why their w/kg that show they are in an elite class arenât winning them races every week!
Summary
Power profiles for cycling is a great way to assess where you are at, and where you need to be in order to be competitive and the power meter can do a lot more for us as cyclists than just give an instant readout, or average watts for a ride. Think of Cycling wattage charts as your road map to competition phase. You assess where you want to go, then you can figure out exactly what kind of intervals, number of intervals, and durations you need to get there. Understanding yourself and the training will help build motivation to really push hard during those key session too!
CUSTOM CYCLING TRAINING PLANS
FREE POWER FILE ANALYSIS!
Why a Power File Analysis?
The main goals of the analysis are to:
Benchmark your performance level versus your peers
Compare yourself to your theoretical self using the softwareâs algorithms
Look at your Performance Manager and see how you build and prepare for events
Circle back after reviewing the training to see if it will actually help you reach your goals
EVOQ coaching has been instrumental to my development as a racer. They have taken me from being dropped in cat 4 races to being constantly at the front of big cat 3 races. The personalized coaching that they offer is huge, and I definitely wouldnât be here without them.