Cycling program v4.0 2011-2012 (Page 12)

But lets be realistic.  The higher your watts/kg, the greater your potential to go faster, it's really as simple as that.  Yes, you have to account for equipment, position, etc., but at the end of the day your watts/kg (comparing for yourself or against others) is a good benchmark to illustrate abilities/potential.

Man that's cranking!

This means your average speed for the 20 minutes was just over 20.9 mph, as long as you had no tire slippage that would skew the MPH it is what it is. I could see possible a tenth or so of error with some slippage but not a whole digit without some major squealing.

As far as not being a "true power meter".  It has been confirmed on BT that the KK CPU result was within the margin of error for a Powertap power meter measured simultaneously on the trainer.

5 watts change is about 0.2 mph change in the 20mph neighborhood, 10w ~ 0.4 mph.  Doesn't take much!

Man you guys are making my day!  I guess all the biking I've been doing since starting my "off" season in prep for this program is paying off

For 170 lbs(77kg) and a FTP of 275 (290 x .95) that puts your w/kg at 3.57.  Not bad at all.  More important than the KK computer being accurate, is repeating it and improving on it.  

Perhaps I am dense.  Jorge,  When I was calculating my CP with just the 20 min. test using the calculator I put in 300 for the 5 min test.( I didn't now what the real number was going to be.  

According to the calculator that you have Jorge:

20 min avg: 287

5 min avg: 300

With these numbers My CP is 279

20 min avg: 287

5 min avg: 330 (actual test result from this evening)

My CP dropped to 273

Why would it drop with a higher test result?

The formula "magically" figures the drop in power from 5' to 20' and carries it out to 60'----so in other words when you figured 300W for 5' then your 5 and 20 power was very close with little drop in power so the formula figures you can hold just below that for one hour BUT your 5' power was actually higher and therefore a larger drop in power from 5 to 20 and therefore the bigger drop on the way to one hour!  Make sense?

Completely.  Thanks.  I am going to proceed with the workouts using the higher CP value, and then adjust if I need to.  Does that seem reasonable?

anyone hear familiar w/using Training Peaks & Garmin 500?  I can't figure out why they don't give me the same average power #'s, for example same rides:

Today, 32.43 mi.

Garmin 500:  avg/max:  19.6/35.2MPH, 129/162 bpm, 84/114 rpm, 210/731w

Training Peaks:  avg/max: 19.77/35.24mph, 130/162 bpm, 84/144rmp, 187/731w,  normalized power 244

Yesterday, 75 mi.

Garmin 500: avg/max:  19.7/35.5 mph, 119/153 bpm, 83/117 rpm, 184/612 w

Training Peaks: avg/max: 19.67/35.5, 119/153 bpm, 84/117 rpm, 160,612 w, normalized power 212

any idea why the discrepancy, the max watts are the same, but the mean is different? and of course, which one is right? (Of course I want to hear the higher is the right one!)

It MIGHT be zero averaging.  The default on the 500 is to exclude zero power values from the average.   By default, the Garmin 500 does not include zero values when calculating averages.  Training peaks likely uses all values including zeros.

The CP model is based on the anaerobic work capacity concept; this means, by doing tests longer than 3 minutes the effort becomes aerobic in nature. Still, the energy systems don’t provide energy in a vacuum, hence even when we are producing and effort aerobic in nature, all systems such glycolysis (slow and fast) and aerobic pathway (mainly) will provide different degrees of energy.

The shorter the test; i.e. the more the glycolysis system will contribute to produce energy and the longer the test (less than 30 min) the less. Using the CP model, what we are really trying to do is to figure out where the power / duration curve "flattens out" to the point that you could sustain that power for a "long period time".

You are correct; raising the short term power (i.e. the 3 or 5 minute test) without raising the long term power (i.e. the 20 minute test) results in a lower CP. This means that while you can produce more power in short duration efforts, your power may fade quicker the longer you go (i.e. 20 min), and thus will be lower at an hour.  The main reason for this; you might have a greater anaerobic fitness component than your endurance one; hence, it is a great indication ‘what’ do you need to work or focus on.

This is why it is important to test both numbers any time you use the model to figure out what your CP is and where you should spend more time first. Still, improving both overtime will make your CP higher and thus, *if* you do specific training, you will also be faster when going long. 

no worries! we all have to start somewhere and as we improve then you can see how you stack to others. Besides, it is not about absolute power but power to weight. Bigger/stronger riders will always produce more power as they have more muscle mass; still once you consider weight into the equation, then the pic might be different.

we use Monod's critical power model, hence you do a 20 and a 5 max effort test. using both results we estimate your CP which roughly equates to what you *could* sustain for 60 min. The estimate might or might not be 100% accurate but it is a good ball park. with training, you should be able to do a 40K TT around your CP within watts of the estimate.

For the purpose of this program, forget about FTP,but is if you want to learn more read this: http://physfarm.com/new/?page_id=511

depending on your fitness level and consistency, we've seen avg increases between 10-15% in CP