I missed the very last InCycle class, so I wasn’t able to get my last test results until today.
I don’t know how they compare to everyone else, or more importantly, the average healthy 40 year-old male, but for me, they did show improvement across the series. My target output shifted an entire zone!
I don’t know exactly how the math is done, but a test day always included some light warm up, a 5 min effort going as hard as you could, a bit of recovery and then another 15 minutes at maximum effort.
Here’s how the series worked out for me.
Nov 2008: 5 Min: 226 March 2009: 5 Min: 250
15 Min: 176 15 Min: 215 (look at that difference!)
FTP: 167 FTP: 204 (I have no idea what FTP is!)
Top Zone 1: 92 Top Zone 1: 112 (rolling forward, but barely)
Top Zone 2: 125 Top Zone 2: 153
Top Zone 3: 150 Top Zone 3: 184 (very “active” bicycling)
Top Zone 4: 176 Top Zone 4: 214
Top Zone 5: 201 Top Zone 5: 245 (racing, racing, racing)
I think the difference is really noticeable (and I can feel it more) on the higher end, particularly my stamina at zone 4, which generally felt very “natural” once I was warmed up and as long as I kept my cadence above 80.
Awesome!
Here’s a wiki page on performance for the science types, some software that estimates your watt output, and finally, something to do with all those watts!
Comment
Boy, that’s poor table skillz!
Bummer.