Trying to get to 4w/kg

So I’ve been turbo training in and off for a couple of years now give or take. I seem to do alright for a bit, then get an injury or a biblical cold / flu thing that knocks me back.

I’m starting this year with a higher ftp than the last couple of years and with a good weight training / strengthening routine which so far is nicely keeping my slightly gammy lower back happy. Every couple of months I’m getting a sports massage to help keep it looser and happy (previously had bulged discs which flare up every now and then.

Current ftp is 240 as tested about a month ago – expecting that to go up to 246 or 251 depending on how the ramp test goes in a few weeks time. To keep things consistent I’m using a ramp test each time – I’ve never tried the 8 min or 29 min tests.

Weight is currently 76.5kg but I’m aiming for 75kgs in a few months time. Down from 78kgs at the start of Jan.

My plan is 2 turbo sessions a week of an hour ea h – following a Trainer Road plan. I’m swapping the TR weekend ride for a decent mtb tide – usually 600-800m of climbing over 2.5 hours ish so tss according to TR usually exceeds the planned indoor session.

To hit 4w/kg based on a ramp test I need to get to an ftp of 300watts with a weight of 75kgs. I think this might be a bit out of reach with the time I have to put into it but going to give it a go.

This is just a notional target to push on my fitness – there is no race or anything I’m aiming for. I’m 42 now and feel I can push my fitness on as long as I have enough recovery time between sessions.

Has anyone else got any experience of working towards this sort of thing in their 40’s or older? Any tips etc?

Slightly more ambitious, but some good tips/reading:

Project 5 watts per kg.

My plan is 2 turbo sessions a week of an hour ea h

I suspect that’s not enough riding, even when adding in the outdoors stuff.

I’m in the same boat, although slightly heavier.

The jiggle in my belly indicates I’m probably better off reducing weight than increasing power.

This might be of interest too

Operation 4w/kg + improved upper body strength

My plan is 2 turbo sessions a week of an hour ea h – following a Trainer Road plan. I’m swapping the TR weekend ride for a decent mtb tide – usually 600-800m of climbing over 2.5 hours ish so tss according to TR usually exceeds the planned indoor session.

To hit 4w/kg based on a ramp test I need to get to an ftp of 300watts with a weight of 75kgs. I think this might be a bit out of reach with the time I have to put into it but going to give it a go.

This is just a notional target to push on my fitness – there is no race or anything I’m aiming for. I’m 42 now and feel I can push my fitness on as long as I have enough recovery time between sessions.

I’m the same age as you, and at my peak FTP of 279w in September last year, I was 73kg, so tantalising close at 3.82w/kg. From there I went down to 260w, I think from not enough training (3x TR sessions a week) and then a took a break. I’m now going to ride again a few times a week, outdoors and indoors to get my fitness back up to somewhere in the mid 200’s before a big Scotland trip at the end of April.

You’re at 240w and 76.5kg, so 3.13w/kg.

I can tell you now, 3 sessions a week isn’t going to be enough. The gains you’re going to see now after a couple of years of training will be smaller and smaller, I went up 10w in 5 months last year. A 5w gain on a test after a 6-8wk block is going to be a good gain.

I may try again for the 4w/kg target this winter when I’m in peak condition (ha!) after a summer of biking, but it’ll be hard and I fully expect to have to be doing 4-5 rides a week.

My plan is 2 turbo sessions a week of an hour ea h – following a Trainer Road plan. I’m swapping the TR weekend ride for a decent mtb tide – usually 600-800m of climbing over 2.5 hours ish so tss according to TR usually exceeds the planned indoor session

I’d say you’re looking at a minimum of 10 hours of structured on the bike training per week, coupled with correct diet and a lot of recovery, its harder to improve the older you are and at 42 you’re already in the realms of maintaining what you’ve got with smaller increases,. not quite so dramatic ones – that is of course unless you’re a good 10kg over weight which I doubt you are with what you say.

My last tested (ramp test thingy) FTP was 281W @ 78kg, so 3.6w/kg and I find that relatively maintainable, if I had the 10 hours per week spare I could maybe add up to 10w and lose say 4kg – where I was in 2018, but in 24hr race shape, thus giving a possible 3.93w/kg, but I ain’t got time fo’ that shit anymore.

I’m trying to get in a fitness push…having a bit of luck on my side as I’m about 18 kg heavier than I’d like to be, so I’m hoping as the weight comes down, the fitness will ‘improve’ – I’m not too bothered about figures, but I’m hoping less bulk to shift will make things easier. Started doing some swimming and some strength sessions and getting more time on the bike as well. The diet is a constant work in progress, but the weight is starting to slowly drop, so I’m hoping to see and feel improvements. However, I’m pretty sure I’m nowhere near those figures just now and unlikely to be there, but targets are definitely helpful to keep progressing.

This time last year, I was riding approx 7-11.5 hours a week, riding everyday for at least 30mins. I was simply trying to get back some fitness after flu in Oct ’21 dropped my FTP to ~200W, from being in the 250-290W ballpark for the previous ~4 years, having started to ride for fitness in Jan ’17 at age of 43.

While I had random goals of getting an FTP of 300W+ and 4W/Kg+ from before the pandemic started, I mentally gave up chasing that idea after a rollercoaster of health issues that started in March ’20. So I was rather surprised to get very close to 4W/Kg for 20mins a few times in Zwift events that took me 18/19mins last year, without having any idea at the time. Lots of personal bests last summer outdoors and even a few top 10s on hilly segments, despite struggling to get under 80Kg when I was typically 73-78Kg from Aug ’17 to Apr ’20.

https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/tt-tuneup was amazing for a boost in early ’20, but the last few weeks are EVIL, do not do an FTP test part way through the plan!

Last year it was increasing amounts of sub 20min sprint races on Zwift, on top of Z1/2 rides. Zwift Insider Tiny Races are great for training repeatability of big efforts after little recovery, four sprints in an hour usually.

Has anyone else got any experience of working towards this sort of thing in their 40’s or older? Any tips etc?

yep, I went from 82 kg and an ftp of about 200 to an ftp of 270 at 66 kg, in about a year, aged 43

the weight loss came mainly from cutting out beer and junk food. Didn’t do any structured training as such, just rode more at a reasonable high intensity

now the bad news..

I was starting from absolute rock bottom. The gains were very quick after about 6 months, but after than didn’t get much else. And I’ve recently started a structured plan and in 4 months I’ve gained about 10 watts total

I’d say, if you are reasonably trained already, there is hee haw chance of you adding 60 watts on to your ftp. If the target is watts per kilo, try losing weight instead. It’s far far easier

I’d step back and think about what you want to do with your ‘fitness’ and how relevant ftp is to that – could you get more bang for your time buck by working specifically on other areas? What I mean by that is that two people could both have the same ftp, but one of them might be far better at recovering from hard efforts than the other, so in the real world, on a hard mountain bike ride for example, they would be stronger overall.

The example I always cite was a mate who was an iron man triathlete, so really well adapted to sustained, sub-threshold efforts. On the road I struggled to hold his wheel, off road I could kill him just by dragging him over threshold repeatedly, which he simply wasn’t used to. I get that there’s crossover, but with only two interval sessions a week, you’re going to struggle to make big ftp improvements I think, but even more importantly, they might not benefit your actual riding / fitness as much as you imagine.

I got wiped out by long covid for 18 months. A year after getting back on the bike, my ftp isn’t far short of what it was before, but my top-end and recovery from those efforts is much reduced, my real world ‘fitness’ on a mountain bike at least, is much reduced. My plan this spring is to focus on that rather than driving arbitrary ftp increases just because they’re there.

Have you tried following one of the programs on Zwift? I did Build Me Up last year with the occasional gym and real ride thrown in and just scraped 4w/kg at 86kgs and an FTP of 349w by the end of it, started out at 320 ish i think – the goal was to get fitter and lose a bit of timber but I don’t have the discipline for the diet 🙁

It was good for a few weeks but all high watt + high rpm intervals on training plans quickly became unbearable and often cramp inducing (might need a bike fit)

FTP currently sitting at 311 although not done a 20 minute flat out stint for ages. Mostly doing pace partner rides to get the miles in, have had a few 1hr stints with a 300w avg in the last month. If I wanted to have a go at increasing FTP i’d definitely do that Build Me Up programme again, if I wanted to get to 4w/kg I’d probably go see a hypnotist to stop me chinning the biscuits and crisps but at your weight that doesn’t sound like as much of an issue.

He’s using trainerroad so equivalent at the very least.

IMO keep doing what you are doing and if you add more make sure it’s not high intensity.

If you ramp up and too much more or too much more hard stuff too quickly you’ll only end up knocking yourself back again with illness.

4wkg is probably unrealistic this year but possible by next spring but the hard bit is keeping up gaining through summer rather than just going out and enjoying riding in the sun and potentially “losing” fitness.

FTP gains aren’t everything though. Intervals give you better recovery between efforts and being able to maintain high power for longer.

Just reading back over my own thread has got me realising I need to get back on the horse – 10 weeks until my big Scotland trip (Inc a week in Torridon where I’m going to need all the fitness I can get!).

I’ve ordered a new rear mech and cable for my zwift bike to sort the clunky shifting, £22 well spent I think. I was doing TR sessions, low volume 3x a week but was seeing minimal progress/going backwards and got a bit dejected – I find it very easy to lose motivation so I’m going to ramp up my riding from the current once a week to 3-4x a week over the next 2-3 weeks with some group rides/workouts, then I think I might do the 4wk FTP builder on Zwift, it’s 7x 1hr workouts a week but I may do it over a slightly longer period.

I think the posts about are probably right in terms of intensity required, 3-4hrs a week isn’t enough. I’m “lucky” in that although I’m tall, I’m not carrying any extra weight up top (apart from a slight belly which seems to appear easier and easier if I stop training) so I’m light for my height. I reckon I could get down close to 70kg, but I don’t think I’d look good at that weight.

Dropping weight is most definitely easier than gaining watts, you’ll need to make sure you’re not carrying an ounce of excess bodyweight as well as trying to eek out as many watts as you can.

It took me 12 hours a week of structured training to get to 285W at 65kg, over about 9 months. I had an event to work towards which was the only way I could be motivated to do the work.

This was at 41.

It might have been a bit easier if I hadn’t had a massive hole in my heart, unknown at the time. My mates training the same amount and for the same thing got to 300-320W while also being slightly lighter than me.

I agree with most of the advice given above. The average person needs a lot more than 4.5 hours per week to increase cycling fitness to a good level. I would suggest 10 hours a week, not all of that can be high intensity, as you would burn out.

To get to your goal figure (which is a bit arbitrary) you need to lose a bit of fat and increase fitness. Realistic figures are probably 65kg and 260watts FTP. Not sure how easy it would be for you to lose 10kg plus but no doubt it is possible if you have the willpower. It might not be worth it though. It’s up to you.

Just another data point, how tall are you/how are you built.

75 kilos and 190 tall is a whole different kettle of fish to 75 and 165…

Ditto if you are built for weights, cycling. Or pies…

Got to about 4.2w/kg a couple of years ago, but as echoed above it requires a fair commitment to hours on the bike, and hiding the biscuit tin.

I was only about 62kg and did one of the Zwift 12 week plans, to get me to about 260w FTP. I only ever use the 20 minute test, as I find the ramp test tends to give you a figure on the high side, and can be difficult to sustain if used as a base for a training program.

Hardest part is keeping motivated to do the sessions, not being too knackered to ride with your mates, and being careful what you eat.

I’d lost 14kg over the previous three years and tend to yo-yo between 65-61kg, with the odd 68kg at Christmas. So it tends to be a temporary w/kg depending on other factors?

Good luck with it, it’s fun when you get a decent level of strength / fitness.

Thanks all – it’s definitely an arbitrary figure with no real aim behind it other than to motivate me on.

I’m 5’9 and stocky ish – longer leg than body. I’ve done a lot of weights over the years on and off – I can dumbell bench press the 25kg dumbbells to give an idea and clean and press about 50kg at the moment.

I didn’t mention I typically do one swim a week of about a mile and probably 2 weight training sessions on top of TR and going out on my bike.

I don’t think I’ll get below 74kgs at best tbh – I had a good go at weight loss either last year or the one before and took a few slightly miserable food months to get to 74.3kgs and I don’t really want to repeat that. 75kgs doesn’t have to cut too many nice things out.

I use the ‘lose it’ app and typically try to work on 1700 net calories a day. So more exercise = more calories but I’m probably in a small deficit at 1700. Intend to weigh a lot of food as it’s very easy to eat more calories than you think and burn less during exercise than you think you do.

Im mostly into mtb so being able to do a strong base amount of watts with the ability to go up to / over threshold in short bursts is broadly where things need to be. The likes of the Cafell climb at Cwmcarn is the thing that beasts me the most I’d say.

TR plan has a long base period of sweet spot – I find higher watt efforts ok for short periods – but it’s the longer intervals that I find hard. Part physical exertion but also mental. Happy to carry on with TR as it plays nicely with just an iPhone / HR strap  and nothing else required.

I took up road riding in a serious vein at the age of 38 (I’d always rode mountain bikes, but with no real focus on fitness). After a few years of just riding around on the road I then started to add in some training, initially with an FTP of 220 watts and weighing about 80kgs. The training was just doing two Sufferfest rides a week (back in the day it was  Angles and one other I don’t remember). This was on a dumb trainer, so not really accurate.

As I progressed I started to ride with a team and then decided to get proper coaching. It was incredibly hard work but I ended up with an FTP of 308 and a weight of 67kgs. But I was riding an awful lot and was being really mindful about my diet. I would have been about 42 when this happened. I could have probably advanced my FTP a bit further, but I had a family and a job to balance, A lot of our training was also race specifc, so not just FTP focused – sprints / recovery / sprints…..I hated it. The younger guys seemed able to recover better from multiple sprints than I could.

With racing though, I really struggled to enjoy the riding and the training. This was probably overtraining on my part. But it was insanely hard to maintain the same level of fitness and actually enjoy and have fun being out on the bike. It got to the point where there was no riding to enjoy riding, it was either training or racing. And I was feeling wiped out, properly tired all the time, not just on the bike.

I then took a year out of racing/training and my FTP dropped like a stone while my weight ballooned. At 46 I then decided I wanted to race again, I started training and managed to get my FTP back to 290 and my weight to 70kgs. I wasn’t doing real structured training, was doing the STW Zwift Races (both TT and the individual race), plus a couple of long outdoor rides, at least one being a very easy social ride. The first race of the season was booked for the April and then COVID hit  and all racing was cancelled for the year. Afterr that I was completely demotivated and just rode socially – the FTP once again dropped and the weight came back.

I’m training and riding again, but just for the enjoyment of it. My FTP is 235 watts, which is quite poor in my view and my weight is 78kgs, which I’m happy enough with.

If any of the above sounds like a moan, its not. I absolutely loved every moment of every race I was in. Even when I was spat out of the back or when in a solo breakaway and riding at threshold knowing full well I’m doomed – it was really fun…..incredibly hard, but fun. I

(My FTP Tests were carried out at the Athletes Lab in London and also the Sufferfest 4DP test process – generally the 20 minute test, but with hard  efforts before the 20 min test starts)

I did it on 10hrs a week in 2020 for something to do in lockdown, dropping to 73kg.

I remember slimming down that much was horrendous and you have to be careful you can still fuel your cycling, but the plan I had was very hard intervals of increasing time / billet / nothing less that sweet spot for a about 5 months (I started at 3.7wkg).

Probably not something I’d do again TBH.

Got to about 3.8-3.9 over 45min to hour races in turbo this winter. That’s based on a 3 or 4 hour ride once a week with a couple of mid week hours and a very short 15min each way commute. Nearer 50 than 45 sadly

If you ramp up and too much more or too much more hard stuff too quickly you’ll only end up knocking yourself back again with illness.

I’m slowly learning this at 43. Applies across all activities, i.e. you need to balance the gym work with the cycling. I’m finding it helpful to slow down the progression, compared to 10 years ago. So I’m programming 21 weeks at a time in the gym, rather than 4, and I’ve recently started using the adaptive training in TR to try and stop myself pushing too hard.

I use the ‘lose it’ app and typically try to work on 1700 net calories a day. So more exercise = more calories but I’m probably in a small deficit at 1700. Intend to weigh a lot of food as it’s very easy to eat more calories than you think and burn less during exercise than you think you do.

I’d recommend having a look at MacroFactor if you like tracking what you eat. It infers your energy expenditure from what you’re eating and what you weigh, which they claim is much more accurate that trying to figure it out based on estimates of calories burned by particular activities.

Yes I’m religiously following the adaptions recommended in TR but also using AI detection for FTP as I can’t be bothered doing any “tests”. Ramp seemed accurate for me. I’m typically replacing the threshold session with an hard MTB ride and getting the V02 and SS session done each week. Reasonable upward trend on about 4 hours a week. Slowly trying to add a bit more time with the view to be back up to around 7 hours riding a week in Spring and mostly outdoors.

Building back up from a poor year then a round of Covid. Highest I ever got to was 280w and now expecting to be back to 250w when I next “test”. Stopped Zwift racing and forced into not starting training too soon so I’m not feeling utterly flogged by this time of the year. Building towards spring rather than holding on.

The adaptive training bit in TR quite often seems to play about with the levels of the next few sessions – to start with it was scaling back the levels but the last week it’s upped the difficulty of them a bit. Seems to be working quite nicely right now. Got a few more tough ones then the week after next is made up of easier endurance thing as a kind of rest week. Then it’s ramp test again and then back on the sweet spot.

Good luck Joe!

I had it as my goal for Jan ‘23. “4.0 by 40.”

In the end, I don’t know how close I got as I didn’t bother testing.

Instead I’ve been working hard on my Z2 to try and go into the summer feeling invincible and then hopefully build the highest peak I’ve ever reached on top of that.

My eFTP got up to 367w last year but at the time I was about 97kg.

It does make me laugh when people say “just ride your bike lots and the weight will fall off”. I did 11800kj last week and ended up a lb heavier 🤣

Or “make sure you fuel the work and the weight will take care of itself”. I tried that last year and put on 10lb on 10hrs cycling a week 🤣🤣

I have gone away from caring about FTP as a metric now too. With longer events (Dirty Reiver and ToC) as my goals, I’m not convinced it’s much use. You certainly don’t need it to structure your training for anything other than 40k TT’s.

I’m focussing on my 2hr power at the moment. In the next few  months I want to reach 120mins @ 300w.  I’ve started building on my 2hr Z2  sessions to get to 120mins @ 271w ( tempo HR) so far, which according to intervals.icu is top 97% of my age group.

My FTP could be 305 or it could be 400 right now- I have no idea  🤷🏻‍♂️

@crosshair – thanks!

I can’t out exercise diet – I so much as look at a calories and I on weight – so have to be relatively careful to lose weight past a certain point. To go below 76kgs I have to be quite strict and train a decent amount.

Other people can drop weight quickly and get really lean – but on the flip side of that if they wanted to put on a load of muscle and strength they’d struggle where I wouldn’t – so it’s swings and roundabouts really.

Then there are the small % of ********** who have the best of both worlds and I hate them 🤣

I’m guessing you’re on the sweet spot base/build low volume plan?

You’ll definitely need to start adding some extra volume once you get towards the 3.5w/kg mark. Out of interest, even though we’re similar weights, we’re completely different builds (6ft 3in, skinny, can barely do more than 2-3 pull ups). My peak 5s power was 850w, I’d expect yours to be well over 1000w.

On all my previous ramp test my legs were giving out before my heart rate maxed out, I’d normally hit 180bpm or so. On my latest ramp test after 8 weeks off the bike, I hit 195bpm, which was a new max HR. So for me, training my upper power and bring able to hold that for longer than 30 seconds sees me getting big improvements.

@ta11pau1

Yes I think so – selected enduro and for a 3 hour event in May when I setup the plan. It’s got more than last few plans on sweet spot then ramps up with some more threshold and vo2 max sessions towards the end.

I’m not amazing at pull-ups but improving on them – built wide grip pull ups into my back and biceps weight training session. Also got deadlift / inverted rows / single arm bent over rows and a bicep exercise or two in that session. Plus glute bridges to help build the core.

Tbf if I got to 3.5w/kg that would be the best I’ve ever got to – think 3.39 is the highest so far mid last year.

I got to 4w/kg on three dedicated workouts a week and a bit of Z2 chucked in. Just make sure the turbo sessions are really high quality and you fuel properly. It’s definitely doable, just don’t expect it to happen quickly.

Consistency is key!

Been there at 4 and a smidge W/kg a few years back for a season. Absolutely none of it involved a turbo at any point. I  am not a small person either: I was between 81-82kg and was ftp-ing at 335 in tt’s. Had a reasonable season but not my best. Restraint rather than omissions are your friends with diet. Remembering to enjoy riding your bike is the other important thing. My best season of results (4th v40 in Welsh cx league, and sub 24 minutes on a road bike on our sporting tt course where 22 minutes is damn fast on a tt bike) couldn’t tell you any of my hr or power because I stopped using either monitors. Remember to enjoy it.

I’ve also been up to 4w/kg on 3 sessions* per week a couple of times. The first time I set it as a goal and when I achieved it I didn’t feel very satisfied by it. The next time was a by-product of hitting some process goals (fuel better, more consistency) and that whole thing was more satisfying.

I sort of agree with crosshair, in that I don’t find chasing FTP to be a particularly good way of getting better at riding my bike but I disagree that it’s pointless as a metric. I think it’s a pretty good way of setting your zones (particularly if you’re doing SweetSpot training) and can be a useful marker of progress. I’m quite enjoying the TR progression levels as a way of gamifying the training.

Oh, and if you’re using TrainerRoad then the predictive FTP thing is really good in my experience. I really hate FTP testing.

*either on a turbo or following outside. Would throw in the occasional social ride / ride with kids too

I think you could do it Joe (with a significant bump in the hours as has been said) but not with this – there is no race or anything I’m aiming for.

You’re talking about a pretty significant increase in threshold power in your early 40s – sooner or later the training is going to feel hard. Talking about the listen to your body, then tell it to STFU and climb on the turbo sort of sessions. 4-is-a-nice-number isn’t enough to drive you through this, for most people. You need sharp, personal goals – racing is the obvious source for this but really any externality that can focus your training regime.

Good luck with it if you commit – I think we’re all used to seeing casuls dishing out 4 WKg-1 on zwift like it’s nothing but it is a pretty serious level in reality. Some inspirational posts above show it is achievable.

I had an FTP of around 315w at around 69 kilos when I was your age… I reckon that was on three turbo sessions in the week and two rides at the weekend (normally a long road ride and a fun mountain bike ride) so a lot more than 4.5 hours – nearer 10. And I could see veins in my stomach as I was light.  But I think I was hitting around 280-290 on about six or seven hours a week later than that. I think you’ll need to do more to hit 4W/kg.

Get a good feel for your FTP, ramp test may get you in the right area but you really need to be able to hold it for 40 minutes straight before using it to set training zones.

I disagree with you @Haze. I’ve seen a fair few training plans from a variety of coaches but I’ve never seen ‘do 40 mins at FTP to get a feel for your real FTP’.

Pretty sure I couldn’t hold 240w for 40 mins solid. I guess I’m aiming for a ramp test 4w/kg – so perhaps not a true measure vs someone testing with 8 min or 20 min tests. But a good measure as to the progress I’ve made vs a few years ago vs last year vs now I guess.

No race planned because I’m not that bothered (if I do a race it’ll be an enduro where overall fitness across the day and descending skill are more important) about racing per we. It’s more about being fit for mtb / being able to go further / faster in the time I have and making sure I can enjoy myself without feeling like I’m on my arse every time there’s a big climb. I feel I’ve made some progress the last couple of years overall – I’m considerably lighter than I have been (was about 84kgs at the start of 2021) and am able to press along at a better pace uphill / on the flat. Cadence is also a chunk faster on average which feels like it helps – got that burst of power for steeper / tech bits of climbing that I didn’t use to have.

@ianpv- I’m never going to get close to how slim / low body fat you must have been – I just don’t have that kind of physique / metabolism to easily get there and well……I like cake 🤷‍♂️

Perhaps I’ll see how I go on current plan and see when progress plateaus and then revisit what I can fit in / changes that could be made to get moving again?

Point being, if you can’t hold it for 40 minutes it’s likely not accurate…by all means use whatever protocol you choose to get close, but verify it…may be fairly accurate for some but as physiology varies greatly above threshold it’s worth checking the result of a ramp test against what should be an aerobic measure?

Worth a read, 20 minute test but principle is similar…anaerobic contribution…

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-physiology-of-ftp-and-new-testing-protocols/

It’s more about being fit for mtb / being able to go further / faster in the time I have and making sure I can enjoy myself without feeling like I’m on my arse every time there’s a big climb.

This is precisely the reason I started zwifting 18 months ago, having been on a 5 day riding trip to the Lakes which damn near killed me, I swore I’d get my fitness to a level where I wasn’t suffering.

On a trip to Dartmoor last autumn, which coincided with me being at my fittest, I was the first up every climb and didn’t once feel out of my comfort zone, so I know 3.5w/kg and above is where I need to be.

It makes riding so much more enjoyable not being absolutely **** when you get to the top of a climb, and not being the last one up the hill and having people waiting for you.

Sorry Joe, yes consistent testing using the same methods will help you track progress. My point is about setting accurate zones which may help with sustained improvements (amongst other things)…which ultimately we all want!