[Closed] Increasing average wattage on longer rides?

You just need to set your bike computer up to show average power and 10 second power. Then make a conscious effort to keep the watts above 200 most of the time as your riding. Obviously you won’t be able to do that on some downhills. If I want a 200watt average ride that’s what I do just keep working hard. If I lose concentration and just amble along my average soon goes down below 180.

Best to practice this on a shorter ride at first say a 90 minute ride then once you get the hang of it extend out to your longer rides. Also remember to have some easier rides you can’t do them all hard and a nice pootle about forgetting about the watts is refreshing.

Oh and keep your head up. Avoid staring at the power figures too much or you’ll end up in a hedge.

Out in the real world there is a lot of coasting down hill, stopping/slowing and general messing about that lowers your average.

I find for 1hr of riding outside I get a total effort score that's the equivalent of half an hour on the rollers or watt bike.

A lot depends on where you ride. There wont be one magic number. I would just ride normally, but for any hill you could try racing up it, then recover till the next hill and repeat. Or do some repeated low cadence high gear sprints. Just mix up the ride with some high intensity stuff, as in high power or high cadence.

Or sod all that and just enjoy the ride without numbers. You can then come home and do squats with weights to up your leg strength.

More longer rides.

1 hour rides make you good at 1 hour rides

You can ride the coat tails of that to around 2 hours after that there will be. Decline.

For 3-4 hour rides you want to have lifted your z2 base power to the level you want to be riding in rather than lifting your z4-z5 short term power.

This is why FTP is an often missused measurement -you can lift your FTP easily with HIIT work but this does not correlate directly on the road power if you don't attack from both sides.

Agree with @trail_rat. I have found turbo sessions incredibly useful for getting me fit enough to get back out on the road and I'll continue to do them as targeted power training but sometimes, particularly at the 'hobby end of riding, there's no substitute for miles in the legs so just get it there and ride and enjoy it.

I'm largely ignoring my numbers out in the road. If I'm only putting out 100W then so be it. I'm enjoying it regardless 🙂

Have you checked the power curves on your Garmin?
Might be some hints on fueling and hydration.

For info, I’m 232W at 1 hour on real roads dropping to 200W at 2 hours.

If your rides are hilly, reign in the power on the climbs. If your rides are flat, don't do z4+ intervals, make it more of a steady ride-long effort.

In the real world, especially if you live in a lumpy part of the world or if you ride with others and don't have total control of the pace/power needed I find normalised rather than average power a much more effective measure of my workload.

The other aspect is to use the lap feature. If your ride has an element of a 'commute' to the business end of the exercise or there are periods where your power output is down for reasons out of your control use the lap function. You might well find that 175 has a section of 2 hours of much harder work in the middle that is disguised by the totals for the whole. The other advantage of this approach is it stops a ride turning into a chore. Ride steady for the good of your head (the reason many of us ride bikes) and then put put an effort section in for full blown improvement. It stops you chasing numbers for the whole ride and allows you to actually enjoy it too.

Also, is there a purpose to this training? Are you looking to road race, long distance triathlon or time trail, be a sportive hitter? If it's road racing it's not about high average consistent wattage - it's stupidly high intensity followed by covering up as possible and recovering - rinse and repeat. If it's long distance tri - the exact opposite. You need to know what the goal is beyond just bigger average numbers.

Finally, I blame zwift! People racing indoors in w/kg categories that if you read Coggan's book etc are the preserve of the pros and neo-pros. But put them on the road and they find out quite quickly the difference with terrain, others and length of rides play in the numbers pros can generate, and they can't. A lot of that is in road craft and mental strength not needed to the same extent on on a turbo, even a smart one in a virtual terrain world.

If you ride at a lower wattage for a longer period of time you are still doing the same amount of work. It would be likely that on a shorter ride you can ride at a higher power output outdoors.

Lots of caveats:

Are you using the same power meter- i.e. not comparing turbo to other measure?
Are you looking at average power in both cases - it's probably not a good measure as there is more coating outdoors compared to a constant effort virtually. Normalised power would be a better measure.
People often have different power outputs inside vs. out. It's not uncommon for people to have two ftp measures for training.

However, stick me on my road bike and send me out for 3 – 4 hours and if I am to do a 175 watt average ride I feel I have had to work really hard.

That's pretty normal. I often ride with an ex-pro who says power meters are pointless on the road as they just demotivate riders with the low readings as you'll be lucky to average 200 watts over a few hours, whereas on Zwift it's easy to get a 'big' number and feel good. I think he has a point.

I don't have a PM any more and just use Strava's estimate, in winter (with headwinds) I'm lucky to get 150W over 100k / 4 hours, in summer maybe 200 W average on a good ride.

Thanks for the replies on this one. I have never used normalised power and just used average. If I use normalised power for the 4 hour ride at the weekend where the average was 175 watts it was 210 normalised.

So on that basis it's not too bad.

@trail_rat made a good point regarding increasing your Z2 powerfor longer rides. But if you want to increase your Z2 power does that not mean you to increase your FTP?

Few different approaches you could take

1.If you want to go faster perhaps the easiest way is to consider joining a group ride that will push you more.

2. Your indoor training seems mainly sweetspot ie around your threshold.
Consider adding intensity VO2 max type workouts on the trainer and keeping road rides as they are - expect over time you will get stronger

@trail_rat made a good point regarding increasing your Z2 powerfor longer rides. But if you want to increase your Z2 power does that not mean you to increase your FTP?

As a byproduct yes. But an increase in FTP doesn't always correlate with z2 increase.
#zwifteffect

Would not get too distracted by FTP
In addition to oxidative capacity you will need to build muscular endurance to go further and quicker

Your normalised power is actually fine

I often ride with an ex-pro who says power meters are pointless on the road as they just demotivate riders with the low readings

I dunno, riding to a specific z2 power was a great tool for keeping me in the right zone. Without it, I'd have gone too hard on climbs and flats, and got too tired to keep the volume up.

But if you want to increase your Z2 power does that not mean you to increase your FTP?

Your muscles get energy via multiple pathways, at the same time - but in different proportions depending on what you are doing. You can train the long-slow pathway by doing long-slow riding (surprise) and this will contribute to your power at higher wattages. Likewise you can train the aerobic pathway and this will also contribute to your power - but it runs out faster because it's less sustainable, whereas the long-slow pathway is much more sustainable. So doing long-slow will help your overall endurance by providing more base energy over a longer period. Either sort of training will increase your power readings over a 3hr ride, but via different means. However the long-slow metabolic pathway is essentially fat burning so you'll get better at riding with fat - this will mean you'll end up needing to eat less on rides and be less hungry afterwards.

I used to ride with power and track my average on long slow rides, and it did go up significantly from 200 to about 230 for 3hrs but there was an element of gaming in that - e.g. choosing a route with open roads, not too steep and not too many sharp turns on descents - but average speeds on the same route also increased significantly so it wasn't all cheating! It'd be important to check if your power drops during that ride - do you start off at 200 then drop, or do you nail 175 all the time?

To improve your endurance output, start doing longer duration rides on the turbo, for example stick with the Coco Cadence "pace partner" juggernaut on Tempus Fugit for 2+ hours.

Broadly speaking, HIIT style intervals on shorter rides will give you a quick FTP boost, regular longer endurance power rides will give you a steady FTP increase.

Polarised trading approaches blend both though
I wouldn’t necessarily advocate taking one approach over the other
I’m not a coach 🙂

Do you use the “factor out the zeros” setting? That makes a huge difference

I dunno, riding to a specific z2 power was a great tool for keeping me in the right zone. Without it, I’d have gone too hard on climbs and flats, and got too tired to keep the volume up.

You can just use HR for that, it doesn't matter if your power blips a bit high, if your HR isn't going too high you won't over train. HR is a better measure of physiological stress than power. I'm very skeptical that training with a power meter offers anything over training via HR especially for base miles. Also if you train outdoors in winter, with stronger winds etc, your power is all over the place as you change direction - that's just how it is on the road.

Also if you train outdoors in winter, with stronger winds etc, your power is all over the place as you change direction

Of course, but the point of training with power is to spend as much time as possible pedalling at that particular power, which means NOT pushing harder into the wind. It means that heavier riders end up spinning up hills which takes bloody ages, but this is also true with HR.

Power is a lot more responsive of course, which lets you know straight away that you are hitting a climb too fast, before you get stuck into a particular pace, and it also tells you when you've backed off too much. In theory you could spend your time alternating between Z3 and Z1 if you just watch HR because you're overshooting in both directions. I've done both and it is a lot easier with power, but a lot more expensive!

HR lag and HR creep are both issues that power addresses.

To improve your endurance output, start doing longer duration rides on the turbo, for example stick with the Coco Cadence “pace partner” juggernaut on Tempus Fugit for 2+ hours.

As mentioned in another thread from my own experience this isn't always the case. Way back when i started getting interested in training and racing my coach got me doing 1hour steady z2 every day (as i was time crunched) and changed my diet so my body utilised fat more. I did no ride over 1 or 2 hours for 6 months (I was also doing intervals)

It vastly improved my endurance. I was able to easily ride for 3-4 hours and then start racing. I've been told by one coach that your fitness is like a piece of string.. you can either 'push' your fitness up (by riding lower intensities) this will also to. a minor degree push your FTP or you can 'pull' it up by riding harder intervals. It will make some effects on endurance but mainly target higher zones