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Lionels bike power remaining static?
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Seems his best IM power was 313 (ish) 2016 at Arizona.

70.3 was 360 (ish).

Question is are there really limits which we can achieve then plateau? I mean if he did 313 3 years ago shouldn’t he be at 320 or more now?


In other words, are there limits?
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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Yes, there are limits. You can never know what those limits actually are, but they are real.

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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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A. He was injured last year.
B. Has he been training to get more powerful on the bike, or just to maintain fitness? Seems lately he's seen swim and run improvements as lower hanging fruit.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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Based on the lack of reported ironman pros producing more than this I'd say he's hit his bike limit, maybe unknowingly or someone has told him.
You aren't going to ever put out much more power in an ironman or 70.3, I don't think anyone has even big guys like Starky.

There comes a point where you are just expending too much energy to compete on the run. Whilst we all may be different sizes our glycogen budget is pretty capped.
Couple that with a limit on red blood cell content.

Its imporant to remember that the pro tour cyclists ARENT putting out more power than this, they are just putting out this power at 20kg less.

The body can only become so aerobic, there are limits as I mentioned above.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [TriByran] [ In reply to ]
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Yes

best performance from a cyclist on the hour is probably around 420w/430w (possibly Wiggins during his hour record).

On a 3h40 race (typical fast 70.3) correctly paced, the most you can expect is probably 360 / 370w, from a heavy triathlete (75kg).

You can do a bit more if you are ready to screw up the run, of course.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [TriByran] [ In reply to ]
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This makes sense as Wurf also seems to be at his limit with no improvement over years prior.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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Why would you think it would go up?
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [jaretj] [ In reply to ]
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To improve.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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You are incorrectly assuming that the only way to improve ones time/placement in a triathlon is to improve their power/FTP.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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Seems kind of obvious, but there are limits in each and every sport, overall and individual. Seems like a silly question, unless you are actually asking specifically about Lionel's limits? And no way to know that either by guessing, he either breaks them, or he doesn't.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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thatzone wrote:
To improve.

That's not really how it works though. This should be painfully obvious, but in a nutshell, the higher a level you are at, the more work it takes to simply maintain what you've got.

A good analogy is that fitness is like renting square footage on a fixed income (time). The more of it you want, the higher the rent. At some point, you can't afford more square footage, so you're stuck with what you've got.

Even MIchael Phelps didn't set a single PB for the last 7 years of his swimming career. 7 years without a PB. Improvement isn't as simple as "I was at X last year, so this year I should be at X plus Y"

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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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Even MIchael Phelps didn't set a single PB for the last 7 years of his swimming career. 7 years without a PB. Improvement isn't as simple as "I was at X last year, so this year I should be at X plus Y" //

I agree with your overall assumptions, but for this one example, kind of not really fair as he and everyone else had the super suit era to contend with. Those times set were always going to be tough to beat, in fact many are still there. It is taking folks like Dressel and Ledecky to overcome some of them, figure the remainder will go in Tokyo. Except for that 200 free, that was a hell of a time, it might stand for awhile longer..1;42 flat, imagine if we had someone even knocking on that door, maybe Caleb if he leads off the relay??
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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but has hit watts/kg gone up?
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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at some point you look back and realize that's as fast/powerful as you were ever going to be.

Now in that same vein one can put out less watts & go faster, change their training etc so even if they've tipped over that inevitable edge to decline they can still be faster or maintain what they have for many, many years.

The fallacy is assuming watts = speed.

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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
Even MIchael Phelps didn't set a single PB for the last 7 years of his swimming career. 7 years without a PB. Improvement isn't as simple as "I was at X last year, so this year I should be at X plus Y" //

I agree with your overall assumptions, but for this one example, kind of not really fair as he and everyone else had the super suit era to contend with. Those times set were always going to be tough to beat, in fact many are still there. It is taking folks like Dressel and Ledecky to overcome some of them, figure the remainder will go in Tokyo. Except for that 200 free, that was a hell of a time, it might stand for awhile longer..1;42 flat, imagine if we had someone even knocking on that door, maybe Caleb if he leads off the relay??

Sure, except a number of Phelps' fastest swims were with leggings, not the full suit. A modern jammer was probably similar in performance to the leggings, and Speedo's supersuit wasn't nearly as fast as the Arena full poly supersuit. I believe that almost all of the "non-Phelps" records still standing from the '09 era were set with the Arena suits. Certainly Beidermann and Cielo were using it. I'd peg that difference as "marginal". Case in point, it didn't take that long for Lochte to break the 200IM record under the post '09 rules, which makes me think that Phelps' suit wasn't quite as huge of an advantage.

No-one is touching the 200 and 400 free because of those suits, but the 400IM was pretty much all Michael.

There are a number of other factors that played into MP not setting any PB's after '09, most famously his completely understandable lack of motivation and slacking off in the leadup to 2012. He needed a break.

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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [mdtrihard] [ In reply to ]
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mdtrihard wrote:
but has hit watts/kg gone up?

I think this is what's more important. Obviously, he's lost some weight, so he can go even faster with same or slightly less power.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [s13tx] [ In reply to ]
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I would say watts/cda is more important and that may be where he has (probably) made the biggest strides with his latest fit.
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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DFW_Tri wrote:
I would say watts/cda is more important and that may be where he has (probably) made the biggest strides with his latest fit.


Another area with potentially higher ROI than trying to squeeze another few watts of FTP out of your body when you're already wayyyyyyy out there on the asymptote of the performance spectrum, especially when training for an event that's only ~ 50% cycling.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Dec 4, 19 7:57
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [thatzone] [ In reply to ]
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thatzone wrote:
This makes sense as Wurf also seems to be at his limit with no improvement over years prior.
To add to the discussion a triathlete has to be good in all three disciplines. A better question would be why hasn't Langes power improved. If he lifted his power and ran just as fast he would win Kona easy every year. To be a better runner you need to be leaner and carry less muscle and potentially or most likely lose bike power. It becomes a trade off as to how much muscle you want to carry to produce power on the bike and how much further that will get you up the road (unless Lange is on your wheel) or how much lighter you are to run a quicker run split. No doubt Lionel could be as good as Starky on the bike but would he want to run like him? Wurf's bike hasn't lifted but his run certainly has...
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [TriByran] [ In reply to ]
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If they’re putting out this power at 20kg less why aren’t pro triathletes just 20kg less and maybe a tad less power? Or are you implying pro triathletes couldn’t be this strong on the bike at that light of a weight bc they’re not as talented at biking?
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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Was Phelps only using the leggings because the Arena full suit wasn’t out in 2008 or because he just preferred leggings?
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Re: Lionels bike power remaining static? [Nick2413] [ In reply to ]
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Nick2413 wrote:
Was Phelps only using the leggings because the Arena full suit wasn’t out in 2008 or because he just preferred leggings?

He preferred leggings for IM, and also couldn’t wear the Arena suit as he was getting paid big bucks by Speedo at the time. He wore speedo’s full suit for fly and free, IIRC.

The x-glide (arena’s crazy fast suit) was released in ‘09.

The 4IM record is one of the few that didn’t fall in ‘09, which is a testament to just how insanely good Phelps was in ‘08.

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Last edited by: JasoninHalifax: Dec 4, 19 17:21
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