Should I go hunting a higher Peak Power number?

General
1

It’s extremely rare that I try maximal (peak power) efforts when not out riding my mountain bike, and rare even then since I gave up riding a single speed off road a couple of years ago (I rode and raced single speed exclusively off road between 2006 and 2019, and it’s not flat here in the mid-atlantic U.S.). I believe (yet to be proven) the PP of my fitness signature at about 800 watts is not reflective of the maximal 5 second power I could do if I intentionally set out to do a 5 second maximum – while not depleted of MPA of course.

Question then: Should I bother intentionally trying for a 5 second maximum effort, and would it have any effect on my fitness signature if I did? Is PP only calculated after MPA is drawn down and only as part of a breakthrough?

1 Like
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Good question. You could get a breakthrough by pedaling all-out for 8-10s if you’re able to exceed the 800 W PP that is currently displayed, you don’t need to pull MPA down first.

Generally, you want your Peak Power to be roughly equivalent to the max 1s power you can hold. If the value is dramatically over/underestimated, it can negatively impact the estimation of HIE and TP.

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Thanks @ManofSteele. 8-10 seconds you say? Hmm… I shall give that a try just for yucks after my status finally goes back to blue. I wonder though if my ego be happy with the results if my TP/LTP drops as a result of a higher PP. :laughing:

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Not likely to affect the others unless your PP was off by 500+ W. :slight_smile:

We recommend maximal sprint efforts over 8s because we filter out erroneous high-power data spikes from PM’s that are < 5s in duration.

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Something I have found to work is to do a sprint, recover for around 30 seconds, sprint, recover for around 30 seconds and do one last sprint.