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Comment by geraldwhen | Hacker News Reader

50W is nothing, and 500W isn’t really a sprint. For an adult male, you should be pushing 1000-2000 over 20 second sprints.

Walking slightly uphill is probably more intense than a 50w bike.

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50W is barely moving on a bicycle.

But 500W is a significant effort for an untrained person, particularly somebody of smaller stature.

FWIW, I'm an avid recreational cyclist and my 1-hour power fluctuates in the 250W-280W range at 68-70kg body weight. My all-out sprint power is over 1000W, but not by much. 2000W is enough to win elite sprints, both on the track and on the road.

Mario Cipollini: 1943 watts. Although that's probably the max reading from possibly a minute long sprint, depends on the course. There's probably slightly uphill sprints that would have even more max wattage potential since top pro sprinters on flats are probably maxing out what they can neuromuscularly coordinate on a 53x11.

But anyway, if you know who that is, you'll know that 2000 watts is not a common max output.

Edit: Ok I was a 320 watts for 20 minutes guy a few years ago, I'm probably about 250 watts for 20 minutes guy now. I just did this workout, probably in the 500-600 watt range for the 20 second surges, and it was surprisingly hard.

He talks about 20 seconds, that's quite the length to hold 1000W+ on. Not to mention repeat it multiple times with 2 minutes of recovery, which is nowhere near enough for untrained or trained athletes unless you dedicate a significant amount of your recent training on sprints.

FWIW, I'm in a similar boat, my FTP currently is around 275W, granted I'm smaller (62-64kg), but I am still a long ways away from holding 1000W for 20 seconds.

I routinely workout with college athletes or former athletes so perhaps my data is skewed on the top end.

2000 Watts is what puts you at the podium at the UCI track championships. https://www.uci.org/article/watts-and-heart-race-performance... https://www.uci.org/article/track-sprinting-a-question-of-wa...

I don't think so.

Reading the power charts from https://intervals.icu of 43,000 male cycling enthusiasts:

- 70% of cyclists are able to sustain 500 W for 15 seconds

- 50% of cyclists are able to sustain 500 W for 30 seconds

Only the top 5% cyclists have an average 15 second power exceeding 1000 Watts.

So? If the article says 50/500W then I’d say that’s the best objective description of the effort level.

> So? If the article says 50/500W then I’d say that’s the best objective description of the effort level.

It is an objective description of the power they produced. NOT their effort level. Their effort level would be established via their BPM, perceived extersion, lactate levels, etc etc

The question is whether 500W counts as high intensity, and whether the results are applicable for people whose high intensity is 2 to 4 times higher than the test subjects. I have to admit that I didn't read the linked article, but previous similar ones had the low intensity reference at so low intensity it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it didn't produce any results.

The surprise here is that it did produce results. So I’d say the lower the intensity the more interesting the result is.

My all-time high for 20s is 863W. I don't think you understand what it takes to push 1000W for 20 seconds, not to mention 1500-2000W.

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