What Is Your Highest Power Output Ever?

The post about who had the lowest resting heart rate was well visited. Thus, I thought it might be interesting to hear who has performed the highest power output ever? One of the interesting conclusions from the empiric study about resting heart rates indicates that genes often play a more significant role than training level itself. That is remarkably illustrated by Sue, who counted her husband’s heart rate to as low as 31 beats per minute.

Power Output and Sprint Performance
Having a high maximum power output is essential in sprints and accelerations. However, like I have described in ‘How to win a bunch sprint’, it is not only a question about putting lots of watts in the pedals. Also, it is essential to consider how much impact your body weight has on your sprint performance. I have discussed the topic in a post about maximum power outputs and body weight.

Are there any 1500+ or even 2000+ Watts riders reading this? Well, show me your best power output ever!

Jesper Bondo Medhus

I am a medical doctor with a special interest in cycling training. I work at the Hospital of Vejle using clinical physiology and nuclear medicine to diagnose cancer and heart patients. I have written two e-books: Time Effective Cycling Training and 12-Week Winter Training Program.

View Comments

  • 1,492 watts...then I got injured a few weeks later before I tested it again. I've been off the bike for the past 3 months so it will be a while before I get my power back up there.

  • I've seen 1230 is the highest I've seen this season. It was on July 15 at about the peak of my fitness for the season.

  • Just for fun last week I decided to give my sprint another go. First time since the injury.

    Surprised myself and threw down some watts. 1,512!!! Peak 5 second was 1,380. Now if I can get my 5 second peak to over 1,500.

  • The best for 5 second average was 1170 watts, peak at 1310. I only weigh-in at 135 so I can accelerate like mad but unfortunately don't have the top end, I get crushed by the pros. Oh well, next life.

  • 1729 so far,..just got my powertap and am excited about the data!

    Peak 5s (1729 watts):
    Duration: 0:05
    Work: 9 kJ
    TSS: n/a
    Norm Power: n/a
    VI: n/a
    Pw:HR: -0.07%
    Pa:HR: -4.82%
    Distance: 259 ft
    Min Max Avg
    Power: 1678 1746 1729 watts
    Heart Rate: 156 161 158 bpm
    Cadence: 126 133 130 rpm
    Speed: 30.5 35 33.9 mph
    Pace 1:43 1:58 1:46 min/mi
    Hub Torque: 330 363 338 lb-in
    Crank Torque: 1109 1171 1128 lb-in

  • Brian -> Great performance, good luck with your new powertap. It is not unlikely that you reach 1800w this spring.

  • I haven't actually attempted max yet because I was off the bike for almost a year while only throwing in random workouts adding up to maybe 20 hours over that period of time.

    Recently purchased a powertap to start a serious training program yet I've decided I don't want to push myself with max stuff the first month or so of structured training. Before I pushed myself way to hard and was plagued by pulled tendons due to overtraining. This time I'm going to be smart about it.

    So the first week or two I got the power tap I did some minor sprints of around 80% of what I felt I could do in terms of RPE and hit 1100 watts.

    Does anyone know how much power for sprints can be increased with training on bike coupled with weights? I'm aware of the increased that can be made for stuff like TTing and endurance but haven't read much about sprinting so I thought maybe people would know based on their own experiences.

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Jesper Bondo Medhus

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