Difficulty Level extremely high to achieve watts

I’m an avid mountain biker and ride 4 days a week on challenging single track, generally for 1-2 hours at a time. Given that, I am finding the gravel grinder workouts extremely hard and wondering if I’m just a wuss or if I have something set up wrong with my Wahoo Snap/cadence/speed etc? Any thoughts woud be greatly appreciated!

Hi @Tim_Black, welcome to the forums. Have you done a FTP test? Sounds like it might be a little too high. Workouts are based of off your FTP. If they are too hard, lower your FTP.

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Ahh gotcha, thanks for the advice! I had it set at 200…is that generally high for a non-pro?
Also is there an FTP test option through Zwift or Wahoo?

Zwift offers, I think, two different FTP test options. You should be able to find them in the Workouts section.

Look for these: Zwift workout finder | What's on Zwift?

Awesome thank you very much for the direction!

Also, not specifically related to training, but since you asked “is 200W good”… Make sure your weight is set correctly in Zwift, then your Watts/kg will be correct. Someone who is 60kg pushing 200W is much different than someone who is 100kg pushing 200W in terms of how things will work for them on zwift when biking around watopia. Again, not so much for training programs, but it will come into play for races, and just biking around in general.

Before doing your first FTP test change your FTP to 100w and then do the test.

Ok great thanks for the tip!

also, make sure you understand how ERG mode works:

in particular, some of those “high watt” intervals are expecting you to rev up your cadence quite a bit BEFORE getting into them – if you don’t, you will probably end up in a “spiral of death” (see the article for more).

depends on your weight, i’m at an ( unfit) 250 but am 110 kg !

check weight , ftp then see what category your W/kg puts you in.