What Makes You Unique as a Cyclist?
Not all cyclists are built the same. Some excel at explosive sprints, while others dominate long climbs. Some can sustain punishing efforts just below threshold, and others possess the endurance to ride all day. Your unique combination of these abilities defines you as an athlete—and that’s exactly what the Athlete Profile in both the Wahoo App and Wahoo SYSTM is designed to capture.
Beyond Traditional Threshold Power
For years, cyclists have relied on a single number: Functional Threshold Power (FTP). While FTP is valuable, it tells an incomplete story. It’s like describing a car’s performance using only its fuel efficiency while ignoring horsepower, acceleration, and handling.
The Athlete Profile powered by 4DP (Four-Dimensional Power) takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of reducing your physiology to one metric, it measures four distinct power capabilities that reflect how your body actually produces energy across different intensities and durations.
Four Dimensional Power Profile: Sports Science Meets Practical Training
Neuromuscular Power (Sprint)
The Science:
Neuromuscular power represents your absolute peak power output, typically sustained for 5 to 15 seconds. This effort relies almost entirely on the ATP-PCr (phosphocreatine) energy system, your body’s most immediate but shortest-lasting fuel source. It measures the explosive force your nervous system can recruit from fast-twitch muscle fibers in a maximal, all-out effort.
The Practical Term: SPRINT
Your Sprint power defines your ability to deliver devastating accelerations. This includes jumping away from the pack, contesting the final meters of a race, or closing gaps explosively.
Anaerobic Capacity (Attack)
The Science:
Anaerobic capacity reflects the maximum power you can sustain for roughly 1 minute while fatigued. At this intensity, your body operates primarily through anaerobic glycolysis, breaking down carbohydrates without oxygen. This creates lactate and hydrogen ions that eventually cause that burning sensation and force you to back off. Your AC shows how much power you can produce and repeat.
The Practical Term: ATTACK
Your Attack power determines how hard and how often you can launch devastating efforts. Think bridging to breakaways, responding to surges, or delivering sustained attacks that shell the competition. It’s your “match-burning” ability.
Maximum Aerobic Power (Breakaway)
The Science:
MAP (sometimes called VO₂max power) represents the power output at which your oxygen consumption plateaus, typically sustainable for 3 to 8 minutes. This is where your aerobic energy system maxes out, and it’s the foundation upon which all other power capabilities are built. A higher MAP means your cardiovascular system can deliver more oxygen to working muscles.
The Practical Term: BREAKAWAY
Your Breakaway power reflects your ability to ride above threshold for several minutes at a time. This is the power you need to bridge gaps to breakaways, follow hard accelerations up climbs, or initiate and sustain your own breakaway efforts. It’s your “high-end aerobic horsepower.”
Functional Threshold Power (Endure)
The Science:
FTP represents the maximum power you can sustain for about an hour while maintaining a physiological steady state. At this intensity, your body operates at the threshold between primarily aerobic and increasingly anaerobic metabolism. It’s where lactate production equals lactate clearance. Go any harder, and the accumulation forces you to slow down.
The Practical Term: ENDURE
Your Endure power defines your ability to sustain hard, relentless efforts for extended periods. This includes maintaining pace during long time trials, grinding out extended climbs, or holding steady power in tempo rides. It’s your “diesel engine” for sustained endurance power.
Determining Your Athlete Profile: Rider Types, Strengths & Weaknesses
At Wahoo, we use a comprehensive power test that measures not just FTP, but Neuromuscular Power, Maximal Aerobic Power, and Anaerobic Capacity. This test in Wahoo SYSTM is called Full Frontal and it reveals what an athlete is capable of across a range of efforts, as well as the important relationships between the different ways of producing power on the bike.
Beyond your 4DP Power Profile, this fitness assessment establishes your Rider Type: a classification that identifies your natural strengths and highlights the areas where you can improve. Your Rider Type isn’t just a label; it’s a strategic framework for understanding your role in group rides, races, and training scenarios.
Meet the Six Rider Types
The Sprinter
When you hit the switch and unleash your devastating sprint, few can hold your wheel. Your exceptional Neuromuscular Power allows you to produce raw, explosive force that’s simply unmatched in the final meters. Where you shine is in bunch sprint finishes, jumping away from the pack unexpectedly, and closing gaps with explosive acceleration.
Challenge: Your power fades quickly after those crucial seconds. Save the fireworks for the grand finale, and focus on positioning before the kick.
The Attacker
When it comes to short, maximal efforts, you seem to have an endless supply of matches. Your powers of recovery mean you can serve them up in rapid succession, making you formidable in situations where you need to respond to multiple surges with little time to recover. This Anaerobic Capacity is revealed in that one-minute all-out effort in Full Frontal. Attackers excel in road races with constant tactical jockeying and decisive bridging to breakaways.
Challenge: Sustaining power for extended periods. The 20-minute grind at threshold may expose your weaknesses.
The Pursuiter
If you have five minutes to give it everything, no one else has a chance. Your exceptional Maximal Aerobic Power makes you the master of the medium effort, and that 5-minute effort in Full Frontal is your happy place. You excel in pursuit races, shorter time trials, and bridging gaps decisively.
Challenge: You occupy a unique middle ground, which means you may lack the raw sprint punch of a sprinter or the grinding endurance of a time trialist. Building versatility by improving either your sprint power or threshold power will help you become a true all-rounder.
The Time Trialist
When you take your turn on the front, you clock in and do overtime. Your ability to tirelessly put down steady power, kilometre after kilometre, is rooted in exceptional Functional Threshold Power. That 20-minute effort in Full Frontal probably felt like home. You dominate individual and team time trials, long breakaways, and controlling pace on flat terrain.
Challenge: You may not have the snap to contest a final sprint or follow explosive attacks. Building peak aerobic power and sprint capability adds tactical flexibility to your racing.
The Climber
When the road points up, that’s when you get down to business. Your climbing prowess comes from an elite strength-to-weight ratio: the more watts per kilogram you can produce, the better you resist the pull of gravity. You excel on mountain stages, steep punchy terrain, and sustained climbs where you can break free from heavier competitors.
Challenge: When things flatten out, you need to tuck in and bide your time until things get pointy again. Developing flat-ground power and sprint capabilities ensures you stay engaged across all terrain types.
The Rouleur
You are that rare unicorn—a master of all trades and a Swiss Army Knife of cycling. The very definition of versatility, you are able to deliver across a wide range of efforts and terrain, excelling in multi-stage races, one-day classics, and any scenario requiring adaptability.
Challenge: While you’re good at everything, you may not dominate any single discipline, as specialists can outperform you in specific scenarios. Identifying your relative strengths and weaknesses within your 4DP profile allows you to strategically target your biggest limiters.
The Real Power of Knowing Your Rider Type
Your Rider Type isn’t prescriptive; it’s diagnostic. It tells you not just where your natural talents lie, but more importantly, where your opportunities for growth exist. A Sprinter who adds threshold power becomes a threat in breakaways. An Attacker who builds Neuromuscular Power becomes dangerous in bunch sprints. A Time Trialist who improves MAP becomes a legitimate stage racer. Understanding your classification reveals not just who you are as a cyclist today, but who you can become.
The Bottom Line: Train Smarter, Not Just Harder
The Athlete Profile powered by 4DP represents a paradigm shift in how we understand cycling performance. By recognizing that you’re not defined by a single number, but rather by the unique combination of your Sprint (Neuromuscular Power), Attack (Anaerobic Capacity), Breakaway (Maximum Aerobic Power), and Endure (Functional Threshold Power), you gain the insights needed to train more intelligently.
- Target your specific limiters with precision
- Leverage your natural strengths strategically
- Become a faster, more complete cyclist
Whether you’re preparing for crits, fondos, time trials, or stage races, understanding your Athlete Profile ensures every training session has purpose. Every watt you produce moves you closer to your goals.
Ready to Discover Your Athlete Profile?
Take the 4DP Quiz in the Wahoo App or the Full Frontal 4DP Assessment in Wahoo SYSTM today, and unlock personalized training that’s as unique as you are.
Because you’re not just a number. You’re a complete athlete.
