Zwift Racing | Punch explained. Zwift Games Race 2

Im loving the Zwift Games and today we take a look at what Punch is and what is the Punch rating on Zwift Power! Races are always usually won by riders with 95% punch ratings. Is this something that you should work on?
Ive been loving the Zwift games and especially the Sprint races. Looking forward to the crit event already.

The end of the video is cut short but Paris’ sprint is AWESOME!!

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Good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the wat life we are thick in the middle of the Swift games this is the second Sprint race the Jurassic Coast and we’re going to talk about punch this evening guys that is my punch up on screen it’s recently elevated from roughly 50% up to

7271 or whatever getting there anyway let’s roll few things to point out this evening is I actually have my girlfriend Paris wood who is cycling in this race as well I finally managed to convince her to come do some Swift racing um uh probably hate me for saying this but she

Is a cycling influencer over in the Instagram World um and zwifting has been something that I kind of obviously she she just prefers I I don’t spend too much time talking about it but I finally convinced her to dive in on a Race So then it becomes you know conversational for us

Both and um anyway this is a zift race catb which is the uh second race of the zift games I’ve convinced her to join in with and she does nomally well and guys watch her out Sprint me at the end of this event if you want to if you want to

Have a bit of a um a laugh you can probably just skip not laugh I mean I I respect her as a cyclist and everything but I will also say there’s however many riders there are in this like a 90 odd Riders she is the only woman taking part

In this race uh I didn’t tell her that at the time when she signed up so but yeah she puts in a great performance and you can compare you can compare on both efforts when it comes to the Sprint at the end if you’d like to anyway this is

A perf course to discuss punch and what it means what it is how it works and also the big debate on whether someone who has a 100% punch in cat B are you actually more of a sandbagger than you think you are um it tends to be guys

That you know the guys with the big punches are the guys that that win the races uh you can probably throw them into I guess the category of well it’s hard to completely categorize someone with a with a 95 to 100% Sprint uh punch as a sprinter because there are too

There’s many more elements to it but the reason it’s important for this course is cuz it’s so rolling so again 21 km for this course it’s Jurassic Coast it combines a couple of different Loops a couple of different routs sorry 280 M so there’s a little bit of climbing uh

There’s a little bit of a climb we go through the Titans Grove K But ultimately it’s all these little rollers that you can see on the bottom of my power chart just those little red SP that’s effectively what your punch is you know how high can you get those how

Long can you hold those on for once they are up and if your general speed is is kind of mid to mild in the pack and then you’re able to punch hard you know really fire your Watts up and sustain It ultimately just think you know your

Sprint finish you know can you can you really put in a 1100 1200 1300 watt Sprint and hold it then you’re going to have a good punch score and tends to be if you dive on with power and you you look and this is from zwift Power guys

I’m not sure if this is a figure that you get through Swift alone so this is us doing the uh Titan com I can’t remember whether it was reversed or whether this is the normal way up but um uh Titan Grove reverse com I think’s the

One this is where we actually lose Paris off the front group but she does phenomenally well anyway and she dies in with a group otherwise and you might see me flick between screens just trying to keep an eye on on everything how she’s doing you’ll also see me dropping her a

Few messages as well as messaging a few other people in the group and the reason this ride kind of ends up being a bit of a disaster for me was uh chatting to one of the other guys someone that I haven’t actually spoken to before but just

Chatting to him in the race on on DMS and eventually I convinced myself in my head it would be great to do an attack from a long way out and uh part of that was because I felt you know uh a doing a zift race this was a I want to say like

A Friday lunchtime or a lunchtime maybe on Thursday Thursday lunchtime so maybe 1: p.m. I think um it didn’t you know there was 85 Riders which is which is a reasonable feel but it’s not super not like super kind of ladened there’s not like tons of people so it felt quite

Manageable and because of that I didn’t actually feel like it was overly taxing during the ride I felt like my punch like I said it’s developed from 50% up to 72% or 71% I think it might have dropped so I’ve done a few longer rides um and I feel like

I was able to you know I felt like I had so much more in the tank and then I obviously made a few silly decisions based on a conversation with a few other Riders which is is hilarious but I will say my only kind of caveat to this whole

Thing is is that I wanted to try an attack from about I think I do it from about a kilometer and a half out and I wanted to attack the group for the sole reason is that I’ve never done it before guys I wanted to be that guy I wanted to

Be that guy that can attack a group from a kilometer and a half half out at the end of a ride and just take it home turns out I’m not that guy um it’s not that it’s not that I necessarily thought I was that guy and you’ll see how it

Plays out and there’s a few reasons it doesn’t quite pan out the way I thought it would which I will dive into into later rolling through the first half of this course there you can obviously see on the power chart at the bottom that these little rollers just really kind of

Require you to like kick in and dog up and just kind of put these little kicks in and we had a great group I would say there’s like maybe 40 50 of us up front so you know the or sorry let me correct that maybe about 40 of us up front um

Because I know that Paris has a she has a really strong finish and actually does reasonably well in the standings so I’m going to throw my stats for the race uh My overall stats for the race in terms of numbers so race two is whift games like we said I hold 3.8

Watts per kg which is 288 Watts which is averaged out at 304 for normalized power my 20 minute was 3.7 and ultimately I felt this was quite comfortable I you know I didn’t feel like I think these punches play or these rolling courses play well into my kind of cycling

Modality my kind of physiology as a cyclist which is you know slightly like more neuromuscular and I can kind of put those little kicks in anything that’s like not too long you know up to 120 seconds couple of minutes just work hard and then just sink back into the group

And then try and grab the back of a of someone’s wheel that’s kind of what my wheelhouse kind of feels like so this is why this race was I I enjoyed it for the fact that you know we weren’t pushing terribly hard there we go there’s me

Flicking on Paris and just seeing how she’s been doing I see that she’s on her own um and I I will probably message her and just kind of encourage her to try and find people that might be behind her to ride with um and ultimately that

That’s what happens down the line so I’m always like I’m trying to keep one eye on my race trying to keep one eye on on Paris not to mansplain or anything but uh she’s not kind of overly prolific on on zwift so I thought just throwing her

A few like hey maybe you should do this and then you can kind of see her chatting back to me whilst whilst we are riding which actually made it a lot more fun and part of the reason I wanted her to come do this or or kind of be part of

Our race was um it just yeah it’s nice to chat to people I like chatting in a race I like throwing in the private messages and DMS Paris punch by the way is around 50% and she’s only done maybe a handful of races and she’s she’s only

Recently kind of got on to zift power so you know her stats are something that she’s working on she weighs 58 kg I think and she you know she does phenomenally well I think she holds like 3.7 watts per kg sorry scratch that guys Paris holds 4.1 watts per kg for the 29

Minutes that it takes her to do this race um obviously being slightly lighter means you can push you know your your watts per kg sometimes ends up being a bit higher the fact that it’s a rolling course probably plays quite well into her style of climbing as well I think

She’s like she’s not an allout climber uh but she does have that kind of ability to just kind of she is a bit of a a puncher I guess um so that’s kind of that plays into her her hands but to knock out 4.1 Watts for for 29 minutes I

Think as a group of guys you know if you are 75 plus kg you will be a little bit more than envious of that cuz that is a strong that’s a strong ride strong workout um I did really enjoy this course I thought the course was good I’m

Really enjoying the Swift games actually between you and I I have just finished doing the the third race this I’m actually bit late at recording this it’s Sunday I’ve done the zift Epic the zift games Epic route which was terrible 80k it was horrible I fell off the front

Group with 6K to go I didn’t record it because it was it was 200 a plus 200 a plus hour ride I didn’t think you guys uh really needed that level of boredom but it was like it was hard it was it was great 250 person group riding hard

Um and I am really enjoying the Swift games and Monday night for prime time we will have the crit racing up in Glasgow which is five Loops of the UCI Glasgow crit course which I think is going to be awesome I’m actually really looking forward to that one and we all know how

Useful a punch or a high punch is going to be in a race like that cuz it’s got um those little uh the Double kickers can’t remember what they’re called and it’s got a few little yeah just like little lumps and bumps that if you can

Kick hard then obviously it being a crit race being able to kick at the end is just it’s going to put you in like a way better position than being someone that can kind of ride a ride a hill for X number of Watts for for kind of two two

Hours or something but this is the interesting thing is you know as I flick down the list of people and review their punches you know our first place guy in in this race his punch is is like 95% uh the guy in third his punch is I think like

94% um so you know T you tend to get the podium guys I I’ve only skipped out the second guy because I I had a quick look at his numbers and sometimes it doesn’t quite match up and I’m I don’t want to go there that’s not what this video is

About but it’s something that is definitely it’s not it’s hard to say because you can work on it obviously if you do like 402s and things like that in a training session that’s definitely going to help your ability to push the Watts come back down recover quickly

Push the Watts come back down you keep repeating that you’re going to get that neuromuscular strength you’re going to get that uh anerobic Fitness that kind of builds and helps you in terms of being able to punch that little bit so there’s definitely something about making sure that you spend enough time

In these short like burst periods going over your FTP as part of training that’s going to provide you the tools to get better in terms of having a stronger punch because the one thing I found is that my gross Watts my my kind of like

End of race Watts I I have not been progressing I haven’t really tested it or I haven’t done like anything that tests it too outrightly you know I’ve been around that 300 mark 300 watt Mark for an FTP for what feels like ages now and the thing is is that I don’t feel

Like all this training is meaning that my FTP is kind of edging up as such it more feels like the whats I can hold under 300 I can do for longer so although I haven’t quite managed to and part that could be you know the way that

I’m training and and the level of fatigue I have I’m sure if I had a few days off and and try to do a solid FTP 20 minute test I might be able to bump it up but the one thing I have been able to notice is that the Watts that I can

Hold under my FTP I’m holding for longer um and obviously yeah like I think top end watts are obviously the hard thing to develop that kind of gross wats that mass power uh is is quite hard anyway this is where my race starts going a bit shoddy because what happens now is I

Dive in the DMS to someone that did this race a few days before this and he was earlier in the race he talked about how someone had you know had attacked from about a k out I I wasn’t necessarily feeling good but I wasn’t feeling

Horrible so I sat at the back to back of the group um I did ask him whether he wanted to come with he said no his legs were shot so I moved to the back of the group guys and then I just try and fire

A whole shot in so this is me just attacking the group here the problem is that the guys if you look at the wats on the right everyone covers it straight away tons of people cover it um and my attack although was probably not hard

Enough to get kind of away and out of that draft is effectively moted I probably should have gone again this is something that you know if I had a higher punch I probably could have kied a few seconds further ahead I just thought you know why not guys you know

Make it a little bit more entertaining make it a little bit more fun rather than just trying to sit in the pack and and wait for a Sprint which we can do any day of the week the opportunity for me to attack a front group in a cat B

Race does not come around every day um and and this is exactly why it doesn’t come around every day cuz I’m not very good at it but I thought do you know what this could be a good like learning experience you know you can’t expect to be good at something if you’ve never

Done it so now I know that you know attacking from this range probably isn’t my forte but I also know that it wasn’t horrible like I you know I wasn’t horrible at it I think if the situation been slightly different um you I it’s just yeah I ultimately I I’m not the

Cyclist that could necessarily do that just yet but I did enjoy trying I worked really hard my heart rate hits like the super dupers that I that I’m pretty really well I’m really happy with but the problem is is that the group like covered it really well um you can see

That a few guys have dropped off that front group so you know the fact that I moved or helped move that group forward before they come into the kick obviously they blast right past me because they’re all moving as a you know a strong group forward and then I’ve got nothing left

Because I’ve already you know I’ve already kind of tried to empty my bag uh on that last attack so I roll over the line a solitary kind of like back end of of that front group but I’m really happy with it it was at this point I decided

To switch over and watch paris’s Sprint and this is how it should have been done so I flicked over to Paris and she’s obviously in her group which was the group directly behind our one just a few little messages just trying to be like okay right like I you know you’ve got

This along till the end blah blah blah like now will be a good time to go blah blah blah um not trying to kind of mansplain it again like I said but she hasn’t ridden in zift like at all she doesn’t really know any of the courses

So kind of just giving her a bit of feedback so I was trying to feed back into her being like okay well you’ve got this long to go soon as you get to that bridge just go for it um and or after the bridge or wherever this corner

Basically but I don’t really think she needed it cuz she actually times this perfectly she’s got a big fear of like sitting at the back of a group she always likes to be mid-front group um I’m sure that might change but you can see her just kick in guys this is this

Is a a 58 kg lady just absolutely nailing the Sprint I think she ends up kind of maybe 37th or 36th in the race which I think