Read more →

In the last article we looked at how a power meter can help you track your progress, and reminded ourselves that a power meter is not a substitute for a good training plan. Now we will look in more detail at how to organize your training and how to target it to your specific needs.

 

Organize your training: You can keep a detailed record of your training (without having to sharpen your pencil!)

Tracking progress requires good information on the training you have done. And power meters can do just that: as well as measuring performance output in the form of frequent field test data, power meters do fantastic job of monitoring training input with minimal stress to the user.

Every pedal stroke is automatically recorded by your power meter. What was that trainer workout that the club coach had the group do last Tuesday? No need to write down all of the specifics in your training log… 10minutes in zone 1 at a cadence of 80-90rpm, 10minutes in zone 2 at a cadence of… etc etc. Just plug your bike computer into your PC, download the training file, and it’s all there. Recorded (for better or worse) for eternity. If you’re anything like the swim squads that I coached before all of the gadgets came on board, it’s probably fair to say that, as an athlete, you prefer the ‘doing’ to the ‘recording’. Your logbook will be significantly more complete after you introduce a power meter!

You might say: I already use a heart rate monitor and download my workouts. What additional advantages would a power meter provide?

The advantages of using a power meter to measure training input rather than a heart rate monitor are twofold:

i)               A power meter monitors the real time force applied with every pedal stroke

A heart rate monitor is an imprecise way of measuring the specific nature of a workout. For example, a 15s high power sprint may be too short to raise your heart rate despite requiring a large muscular response. A heart rate monitor does a poor job of recording this type of short duration, high intensity training. Similarly, a heart rate monitor will not record the force demands of a workout. This is important in a sport like cycling where different cadence sets are used for different effect.

 

ii)              A power meter measures training stress and isn’t affected by the variables of heat stress or caffeine stress or life stress in the way that heart rate is.

The degree to which training heart rate can change in response to non-training factors such as heat and excitement make heart rate a distant second to power as a true indicator of the intensity of training input. A kilojoule of work is a kilojoule of work whether done in rain, hail or shine, before or after a coffee.

 

Pacing: You will learn to use your energy optimally over the course of a race

If there is any ‘instant advantage’ that comes with the use of a power meter, this is it. It’s not until you start using a power meter that you’ll realize just how few people pace optimally. Sure, there are some races where variability is inherent to the competition, for example a cycling road race, where taking strategic ‘breaks’ is one of the big determinants in who wins and who goes home crying. However, for sports like non-draft triathlon, solo endurance bike races, time trials, or hill climbs, keeping your effort even is a key element of success. Heart rate alone is not sensitive enough to pick up the small but cumulatively significant variations in power output that ultimately limit performance.

Even in a sport like road cycling, where greater variability of effort is expected, a power meter is an incredibly valuable tool in placing these ‘special efforts’ throughout your race. There is no better tool than a power meter to teach road cyclists to be economical – both in terms of utilizing drafting to save watts and to decide when to ‘burn the matches’ that they have at their disposal for maximum success.

Aside from keeping race efforts as even as possible, a power meter teaches athletes how to best distribute their efforts over the course. Wind resistance increases by the square of speed. Thus cyclists should worker harder on climbs when speed, and thus wind resistance, is low, and should dial effort back on descents, when speed and wind resistance are high. By keeping an eye on power and speed, smart riders can devote the greatest part of their power output to bike speed and minimize the amount of watts they ‘throw into the wind’, getting more speed for the same effort.

 

Specificity: You will be able to direct your training to the specific performance demands of the event

The race doesn’t care about how relatively hard you’re working with respect to your own limits. No, the race is harsher than that. There are specific fitness requirements within each race to ‘make the selections’ and be there in the run up to the finishing tape. These specific fitness requirements can be quantified (and trained for). Want to ‘be there’ on a Tour De France climb? You’d better include some sustained climbs at or above 6.0 watts per kg in your plan. Want to hang onto the lead group for the first 40km of the bike in Kona? You’d better have some extended sets on the flat varying your output from 4.0-4.7 watts per kg in your arsenal.

Whatever the event, with a power meter, you can identify and train for the specific muscular demands of that event.

Until next time, train smart,

 

 

Alan Couzens

Von Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

Read more →