Training Explained
By Hunter Allen
O.k. Great, now you have bought one of these things, installed it ever so
carefully on your bike, loaded your CyclingPeaks Software, figured out how to
toggle between two buttons and 4 screens while riding one handed at 25mph, what
the heck do you actually do with it !?
Well, the answer is, lots of things. Let's take each of those items and break
them down so that you can get the biggest bang for your 'training' buck so to
speak.
First and foremost, you need to start some formal testing with it. The very
first test you should do is a test in which you just start to find out how the
thing works and establish your 'fitness baseline'. I call this test your
"monthly test", as you should be doing this once a month in order to
track changes in your fitness and make assessments and changes to your training
program based on the results of the test.
The Monthly Test: 20minute warm-up, which is just riding along at a
moderate pace, about 65% of your max HR. Then do (3) fast pedaling efforts for
100rpm for one minute each with one minute between each. Then 3 minutes easy..
Then Go for it - (1) 5minute all out. Punch it and hold it! Make sure that you
start at a high pace, but not soo high that you die at the end. You should have
a little in reserve to kick it to the finish line in the last minute. Then
10minutes easy, then (3) 30 seconds "Super Sprints". Jump as hard as
you can and then Sprint like a crazy for 30 seconds. REST 3minutes between
each. WAY EASY! Then time for (3) 1 minute all out efforts. REST for at least
4-5 minutes between each. Finish the Ride and cool down. Again, you are trying
to produce the most average watts over the entire period. It's not a good test,
if you go out too hard and then just explode and limp home…Cool down, and then
download the computer!
You need to do a separate test on another day for a solid 20-minute effort as
hard as you can go. Same warm-up as above, including the fast pedaling
intervals, but now just do the 20 minute Time Trial.
What these tests do is that they gather some information about your fitness
in different time periods. Because, although you may think you are fit for that
upcoming time trial, you may test very poorly in the 20 minute test, in relation
to the 5 minute test. So, from that info, you can change and tailor your
workouts, but more about that later. This test also is your first test with a
power meter and there is a little learning curve, so it's nice to have a test
from the beginning that isn't too involved and you can get an idea of how to
pace yourself better for upcoming future tests.
Once you have the data from the test, make sure to "pull" it out of
the software, so that you can put it into an Excel Spreadsheet for each time
interval. This will be your baseline against which you will be testing each
month.
O.k. So now that you have done the "Monthly Test", you can start
training with Power, and not so much HR anymore. Based on your 20-minute test,
you should have a good idea of your Lactate threshold wattage, and from there
you can calculate your power zones using this simple
calculator on the web.
Establish Optimal Cadence
These are more tests that are designed to help you figure out what is your
optimal cadence over different time periods. You see, not everyone is meant to
spin a fast gear like Lance. Some of us are more efficient and produce more
power for each heartbeat, in the 85-90 rpm range. Some are more efficient in the
95-100 rpm range. Which are you?
That's what we are going to figure out.
This involves a series of 3 tests. The first test is a self-selected test and
you've already done it! That baseline test was also the first cadence test! You
did the test protocol in the cadence that felt right to you. That's all that
matters. You did your best in the gear and cadence that felt like you are
putting out the greatest power that you can do. This is your baseline.
Make sure to take it easy the day before, so that you do a good test. No
sense in doing the test if you are sick, tired or stayed up all last night with
the drinking buddies. So, be sure to do the test on a day that you are planning
on being strong and psyched to go!
Now, from the basis of this first test, you need to look at the specific
intervals and figure out your average cadence from each effort. Go into the
CyclingPeaks Software and copy the information out of the Summary window on the
Journal page, after you have highlighted the significant test periods. This is
really the only important thing at this point in the process.
So, once you have your average cadence for each interval, then this will help
you determine the 'restricted cadence' of the next test. If your self-selected
was 85rpm, then the next test should be a low cadence test with cadence
restricted to 70rpm and below for each time interval. This means that you must
set the resistance and gearing as such that you can go as hard as you possibly
can, but stay under 70rpm. This will then give you a comparison to the
self-selected cadence. Did you produce more power for some time intervals for
the lower cadence? What about Heart rate? Was your heart rate lower per watt for
the self-selected? What was the power/hr ratio for this compared to your
self-selected? These are things you'll need to be asking yourself.
Now, the final test. This needs to be a high cadence test. So, go 15 rpm's
above the self-selected to get high cadence. Once completing this test, you can
compare all three together and see at which time interval you are the most
efficient. Efficiency incorporates the max watts you produced, the average watts
you produced, your max heart rate and average heart rate for each time interval.
For the 1-minute test, was your max HR higher for the high cadence as compared
to self-selected, but the average watts were lower? So, you need to look at the
whole picture when comparing the 3 tests side by side. And guess what? Some of
them will be so similar that it's a toss-up to which is better. If Average watts
and average HR are very similar, than I look to the Max watts for a tiebreaker.
If that is similar (within 15watts), then I look to actual distance covered and
see which is greater. If all are still the same, then go with what you think,
but be prepared to test this time interval again in 4-6 weeks.
So, now you should a clear picture (or spreadsheet) ;-) of your cadence,
power and heart rate for each time interval. You should be able to now see which
cadence is more efficient for 1 minute and all of the rest of the time periods.
Now, you ask, why is this important? It's important because there will be many
times in a race or training ride, in which you will have a good ballpark idea of
how long an interval will be. This way you can select the correct gear for the
upcoming effort and know that you are maximizing your effort. Know that there is
a 30 second out of the saddle burst you have to do on every lap? Know you are
going to attack 100 meters before a corner and then accelerate hard for the next
2 minutes? Know you have a little rise in the road that you have to pop over?
Got a 40k TT coming up? Now, you can select the right gear for each situation.
The other side of this is that you find out what your weaknesses are
regarding cadence also. If your watts fall by 30-40 watts when riding in a
bigger gear, than you might want to start incorporating some low cadence/high
force workouts into your routine. If your watts fall by 20-30 when spinning a
smaller gear, or if you know you have trouble with little accelerations, then
maybe you want to incorporate some fast pedaling intervals into the equation.
By Testing your cadence you now have a baseline and a place to go. Time to
start working on those weaknesses. Testing your optimal cadence now allows you
to really figure out where you can improve your power output at different time
levels.
How to use your power meter in training
Make sure to set your power meter on the smallest sampling interval you can
do in order to get the greatest accuracy in recording your ride. For some power
meters, this limits the total time that it can record your ride, so be sure to
set the recording rate on a higher rate if you are doing a longer ride. For the
PowerTap™, set it on one second recording intervals if you are doing a 3 hour
ride or shorter. For anything longer, set it on 2 seconds, so that you can get
up to a 7 hour recording memory.
When you have your wheel circumference measured, and make sure to measure it
exactly with your weight on the bike and correct tire pressure in the tire, then
you are ready to go training.
The first thing you'll notice is that your power is highly fluctuating. Andy
Coggan, Ph'd, has coined the usage of the word "stochastic" to
describe cycling. This means that cycling is highly variable and not quite
random, but darn close. So, you spend plenty of time not pedaling, pedaling a
whole lot, pedaling with a huge wattage and also just kinda noodling along. Lots
of things will affect your power: wind, hills, type of rider(s) you are riding
with and many more things.
So, if your power output is highly variable, then how are you going to train
in some certain range of power?
Well, a lot of times, you're not. You simply just won't be able to hold a
steady range of power on the terrain that you are riding. There will be too many
external influences that won't allow you to ride in a specified range.
However there will be plenty of times that you will be able to. In order to
do this, you'll have to plan for that and really get yourself psyched to go out
and do a workout based on power. Other times, you are going to use your power meter
as a retro tool, a way to view the info on your ride after the ride is over.
Both are valid and should be used. Sometimes, you think you are pedaling 90rpm,
but when you downloaded the data from the power meter you find that you were
only pedaling 85rpm. The power meter download allows you have this retro-look.
More information on download analysis can be found
here!
Training Opportunities in which to train using your power meter.
- Trainer- Easy to regulate your wattage as there are no external
influences.
- Flat Roads- utilizing a specific wattage protocol
- Time Trials -Pacing tool and to select the best cadence.
- Hill Climbs-Pacing tool and to select the best cadence.
- Specific Intervals and training protocols.
- "Race Winning Intervals"
Each of these have many ways in which you can use your power meter.
For a time trial, you will use it as a pacing tool, and make sure you are not
exceeding a certain wattage during your time trial and therefore blowing up and
losing valuable time.
For a hill climb, you will be able to push a certain number of watts in order
to maintain the highest pace you can sustain in the climb. You will also be able
to adjust you cadence in order to see you power go up and then also see your HR
go down.
What to look at in your Downloads.
First things first, take off as much smoothing as possible in the software
program. You really need to look at the true data and not smoothed data. Get
used to seeing the real data and tell all your friends how many watts you really
produce and not some guesstimate based on your smoothed data.
Look at:
- Periods of significant efforts. For example: A 15 minute interval that you
did at Sub LT HR.
- Significant fluctuations in power and count them.
- Cadence when you have time periods of high power output.
- How many kilojoules of energy did you put out?
- MAX wattage, and average wattage for selected duration of interest.
- Heart Rate at significant time periods.
- Try to pinpoint areas of a race that have significance and look at them to
see what made or broke that part of the race.
- Look at the area of time that you got dropped and see what happened. Maybe
your cadence was too low for 10 minutes before. Maybe your pedaling stroke
became sloppy as you got more fatigued and your torque got too high compared
to the power output.
Once again, more information on download analysis can
be found here!
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