Outside Magazine editor John Bradley Trains with TrainingPeaks
4 June 2008
In preparation for racing in France this summer, Outside Magazine editor John Bradley has started using TrainingPeaks software to guide his progress. With coach Neal Henderson to help analyze the data, John is able to make the most of the time he has left before his big races, as he describes on the Outside Magazine blog. “Though I haven’t had a coach for the six weeks or so that I’ve been riding in earnest, I’ve been storing the data from every ride… So when I started working this week with coach Neal Henderson, he asked me to upload all of my ride data to an account he created for me on the TrainingPeaks web site. With those numbers, Henderson was able to sit at his desk in Boulder, Colorado, analyze how hard I’ve been working and how my body has adapted to the work, then create a training plan that will make the most of the five weeks I have left until my races in France.”
Training with power is very important for cyclists preparing for races, as John explains. “Why train with power? To race faster. That’s really about it. If you’re riding only for fitness, or if you don’t have any cycling goals tougher than simply finishing a century, you don’t need a power meter. You don’t even need a heart-rate monitor. There are countless training plans out there based solely on time or mileage that will give you everything you need. But if you want to race, or if you’re setting more ambitious goals—say, finishing a century in under five hours—using a power meter will get you there faster than any other tool.”
One of the most common errors of elite athletes is over-training, a mistake that the data provided by a power meter can help to avoid. “If you were to plot your workouts and results on graph paper, you would get a bell curve. As your efforts increase, so do the benefits. But at a certain point, you start over-training, and your performance drops. The key is to stay in the fat 
part of the bell curve, so that you’re getting the absolute most out of your training.”
The way to stay within that target zone of the bell curve is to use data. “You need an objective measure of effort and performance. Time doesn’t work, because, for example, one hour on a flat road isn’t the same as one hour in the mountains. The same principles make distance an imperfect measure of training load. Heart rate is better and is still used by high-level athletes. But things like temperature, mood, caffeine, or even what you ate for breakfast can alter your heart rate. Also, it takes your heart a few seconds to reflect what you’re body is actually doing. Step on the pedals for a brief sprint exercise, and your heart might not speed up until after you’re already finished.”
The best data comes from a power meter. “Power doesn’t lie. It’s a direct measure of the energy you are transferring to the pedals (PowerTaps are built into the hub of your rear wheel, with the data displayed on a small handlebar-mounted computer). That’s not to say that 300 watts on a bad day won’t hurt more than 300 watts on a good day. But regardless of how it feels, your power readout will tell you exactly how much work you’re doing.”
Threshold power varies from individual to individual. Elite professional cyclists usually hit somewhere close to 400 watts. To learn more about how to determine threshold power, click here. After you know your threshold power, you can set training zones based on power output. Neal Henderson uses six power zones, with the following target power output numbers in watts for John:
Active Recovery <120
Endurance 120-160
Tempo 161-204
Threshold 205-225
VO2max 226-250
Anaerobic Capacity 251-300
Time spent in each zone changes over the course of the season, as John describes. “As a rider’s season progresses, the percentage of his training time that he’ll spend in each of these zones will vary. But, according to Henderson, even elite endurance athletes will spend no more than around 20 percent of their weekly workouts at or above threshold. Any more than that, and they risk over-training. The bulk of training time is in the endurance and temp ranges, with brief, structured efforts at or above threshold to force the body to do heavier workloads while giving it time to recover and adapt.”
To see some of John’s upcoming workouts and learn more about his training program, go to the Outside Magazine blog.
One Response to “Outside Magazine editor John Bradley Trains with TrainingPeaks”
October 13th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Thta was an inspiring post,
didnt he do great in the races in the end?
Thanks for writing, most people don’t bother.