Monday
Dec042006
Better Winter Training with a Power Meter
By Hunter Allen:
The racing season is over, you have given it your best shot, achieved some goals, fallen short on others and after your off-season ‘break’, it’s time you get back into your training, as the ‘off-season’ is where your homework is done. A strong off-season generally leads to a strong racing season and we have all witnessed those riders that weren’t ‘quite there’ at the end of the season, but then come out at the beginning of the season a whole ‘level’ above the previous year. Doing homework counts and can make the difference for you in 2007. How can you be sure you are doing the ‘correct’ homework though? One tool to help you this winter is a power meter. Most off-seasons’ are spent riding on the trainer, either because of the weather or lack of daylight, and using your power meter on the trainer is a effective use of your power meter. By utilizing a power meter on your trainer, you can fine tune your workouts, more precisely control your work/rest periods, adjust the wattage load almost down to a watt, and confirm you are adequately cooling yourself during your workout.
One of the beauties of training on an indoor trainer in the winter is how efficient you can make your workout. Not many of us can withstand the boredom of a multi-hour trainer ride, so “compacting” the workout, so that you basically do a warm-up, then your effort, and then cool-down, makes for a highly efficient use of your time. I recommend that your workouts on the trainer contain some sort of cadence work or emphasis. One of my favorite workouts contains a simple fast pedaling drill in which you pedal at a higher than normal cadence (120rpm+) for one minute and then pedal easy for one minute at a relaxed cadence(80rpm). Doing ten(10) of these ‘one minute on, on minute off’ fast pedaling drills, not only makes the time go faster, but also helps you to smooth out your pedal stroke, and keep your ability to change speeds throughout the winter. Too many cyclists get into a rut in the winter of just droning along at a certain cadence and never changing their leg speed, and this neglect is easily felt when the first month of racing begins again! Where does wattage play a part in this workout? The beauty of your downloaded data is that you can compare the data from this workout at the beginning of the season to similar workouts throughout the winter. By adhering to a specific cadence, you can easily see the differences in your wattage and the improvements in efficiency you make.
A similar workout with an ‘ON/OFF’ interval is what Dr. Andrew Coggan, PhD calls the ‘Micro-Interval’ workout. Micro-intervals are intervals done at 150% of your threshold power for the ‘ON’ period, which only lasts 15 seconds. The ‘OFF’ period is also 15 seconds and done at 50% of your threshold power. I recommend these to be done in blocks of 10 minutes each, in order to keep yourself focused and also allow for multiple blocks. This workout directly addresses your neuromuscular power, or the ability to contract and relax your muscles quickly. This is an essential component of cycling in which short sprints out of corners in criteriums, quick speed changes in the peloton and hard uphill bursts are the norm. Since you are riding at 150% and 50% of your threshold power for each block, your average watts for the entire block should equal 100% of your threshold power. One of the nice side benefits of this workout is that not only do you stress the neuromuscular system, but you also stress the Lactate threshold system, giving you the benefit of improving your overall fitness, without too much work at threshold power.(If you spend too much time at threshold power in the winter, you might risk becoming a ‘January Star’.) Done correctly, a micro-interval workout looks like this in the download.
Along with executing highly precise workouts on the trainer, you can use your power meter to help you assess your hydration and cooling status during a workout. In exercising on a bike, there are four external ways that help keep your body cool. These are: evaporative cooling, in which the sweat(perspiration) off your skin evaporates into the air; convective cooling, in which the air moving around you, cools your body; conductive cooling, in which you move heat from parts of your body to your bike, like your seat; and radiative cooling which means losing heat by radiating objects around you.
On an indoor trainer, you lose a large percentage of your convective and evaporative cooling, and those can really wreak havoc on the quality of your workout, if you are not careful. When you ride on the trainer without adequate fans, your body will continue to heat up, causing your core temperature to increase more dramatically. This in turn causes you to lose efficiency in the heart(decreased stroke volume), and forces your heart to pump faster for the same power output. So, if you are just watching your heart rate monitor, you would get the impression that your workout is going exactly as planned and your heart rate was even increasing at the end of the workout. However, with a power meter measuring your wattage output, you can easily see that while your heart rate is increasing your wattage is decreasing! When this occurs, it is called cardiac ‘drift’ and you are no longer training efficiently. Cardiac drift isn’t due to de-hydration per se, but by an increase in the body’s core temperature, so even if you stay hydrated you will experience some cardiac drift. When you place multiple fans in front of you and to the side, and riding in a colder environment(basement or garage perhaps?) it will really enhance your convective and evaporative cooling and should help to keep your core temperature down. The below graph is an example of what heart rate drift looks like from a downloaded power meter file. It’s easy to see when you are not cooling or hydrating yourself properly, as your heart rate will be higher later in your workout for the same or similar wattage done earlier.
Training this winter does not have to be boring, using your power meter, you can make your workouts more time efficient, improve on some of your limiters to success, dial in specific training workouts and also learn more about yourself. Using the information during and after your indoor workouts can help you train smarter in the next workout and also make sure you stay on track with your goals. A power meter can be your best friend in helping to make your 2007 season the best ever.
The racing season is over, you have given it your best shot, achieved some goals, fallen short on others and after your off-season ‘break’, it’s time you get back into your training, as the ‘off-season’ is where your homework is done. A strong off-season generally leads to a strong racing season and we have all witnessed those riders that weren’t ‘quite there’ at the end of the season, but then come out at the beginning of the season a whole ‘level’ above the previous year. Doing homework counts and can make the difference for you in 2007. How can you be sure you are doing the ‘correct’ homework though? One tool to help you this winter is a power meter. Most off-seasons’ are spent riding on the trainer, either because of the weather or lack of daylight, and using your power meter on the trainer is a effective use of your power meter. By utilizing a power meter on your trainer, you can fine tune your workouts, more precisely control your work/rest periods, adjust the wattage load almost down to a watt, and confirm you are adequately cooling yourself during your workout.
One of the beauties of training on an indoor trainer in the winter is how efficient you can make your workout. Not many of us can withstand the boredom of a multi-hour trainer ride, so “compacting” the workout, so that you basically do a warm-up, then your effort, and then cool-down, makes for a highly efficient use of your time. I recommend that your workouts on the trainer contain some sort of cadence work or emphasis. One of my favorite workouts contains a simple fast pedaling drill in which you pedal at a higher than normal cadence (120rpm+) for one minute and then pedal easy for one minute at a relaxed cadence(80rpm). Doing ten(10) of these ‘one minute on, on minute off’ fast pedaling drills, not only makes the time go faster, but also helps you to smooth out your pedal stroke, and keep your ability to change speeds throughout the winter. Too many cyclists get into a rut in the winter of just droning along at a certain cadence and never changing their leg speed, and this neglect is easily felt when the first month of racing begins again! Where does wattage play a part in this workout? The beauty of your downloaded data is that you can compare the data from this workout at the beginning of the season to similar workouts throughout the winter. By adhering to a specific cadence, you can easily see the differences in your wattage and the improvements in efficiency you make.
A similar workout with an ‘ON/OFF’ interval is what Dr. Andrew Coggan, PhD calls the ‘Micro-Interval’ workout. Micro-intervals are intervals done at 150% of your threshold power for the ‘ON’ period, which only lasts 15 seconds. The ‘OFF’ period is also 15 seconds and done at 50% of your threshold power. I recommend these to be done in blocks of 10 minutes each, in order to keep yourself focused and also allow for multiple blocks. This workout directly addresses your neuromuscular power, or the ability to contract and relax your muscles quickly. This is an essential component of cycling in which short sprints out of corners in criteriums, quick speed changes in the peloton and hard uphill bursts are the norm. Since you are riding at 150% and 50% of your threshold power for each block, your average watts for the entire block should equal 100% of your threshold power. One of the nice side benefits of this workout is that not only do you stress the neuromuscular system, but you also stress the Lactate threshold system, giving you the benefit of improving your overall fitness, without too much work at threshold power.(If you spend too much time at threshold power in the winter, you might risk becoming a ‘January Star’.) Done correctly, a micro-interval workout looks like this in the download.
Along with executing highly precise workouts on the trainer, you can use your power meter to help you assess your hydration and cooling status during a workout. In exercising on a bike, there are four external ways that help keep your body cool. These are: evaporative cooling, in which the sweat(perspiration) off your skin evaporates into the air; convective cooling, in which the air moving around you, cools your body; conductive cooling, in which you move heat from parts of your body to your bike, like your seat; and radiative cooling which means losing heat by radiating objects around you.
On an indoor trainer, you lose a large percentage of your convective and evaporative cooling, and those can really wreak havoc on the quality of your workout, if you are not careful. When you ride on the trainer without adequate fans, your body will continue to heat up, causing your core temperature to increase more dramatically. This in turn causes you to lose efficiency in the heart(decreased stroke volume), and forces your heart to pump faster for the same power output. So, if you are just watching your heart rate monitor, you would get the impression that your workout is going exactly as planned and your heart rate was even increasing at the end of the workout. However, with a power meter measuring your wattage output, you can easily see that while your heart rate is increasing your wattage is decreasing! When this occurs, it is called cardiac ‘drift’ and you are no longer training efficiently. Cardiac drift isn’t due to de-hydration per se, but by an increase in the body’s core temperature, so even if you stay hydrated you will experience some cardiac drift. When you place multiple fans in front of you and to the side, and riding in a colder environment(basement or garage perhaps?) it will really enhance your convective and evaporative cooling and should help to keep your core temperature down. The below graph is an example of what heart rate drift looks like from a downloaded power meter file. It’s easy to see when you are not cooling or hydrating yourself properly, as your heart rate will be higher later in your workout for the same or similar wattage done earlier.
Training this winter does not have to be boring, using your power meter, you can make your workouts more time efficient, improve on some of your limiters to success, dial in specific training workouts and also learn more about yourself. Using the information during and after your indoor workouts can help you train smarter in the next workout and also make sure you stay on track with your goals. A power meter can be your best friend in helping to make your 2007 season the best ever.
Monday, December 4, 2006 at 12:55PM | 1 Comment 
Reader Comments (1)
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