Leveraging Technology with Levi Leipheimer and Scott Nydam

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Levi Leipheimer, winner of the 2007 Tour of California and 3^rd place in the 2007 Tour de France, and Scott Nydam of team BMC, 6^th place finisher at the 2007 Tour of Georgia.

Both Levi and Scott have been using TrainingPeaks for over a year in conjunction with their respective coaches. They have both done a great job of maximizing TrainingPeaks products to monitor and communicate both their SRM training data and subjective training feedback to their coaches. It was great to see how they both treat data collection and analysis as part of the training process. They literally do not skip a day without recording what they did for training.

The purpose of my trip was to help both riders analyze their 2007 power and heart rate data, and to help them create customized reports which can be utilized to help predict future performances. Since both riders are entering their second year of using TrainingPeaks they will be able to leverage their past collected data to compare and contrast against future training.

Of particular interest was determining the trends as found within the WKO+ Performance Management Chart (PMC). The PMC provides a great overview of how the 2007 season progressed and how training and recovery affected form in relation to important events. Knowing the trends can also help Levi and Scott adjust their training to reach new targets.

The first reports we generated were two Performance Management Charts which would compare Chronic Training Load (CTL), Acute Training Load (ATL) and Training Stress Balance (TSB) between the months of November 2006-January, 2007 and November, 2007- January 2008. This gave us a good indication of how this off season compared to last year’s preparation and early base periods. CTL can give us a good indication of overall fitness levels, ATL can provide clues as to their fatigue levels and TSB indicates their overall form.

We also wanted to view where the peak power values were achieved in 2007 so we added into the PMC daily power data to see where the top-10 best Critical Power 6 (CP6) and Critical Power 30 (CP30) values appeared. Knowing these values and when they were achieved will help Levi and Scott to better understand what combination of training workloads and recovery phases produced their best form. The reason for selecting the maximum 6-minute value and maximum 30-minute values are because CP6 is an estimation of velocity at VO2max, and CP30 is a good indicator of changes in functional threshold power, both of which are essential to road cycling performance.

Training zones were also discussed and determined based upon current collected data. However we also realized their current power zones would be changing relatively quick once higher intensity training starts in anticipation of the Tour of California.

Following an evening spent in front of our laptops we made plans to meet up for a training ride the following morning. Levi started the training day with a 45-minute motorpacing session with his wife Odessa as the driver. Following Levi’s motorpacing the three of us headed west out of Santa Rosa past Guerneville for the day’s intervals. Part of the ride also covered portions of the first road stage of the Tour of California.

Things look to be going as planned for both Levi and Scott so look for more podium finishes in the next few months. For more on cyclists and triathletes who train with power visit the TrainingPeaks Training with Technology page: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/trainingwithtechnology/

Ciao

Dirk

Comments

[jt]

Give us some watts. What were these guys CP30 and CP6 when they were race fit?