Power Meter Project

I thought it was time to make some posts about the Power Meter Project 2007 since the project is over and I got all the results ready. For people who haven’t heard about the Power Meter Project I will start with a short summary about the project:

Inclusion criteria: SRM or Powertap
Back in November 2006 I invited motivated riders to participate in the Power Meter Project 2007. The purpose of this project was to investigate what results completely unknown riders were able to achieve with wattage controlled intervals dictated by me. The only requirement to be included in the project was to have a calibrated Power Tap or SRM power meter mounted on their bike.

Goal: Stronger riders, better coaching

For the last seven years I have coached riders in Denmark with great success, but training with power is still a quite new phenomenon. I have some great data from wattage controlled training in the winter months for my riders, but having data from more riders simply increases my overall knowledge about coaching and power meter training. Thus, I thought the internet was a great way to achieve more data from riders there were willing to strictly follow my program for 12 weeks. By offering them a free training program it was a win-win situation for both parts.

Communication via email
The 5 participants in the project did an awesome job throughout the 12 weeks (one rider dropped out after 9 weeks). They sent me emails, questions and race reports that gave me an idea of how they were doing and showing me that their motivation were enormous. It was really difficult to know how to adjust training because all I knew was a short summary of their power meter data and a brief report about how they were doing.

Intervals three times per week
I decided to make tough programs with interval intensities close their scores in the maximum power output tests. E.g. 20 min maximum power output were converted to 3 or 4 intervals of 6min with 20min power (4min recovery with 50% 20min power). The frequency of intervals was also higher than in most training programs with 3 interval days per week. Some of the riders replaced one of the interval days with a race day.

Summary of results
”¢ Improvements in 5 sec power, but not all riders. One didn’t spend time on sprint training, because his focus was on aerobic endurance. Another rider was probably close to his potential when the project started.
Ӣ Great Improvements in 1min maximum power (anaerobic endurance). This skill is probably where power meters are most valuable. Precise intervals resulted in increments of above 20 percents.
Ӣ Great improvements in 5min maximum power (VO2 max). This skill is really useful, so it has a great impact on performance in most cycling races. These are the improvements that satisfy me most.
Ӣ Good improvements in 20min maximum power (Threshold power).

Conclusion
Overall I will conclude this project as a success. The riders achieved great success and were impressed on their own progress. In the following posts I will take a closer look to each of the participants’ progress.

We are now close to 40 submissions for the Power Meter Profile Project. That is great, but we need even more submissions because that will make the data more reliable. Category 1 riders are the best represented group in the project so far, but all other groups are represented. If you have not performed the tests yet or just haven’t sent them, read more about the Power Meter Profile Project.

I know that there are many cyclists that use the tests in this project, so by participating in this project you will have a unique chance to compare power meter data with people from the rest of the world. Thus, I will strongly recommend you to submit to the project and ask your friends to do the same.

I want to publish a lot of statistics about watts and related parameters. I need to know the power profiles of as many athletes as possible, so please tell your friends about this project. The more power profiles I get, the better and more reliable results can be presented here on the website.

Last chance to participate is 31st of July 2007

There have been some delay of the final tests in the Power Meter Project, but I have received some test results and race reports that indicate improvements. I’m really impressed by the participants because I know that they have been through some really tough interval workouts during the last 12 weeks.Wattage controlled intervals are a great way to control pace and secures that the rider trains exactly the physiological skill he is interested in.

Until now I have received the incredible results from Paul Skiba and Gonzalo Vilaseca. I will post some comments on these results soon, but you are welcome to take a closer look at them now. I have not seen how many watts Marc Moeller was able to do in the final week, but I know that he has made some great results in a couple of cycling races. Please consider that podium places are more important than watts on your PowerTap anyway”¦

Marc Moeller has a season goal of moving to cycling race Category 2. Moving up one category per season seems fair for serious cyclists like Marc, but doing it with only 8 hours per week is a bit of a challenge. Nevertheless, he has worked hard for the last 6 weeks to improve his already good fitness. And with great success! Here are the results from the critical power tests Marc has performed with his PowerTap:

Week 7 to 12
I know that Marc is getting close to a plateau where additional improvement requires a bigger training amount. But by giving his high intensity training program some periodization, there is a chance that he can continue his progress. I am really satisfied with the results I have seen from him so far, and predict that he will deliver even more watts next time. It is though pretty clear that he will have to work very hard for every single watt from now on. But as I told Marc in an email: “Every single watt counts at your level”.

Gonzalo Vilaseca has done the first six weeks of the power meter project, thus he has now entered the final six weeks of the project. This part of the training is considered as race preparation.

Competing in a cycling race is one of the best ways to prepare you for your main goal. The reason is that you train exactly what you are going to compete in. I have previously discussed races as preparation for cycling races in an earlier post here. Gonzalo will use Sundays for races where the race itself doesn’t have high priority, but the training he gets from it has a high priority since it is one of the three weekly intensive training sessions.

Evaluation of Gonzalo’s critical power tests performed in week 6