Evaluation of critical power tests performed in Week 6

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 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 will compete in. I have previously discussed races as preparation for cycling 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-week intensive training sessions.

Gonzalo has improved his performance at all parameters and reduced his body weight by ½kg; thus, his watts per kg ratio has also increased.

The improvement that impresses me most is the 5min critical power that has gone up from 357W to 389W. The 5min critical power indicates how big Gonzalo’s aerobic engine is and has a high impact on cycling performance in most cycling events and definitely in the events that Gonzalo is preparing himself for.

My plan for Gonzalo
I hope that Gonzalo can raise his anaerobic power further in the following six weeks and maybe add a few watts to his aerobic capacity.

The program consists of three intensive days (two interval days based on wattage controlled intervals and one cycling race day), three light/medium days and one day off. The program is now more focused on anaerobic endurance with long sprints/jumps with 40seconds efforts above 650W. These jumps are done once a week, with full recovery between each anaerobic jump.

The idea is to achieve a high power output and a high level of anaerobic enzymes. These enzymes are heavily upregulated when you train; thus I expect that this training can influence his 1min critical power.

If he succeeds to build extra anaerobic endurance, he has a better chance to play a significant role when the attacks fire in a race.