Polar CS600 transmits heart rates from 8 riders in the Tour de France peloton this year. This opportunity gives you a nice chance to study how individual heart rate is and also how important it is to stay in the group to save energy. If you make any interesting observations please let us know.
You can buy a Polar CS600
Polar CS600 Heart Rate Monitor Data from Tour de France Read More »
1. Watts
First of all power meters are getting popular because they are way better than heart rate monitors for monitoring your training. Power output is an objective measure of exercise intensity representing the actual work you put in the pedals.
The PowerTap SL collects huge amounts of data during your training ride. These data gives you a great opportunity to optimize your training and analyze your race performance. These analyzes can be time consuming, but it is here you really get the value for your money.
2. Light weight
PowerTap SL is a lighter version of the original PowerTap. The weight is reduced by using a carbon hub shell combined with a new lightweight aluminum axle combine for the hub. The complete system now weighs 480g including computer.
Saving some weight has a lot of attention from high performing athletes, because no one wants to carry heavy equipment that doesn’t provide extra speed for their bike (at least not immediately”¦) The hub has a weight that is slightly heavier than Dura Ace and Campagnolo Record, but that shouldn’t have much influence on the overall performance and especially not with the current rules weight limits from UCI (minimum bike weight: 6.8kg).
3. Price
In many years SRM was the only provider of power meters, but only professionals (or rather their sponsors) were willing to pay the price of these power meter cranks. Now you can buy a PowerTap SL for a lower price than cheapest version of the SRM crank (amateur version).
3 Reasons Why PowerTap SL is so Popular Read More »
I had a short interview with Marc Moeller about his participation in the Power Meter Project. If you haven’t looked at his results yet, read the full results here.
Your maximum power tests indicate that you are significantly stronger, but what impact has these increments had on your performance in races?
Marc: “This has been my best racing year yet in Category 3 and I plan on moving to category 2 in August! I’ve race quite a bit and always felt I had a chance to win, not just finish as middle of the pack. My lowest place in Cat 3 has been 12th and I almost always can finish in the top 5.”
How will you describe your progress through the project?
Marc: “Well to tell the truth I do feel quite a bit stronger this year than last, which is due to the program structure and my sticking to it. Being motivated and focused has helped tremendously. I have a suspicion though that I may have reached a peak a bit early this year and I don’t know if I can get my power levels up quite as high as I had them in early April. I have even resisted doing the tests because I don’t want to know my current max power outputs as they might be discouraging to my present training.”
What is your opinion on power meter training now?
Marc: “There is nothing better than power training. How else could you ever incrementally increase your work load on a bicycle? I think the ability to do repeatable efforts at different percentages of power is critical to progress on the bike. It also is great for letting you know how your legs are “feeling” as you warm up or towards the end of a long ride you know where your relative fitness is.”
Have you adapted some of the ideas from the power meter project into
your daily training?
Marc: “Undoubtedly, the thing I have used most is a range of power intervals from short burst to longer sessions that work different energy systems. For me what I have used the most is the four minute interval, the one minute, and the shorter recoveries at 40 seconds on, and 20 seconds off. Those have helped me the most.”
Interview with Marc Moeller about the Power Meter Project Read More »
Yesterday I published and commented on the results from Dave Simonson. Today, I will talk about Marc Moeller who is a category 3 rider with an ambition of promoting to category 2 this season. That goal sounds quite fair if Marc’s training wasn’t limited to only 8 hours per week. Thus, Marc gave me a challenge when he entered the project, but also a great chance to test how much progress you can achieve with training program with limited time available.
Wattage controlled intervals
I chose to push Marc’s intervals to the maximum capable amount. He was supposed to do intervals three times a week, but these days were not only like regular interval days, they were really tough workouts that required a dedicated effort to succeed. These intervals were monitored on his PowerTap Pro. There was a risk that this program could be a failure if the total training load was too heavy.
The three interval days were one session with anaerobic intervals (6 bursts of 40 seconds at 600-650W, recovery 6minutes), one training day with VO2 max intervals (3 times 3minutes 400W, 3min recovery or a couple of sets of 6 bursts of 40/20seconds at 410+ W) and finally one day with threshold power intervals in the range of 3 to 15minutes, normally with a total time of 24-30minutes. Two times a week there were sprint sessions with short power sprints and regular sprints.
Have a look at the graphs and full results
How To Make It To The Podium With Less Training Read More »
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.
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.
Brief Results From The Power Meter Project Read More »