Totally opposite, Power & Passion vs Grace & Style, but fused in friendship, making the sport better, TOGETHER!

Gino blogged his progress in the Giretto, that 415 mile ride in Italy that happened during the Giro d’Italia race.  These blogs were posted at CyclingFusion.   What is this Cycling Fusion thing?

Like most everything involving human interaction, it’s easy to form, for lack of a better term, walled communities.  The outdoor cyclists look down on the indoor folks, saying “why Spin for an hour when you can just go outside”, and the indoor folk similarly go “there’s no way I’m going outside. I don’t like  bugs or traffic.  And  I’m having way too much fun inside.  I dig the music”  *Every* community sees this.  I make animal balloons for stress-relief, I see similar schisms in the balloon twisting community.  Yeah, those clowns.

Cycling Fusion is about building a community to bridge the gap: bringing outdoor cyclists indoors for targeted training and hooking them on the fun of a high-energy indoor class. Teaching indoor riders many bike skills, such as good pedaling form, being aware of your cadence, and proper standing form, for transfer outside.  By mixing the two, you can reach your goals faster.  Getting fitter.  Going farther.  And maximizing the fun factor.

A similar schism exists in the training community.  There are heart rate proponents, many who dismiss power, and there are power proponents, many who dismiss heart-rate training.  Gino’s also working hard to help bring those two worlds together.  Ultimately, by combining the best of indoor and outdoor, and the best of heart rate and power, we’ll all be unstoppable. Or at least a lot fitter and having more fun outdoors and indoors.

How could someone not love heart zones?

Heart rate training has two main problem.  First, your heart rate lags your effort.  You turn up the resistance 5 gears and it takes several seconds for your heart rate to catch up.  You might be exerting yourself in a high Zone 5 (remember that’s where you’re generating muscle waste faster than you can clean it) and not realize it until 10-15 seconds later.

Also, heart rate is very sensitive to your overall body condition.  Depending on your mood, life stress, recent diet, and overall training load, you may be doing less work but still be in higher heart rate zones.  It’s not an ideal way to measure effort.

How could someone not love power zones?

Similarly, the main problem with power has been the difficulty of measurement.  Power measurement in scientific labs is complicated.  You can equip your bike with expensive gadgets to directly measure power output on the road.  Even the Keiser bikes don’t actually measure your power output, but instead calculate it using the power formula based on your current gear and cadence.  Power only measures the energy being put into the pedals.  There is no direct connection between the power being produced, and the condition of the person generating it.  The display may say 200 watts, but it doesn’t show whether you’re whistling along with the music or drenched in sweat gasping for oxygen.

So which one is better?  Yes!

Rather than arguing about which is better, why not combine them?  That’s where true awesomeness lies. Huh?  How is that awesome?  Your power tells you your performance.  Your heart rate tells you how your body is reacting to generating that power.

Let’s say you weigh 180 pounds, and you want to ride outside in western PA.  You’ll need to generate that 1 watt/lb.  You come to an indoor class, and start cranking 180 watts (after warmup).  If you’re hanging out in heart Zone 3, you’re good to go.  You know you’re replenishing your muscle’s fuel from your fat stores.  If you notice your heart rate climbing, and climbing, and eventually hitting Zone 5, then you know your body is just not generating power efficiently enough. You need to work on your fitness awhile before you try again.

Similarly, you can track your fitness by seeing what wattage you can generate while staying in a particular heart zone.  Say Zone 3.  One week it may be 140 watts.  The next week it might be 150.  You can track your average wattage and see your fitness improving.  And if you notice your heart rate is higher than it has been, or you’re generating fewer watts in a certain heart zone, then you know you may be getting sick (take a rest!) or overtraining (take a rest!).  There’s no shame in spending a class in an easy recovery mode.

We’re almost to the end of my little series of articles, and you’ll see how it finishes next time.  Stay tuned.

Come dear, we need our power workout now.

July 1 was a huge day for Global Ride.  All of the first generation Spinning® bikes were retired and replaced by those fancy Keiser M3 bikes with Power.  Since then, you’ve probably heard a lot about power, and some of us have been invited (subjected) to participate in various power tests during classes.  Power power power!

But what *is* this power thing?

Power is how much energy your muscles are applying to the pedals of the bike, making them go around and around.  That’s pretty simple.  It’s measured in watts.  You’ve heard of watts, in terms of light bulbs and heaters.  It’s the same thing.  It’s a measure of energy

In physics classes, they teach the “power formula”, which is “work x distance”.  For the Keiser bikes this means “gear x cadence”.  Keep the same gear and increase your cadence, you increase your power.  Keep the same cadence and increase your gear, you increase your power.  It’s possible to reduce your gear and increase your cadence and stay at the same power output.

Ok, great, we now have yet another new number to look at on the bike computer.  What good is it?  There are two ways to use your power reading:

* Track your progress over time
* Give yourself a goal.

Let’s look at that first one.  As you get fitter, your muscles can generate more power before tiring.  Your muscles will complain if you try to generate too much power, usually by burning and eventually refusing to work.   During classes you can find your comfort zone for power, and then push that envelope to develop strength.  Before you know it you can crank out higher wattages.  You can see your improvement by recording your average watt numbers after each workout. To see your average wattage, stop pedaling for 5 seconds and then look at the bike computer.  It’ll blink the average watts on the display.  Record it and watch it over time.

The much more interesting tool, at least for me, is using power for goal-setting.  Gino has calculated that for doing outside riding on the Western Pennsylvania hills (not rail-trails), you need to be able to produce, and sustain, at least one watt per pound of body weight (plus weight of your bike, tools, water, snacks, jewelry, small dogs, etc).  This will give you enough power to lift you and the bike against the force of gravity.

I have a ways to go before I can sustain one watt per pound.  The ways to address this is to lose weight, so I have less to lug up hills, and also to generate more power.   I’m working on both of these.

Remember the Zone talk from last time?  There are Zones for power stuff too.  This is new exciting stuff that Gino is building here at Global Ride, taking the Heart Zones principles and applying them to power.  He’s come up with three zones, called Sustainability, Climbing and Explosive.   The Sustainable Power Zone is what you should be able to maintain for 20 minutes or more.  The Climbing Zone is what you can sustain for about 5 minutes, and the Explosive Zone is for really working yourself hard.   As you progress through these power zones, generating more power, you can handle more outdoor cycling situations.  You can track your progress from flats, to rail-trail, small hills, rollers, and so on.

Periodically some of Gene’s regular classes  become “threshold tests”. These help identify where your current fitness lies in the Power Zones.  You start with a 20 minute warmup, then choose a target wattage and see if you can sustain it for an amount of time.  It’s no fun doing math in your head (so what is 60% of 1 watt per pound of your particular weight), so there are little printouts that show the actual wattage numbers for each Power Zone for your weight.  There are also little clipboards to hold the printouts, and little lights to help you see the little clipboards.

Taken independently, the heart zones and power training are pretty powerful.  But when you combine them…  Well, that’s the subject for next time.  Stay tuned.