Training with power is the ultimate way to insure your forward progress in cycling. While I am a huge supporter of heart monitor training, and I believe there is no more important training tool than a cadence monitor for both indoor and outdoor cycling, the power meter brings the best of all worlds together. With power we are measuring the “real work” we are doing, the actual energy produced by our efforts. After all, it isn’t how much our body is suffering (reflected by the heart rate monitor), or how fast we spin the pedals (reflected by our RPMs) that determines how fast we go, or how well we climb the next hill. Power is the energy we can produce to propel us forward. Hence, the power meter also accounts for the resistance on the flywheel when indoors, and the force being applied to the pedals when faced with gravity and gearing when outdoors. This, and only this will measure our performance progress.

As you can see from my chart above, my power has increased from my first power test. If you are wondering why you don’t see “250 watts, 300 watts”, etc – that is because the raw watt numbers really do not make any sense without knowing how heavy the rider is. Watts per kg is the “great equalizer”. The power you produce is always relative to your weight – a bigger guy will need more watts to pull him up the hill, and he has bigger muscle mass to produce that power. Hence, watts/kg is the “measure of truth

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We have the luxury at Global Ride to use a Keiser M3 bike with power, heart rate, cadence, calories, time and distance readings. We performed the same testing I had done 5 months ago just yesterday. We were able to repeat the same test, in the same environment, and on the same equipment. In conjunction with the Keiser bike, we used the New Leaf Metabolic Cart to analyze all the aerobic components (more on that in a future blog).

While field tests can always be done outside, nothing will provide the accuracy of testing in a controlled environment, with identical conditions and equipment. The differences in performance can then be properly credited towards your training between tests.

While there are a number of power metrics the power gurus point to, it is those that translate to my event (The Giretto) that I’m most interested in. Given that my emphasis has been on long distance and endurance, I am most interested in the sustainable power. This is indicated above by “Power Zone Ave”. This represents the average power I generated from 20 beats below up to my threshold. This increase isn’t as big as the others, but it is going in the right direction.

The other metric I was interested in is not one you will find in “the literature”. I guess I sort of made it up (at least to my knowledge anyway). This is how many watts I generate per increase in Beats Per Minute (Heart Rate). Your heart rate is a measure of the stress your body is feeling as you produce energy, so I wanted to know how much stress each watt of energy was exacting on my body. I am happy to report that again, the increase wasn’t huge, but it was noticeable. I am now able to produce more energy per bpm.

I will soon post a similar progress report on my aerobic progress – also critical to overall success in any endurance event.