Finally bought a power meter (stages). 4 rides in so far, using strata premium so have the start of a power curve which looks realistic (I’ve done lab tests in the past so know roughly what power numbers I was expecting). The estimated FTP is within a few watts of my Lab tested FTP 2 seasons ago. I was planning on using Sufferfests revolver on the turbo as my repeatable FTP test going forwards.

I have Allen and Coggans book on training, which I’ve flicked through quickly and finding it pretty dry tbh. Is there a ‘idiots guide’ or similar I should read first before? I’m not much of a detailed geeky type person so I don’t want detailed analysis type stuff (well not yet). I want to be able to understand enough to build a training plan based on power and monitor improvement.

I will also be using my winter bike without a PM most of winter, for recovery / steady endurance stuff does mapping HR to power work sufficiently?

What else should I be looking at or doing?

Sufferfest have a dedicated FTP test, its called Rubber Glove

hive if information here

TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

If you want to PM me, I have a months free Sub to Trainerroad to give away. Use that for a bit and you’ll have an idea how power based training works in practise

Essentially you wouild ride intervals either inside or outside within certain “bands” or percentages of power to train different elements of your ability / muscles with regard to power. For example, FTP is essentially the maximum power you could sustian continuosly for one hour, TR will show you that, then once you have your FTP – used effectively as the base measurement to calculate each power zone, off you pop to ride X minutes at Y percent of FTP to cause the relavnt training adaptations.

DirtyRider did you see my Q to you in the TR thread? I’m keen on the answer if you don’t mind?

ill head over

Thanks for the posts. I meant rubberglove not revolver…get mixed up…

I’ll try to decipher that thread and drop you a line later kryton. I haven’t quite worked out how to get turbo sessions into my schedule this season due to the babies routine.

I got good improvements doing the intermediate 10 week Sufferfest training plan, but you need most of the videos. Still a good investment though for the amount of improvement I got though.

Trainerroad obviously has a lot of free training plans on it. Unless you know a lot about all the various terms like acute training load, chronic training load, decoupling, NP, TSS etc etc and have time to analyse it all or someone else to analyse it for you, I’d go for one of those. They should have appropriate rest/easy days between the harder sessions rather than you over doing it, or just copping out the next day after a tough session 😉

When I was on the Sufferfest plan, I used Trainerroad with virtual power whilst doing the turbo sessions and then trained to heart rate out on the road.

It worked ok but now I just swap my Stages between bikes.

Get a coach?

I haven’t quite worked out how to get turbo sessions into my schedule this season due to the babies routine.

In between feeds, early mornings and later at night. 🙂

Coaches are too expensive. Last time i checked it was £100 a month. I did have a coach for 3 months a few seasons back so know the basics.

Schedule wise its pretty tough. I look after junior 6.30 – 8.30. Bed time is 6.30 – 7.30 then we eat. At work the rest of the time. Thinking about a turbo at work for lunch times…might get some odd looks though!

Yep, I thought it was pricey, but knowing that someone was ensuring I get the most out of the limited time I have to train and can plan for me was worth the cash. That way I can use all the time I was analysing and planning either riding or with the family.

DT, drop me a line, I’m looking for a 12 week guinea pig for the winter to coach. Email in profile.

The most important thing is having a goal, not a meter.

Yep, I thought it was pricey, but knowing that someone was ensuring I get the most out of the limited time I have to train and can plan for me was worth the cash. That way I can use all the time I was analysing and planning either riding or with the family.

Is it that hard? For the poster above you either he trains before the kid gets up, at some point at work or after the kids in bed

I’ll only charge 80 quid a month for the advice

Presumably OP is doing some form of racing otherwise there’s no point in getting a power meter. Getting a coach means that he can spend his lunch hour/free time actually training rather than working out what he needs to be doing.

I’d say that a coach and a PM are some of the most valuable things for a serious (or semi serious) racer with limited time.

I think Joe Friel’s Power Meter Handbook may be what you’re after for starters

Yep, I thought it was pricey, but knowing that someone was ensuring I get the most out of the limited time I have to train and can plan for me was worth the cash

Moot point if you still can’t afford £100 a month, whether that’s good ‘value’ or not!

I’m on thin ground with the other half with spending on my hobby at the moment, my finger is also hovering over buying a kickr, which will mean selling stuff to fund. The other factor is with the limited time I have I’m not sure I can commit to a plan fully which then wastes the coaches time….Tired thanks for the generous offer I’ll drop you a line this evening when I’m child free and have more than 5 mins to discuss.

Racing wise, gorricks mostly, some rounds of Southern xcs and the odd TT. But, surely you don’t have to race to want to get the most out of your limited time and improve yourself? Basically I want to hold onto my fitness whilst I go through a period where I can no longer do 10+ hours a week. That means getting a bit smarter with the time I do have.

my finger is also hovering over buying a kickr

I’ve just bought one – my first turbo 🙂 £788 from wiggle before their 17% discount ends.

Was tempted by the Tacx Neo because of the rocking action and the decent looking tech, but it looks too new to trust Tacx I think, plus their support is reputedly very poor. You also need to be running an Apple device to update the firmware on it – which is ridiculous. And it has issues with TR at the moment so firmware updates are likely.

I am 51 now and have lost a lot of fitness mostly due to a big software project a couple of summers ago. When I go out with a group now I am dragging along at the back, whereas I used to like to be at the forefront going up hills (on the mtb). It’s annoying.

I’ve also noticed that my recovery is slower, so if I go out with the local group, one of which used to race track, it might waste me for any cycling effort for the next few days, plus it feels ‘dangerous’ to be maxing it for so much of the ride.

So I want to pull my fitness up so I still can manage a second days ride.

I’ve just finished reading Joe Friels Fast after 50 book, which was interesting. The emphasis is on high intensity, short duration, which fits in with my limited time after the commute.

I’ve just caved in and bought the kickr from wiggle too. Nice trainer for your first one!

Any idea if it comes with the doofer to link up to a laptop?

I’m looking forward to trying it with zwift in particular. It seems structured intervals in my kitchen will be the future for me

Any idea if it comes with the doofer to link up to a laptop?

Mine is arriving today so I can post tonight whether it does or not, but I think not so I am going to buy the suunto one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0050GL5GM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

I procrastinated over the decision for a while whilst trying to see if the Neo was a viable option, and then Wiggle went out of stock so I couldn’t buy it with that discount 🙁

I asked their chat support when they would get one but they said end of the month, which would be too late as the discount offer runs out on Wednesday.

I put an email alert on it just in case, and got an email last Monday, the 12th, with one back in stock, so I bought it and paid for next day delivery.

Maybe they had an error and it wasn’t really in stock, as they didn’t dispatch it.

But then they got more stock in late last week, so I got an email saying mine was being picked up for delivery (on the 16th) and I should get it on the 13th!

But when I got home on Friday it wasn’t there – so Wiggle or the couriers patently do not have a time machine 🙁

If that had been a few days later it could have coincided with when Marty McFly should arrive in the future !

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIqYeRVzHE[/video]

I’ve just caved in and bought the kickr from wiggle too. Nice trainer for your first one!

Very nice. Tempted myself. Be interested to know how you get on with it? Are you planning on using it paired with a PM? Heard there is a bit of a lag and be good to know how well it works.

Also, the PM, for road or mtb bike? Been using a PM on the road, time trial, and turbo bikes for a few years now and feel I have a good understanding. Mtb though, contemplating a PM but not sure whether I’d get as much out of it as on the road. Can’t really ride to a power off road. And things like TSS, I’m pretty sure my HR is higher for a given power output off road just because of the extra effort required areas other than just pushing the pedals around. The HR TSS on TrainingPeaks seems a better measure of overall stress than one based solely on power to the pedals. Hmm maybe one for another thread!

Has the Wiggle offer finished? I’m looking on there and its £949.99.

You need to be a Platinum rated customer 🙂

yes, try logging in if you have an account so it can work out if you have a discount.

I have to say that having a mini-me has been the best thing for getting my speed and fitness on track.

9 or 10pm every night things usually died down and that was turbo time. A PM and limited time mean you can be incredibly focused and efficient and the limited time means it is easy to slot in to a routine and keep consistency. Consistency will usually be most peoples downfall IMO. Don’t over-complicate things- know roughly what type of sessions you want in a week and why and stick to them. Keep it short and focused and test your FTP regularly to check you are making progress and ensure you are challenging you legs in the way you think you are. If you aren’t improving something needs to change. Mix it up and keep challenging the legs 😀

Even without so many longer rides, my FTP kept rising and as soon as the weekends freed up a bit I was faster and stronger than ever (backed up by the CP curve amongst other things). Another plus is that the lack of sleep is like an anesthetic for painful legs and you can really smash through a turbo session or long ride that really should be beyond you in your tired state. There are positives to be had!

What I have learned however is that a few months down the line the little one becomes increasingly more and more of a disease carrier which can knock the consistency well out the equation 😆 First few months were great 😀

17% ends on weds, but only for plat customer.

Drop me a line if you aren’t and you are soton way

I’m planning on running a few tests to see how the kickr and the stages (on my summer roadie) match up, then from there I plan to use a different bike. That’s assuming it is accurate as per dc rainmakers reviews.

I don’t really want to use my carbon bike on it. I cracked the BB of my last carbon frame, and I think turboing on it didn’t help.

I am waiting to see if I can pick up a bargain XTR stages for the XC bike, I agree, don’t think it would be that easy to train properly with but it would be super interesting to see the power, and I reckon it could be useful for pacing more effectively on longer races

I am actually quite looking forward to things like having a go at alp de huez or racing online via zwift. I can see turboing might actually become ‘fun’….

On the xmas list is a bloody big fan…now if only wiggle sold those dyson jobbies!

Dan – presume you are eating before the turbo session then? We generally get to eat 7.30ish – 8.00, I’m a bit worried about seeing it again if I turbo so soon afterwards

On the xmas list is a bloody big fan

Maplin have some very competent fans for just £20-30. Not as exciting as the Dyson but more than do the job

Have a couple of the big 18″ floor fans from screwfix. Very good.

Dan – presume you are eating before the turbo session then? We generally get to eat 7.30ish – 8.00, I’m a bit worried about seeing it again if I turbo so soon afterwards

I tried to get a big meal around lunch time (that’s the way we do things normally anyway) so maybe that helps. Sometimes we ate later (maybe 8pm) but so long as the portion is huge and food isn’t heavy I’d get away with a 10pm start. To be honest you don’t need a lot of food in you for an hour on the turbo. If you feel you are lacking energy then that’ll most likely be lack of sleep and/or any additional stresses. More often than not sleep and stress lead to feeling of being “weak” or having no energy IMO but I guess it is likely to be different for everyone. I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t place too much emphasis on food and you may well be surprised

I was planning on getting a few of these fans with the hope that the airflow will be enough :

from amazon

The Joe Friel Fast After 50 book is strong on the benefits of intense, interval type training and down on long-slow-distance type training for providing benefits, especially with aging.

[He wrote the book after being shocked by being dropped on a hill climb, at age 68, and then started researching this book. He was getting his FTP back up but then crashed, broke some bones, and got some blood clots leading to the doc giving him some blood thinning meds :-(]

But he really emphasizes the value of sleep for recovery… Plus food, but not too late or too large.

Also interesting is the stuff on perhaps high-fat diets being the correct way to fuel, and not carbs.

Training peaks WKO+ software & read the book especially about critical power & mean maximum curve, FTP is just your starting point.

Training Peaks is very good. Can see your point about the book, but you get more out of it the more you work with power.

There’s loads of articles on the Training Peaks website that may be a bit more digestible…

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/what-is-threshold-power
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/what-is-tss
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/normalized-power,-intensity-factor-training-stress

Re the training bike without a PM. The calculation for TSS that Training Peaks does is pretty decent for long steady efforts, though not used it for ages (went for another PM). Depends how accurate you want to be I guess. I’m currently wondering whether it might actually be better than a proper PM for XC riding.

I’m not much of a detailed geeky type person so I don’t want detailed analysis type stuff (well not yet). I want to be able to understand enough to build a training plan based on power and monitor improvement.

As for this ^^^. You don’t really need to understand that much. Useful to understand TSS though and the way it relates to the duration, intensity and NP of a workout.

Work out how much time you have available to train each week. Work out a realistic rough target weekly TSS to aim for based on available time (just look at previous training loads.) Have a think about a general structure (e.g. two weeks hard, one week easy). Have a think about your racing calendar and plan in your basic phases (e.g. winter base.) Put together some rough goals for each phase and have a think about what sort of sessions you need to be doing.

You can pretty much make it up as you go along once you have that basic structure. E.g. I’m in my base phase, I’ve got to do 10 hours this week, aim is for 500 TSS, so I need to be doing loads of z2 (based around your FTP), maybe some long tempo efforts etc. And knock up a quick plan at the start of the week around that. The sorts of sessions you do will vary depending on what you are trying to work on.

You can build tests or checkpoints into your plan based on what your objectives are. E.g. you could do a 3 minute test, or a 30 second test, or a 20 minute test, etc. And use it to get feedback on how the training is going.

If you’ve got the time to plan and experiment it’s great. Or you can just get a coach. Which is what I did.

got my wahoo today – definitely not something you want delivered to a Collect+ shop for later pickup – 28Kgs of awkwardness.

Getting it out of the box is an aptitude test.

No USB dongle but there is a cadence sensor. Plus power cables and a quick start guide.

I also bought the Kickr mat as it is supposed to deaden the sound.

Soooo…you had a go yet? Any teething troubles. Hoping mine turns up tomorrow.

Soooo…you had a go yet? Any teething troubles. Hoping mine turns up tomorrow.

put my comments on the trainerroad thread – including putting some sorbothane pads under the feet so it is not as ‘solid’ and feels a bit more natural to ride.

here

I’m not sure about setting it up to rock, I would have thought that would put more stress on the frame? (I’ve cracked a BB before..)

My ant dongle turns up today so hopefully I find time this evening to test.

Follow on question:

What is the difference between Average Power, Strava’s ‘weighted’ Power and Normalised Power.

My (outdoor) ride yesterday said an average of 229w, weighted of 254w and normalised of 276w.

…confused…?

I’m not sure about setting it up to rock,

It’s not really rocking now, just ‘giving’ into the sorbothane stops.

That’s is probably going to lead to less stress on the BB.

And it feels a fair bit better out of the saddle, which is a big consideration as I like doing some work like that as I think it is generally good for the knees and helps my running.

Anyway, it is only my road bike so I am not too fussed if it breaks/warps eventually. The Tripster is staying safe on the Topeak rack to the left of the picture.

What is the difference between Average Power, Strava’s ‘weighted’ Power and Normalised Power.

Average power, is well, the average.

Normalised Power explanation here. It’s meant to be a better measure of the effort than average power (and is used to work out TSS.) So for a ride with a lot of short bursty efforts (e.g. short sharp climbs and sprints) the NP will likely be a fair bit higher than the average power.

Strava weighted power is much the same as normalised power, but they don’t want to call it that as that’s proprietary to Training Peaks.

Average power, is well, the average.

Be aware it may or may not include data that is zero so might not actually be your *true* mean power over a ride. More variables to think about when comparing different things 🙂

Strava weighted power is much the same as normalised power, but they don’t want to call it that as that’s proprietary to Training Peaks.

They should be identical as far as I know. The difference in numbers you got was probably the zeros issue. I think Strava uses the zeros for “average power” and “weighted power” whereas most others don’t, hence Strava will give a lower number.

Normalised Power

Here is a better explanation…

1) starting at the 30 s mark, calculate a rolling 30 s average (of the preceeding time points, obviously).

2) raise all the values obtained in step #1 to the 4th power.

3) take the average of all of the values obtained in step #2.

4) take the 4th root of the value obtained in step #3.

What you have to appreciate is this assumes that the data have no gaps (no zeros). If there are gaps in the data then the normalized power value will be inflated.

Also, since you calculate a 30s moving average you are effectively applying “smoothing” to your power data over quite a long time duration. This assumes cycling is fairly steady state and any peaky data is noise. Fairly true on the road but MTB does involve very “peaky” efforts. For MTB, NP actually underestimates the effort since the short sharp efforts get “smoothed”. The knock on is that TSS and other calculations using NP are often not so ideal for MTB. It doesn’t mean they are useless, but it pays to understand what you are looking at and not be a slave to any numbers or any kind- true of anything with a Power Meter 😀

Final point is that steps 2-4 of the calculation are trying to take in to account the fact that higher and higher intensities are increasingly physiologically demanding. If you are doing lots of short sharp efforts as you do in MTB, and these are getting smoothed by the 30s moving average then it’ll appear the ride was actually much less demanding than it was.