POWWWWWWER!

It’s all about the power… right? That’s what everyone says... "If you’re serious about your training and you want to make the biggest gains… get a power meter".

Well I don’t have £700 to spend on such a device. If I had £700 to spend… I would probably buy a new bike. What I do have though is $8.25 a month for Trainerroad. This magical software converts the speed of the rear wheel on your indoor trainer and converts it into Watts of power. They have mapped the power curve of the trainer to produce a ‘virtual power’. Although the power could have as much as 30W error, the repeatability is within 1.5%... As a training tool, this is perfect.

So it all starts off with two 8 min max efforts to work out your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). This is the power you should be able to sustain for 1 hour.

This is my first FTP test:

As you can see, in the first of the 8 minute efforts I went off too hard… nothing like being optimistic right? ;) So I learnt from this and started the second at a lower power level and built it up over the 8 minute effort. 90% of the average of the two efforts gives you your FTP. Mine was 217 watts. 3.11W/Kg.

From this point on, you can utilise this FTP to structure interval levels of your workouts to get the optimum output.

For example:

This is a VO2 Max interval session (or Climbing Repeats as Strava like to call them)

As you can see, I was hitting the target power output and sustaining for the interval duration. Now let’s pretend I had no power meter whilst doing this interval. I would have gauged my power output based on perceived effort and heart rate. I would have waited until my heart rate reached the required/target value and then sustained that value for the remainder of the interval. I would more than likely have gone off to hard, had to have backed off and probably blown up before the end. If you look at what my heart rate actually did during this interval, you will notice it never stabilised. It was still rising right up until the end of each interval.

This is where the utilisation of a power meter helps structure workouts and allows perfect pacing during intervals. A well-structured and well-paced interval session is going to make far better gains.

I have to say… I may only be on the second week of using a 'virtual' power meter but I am more than impressed. A real power meter will definitely be on the top of my Christmas list (when they become more affordable). Until then, virtual power will have to suffice.