July 14, 2007
My girlfriend is going to give birth to our first child in a couple of days. That is probably the biggest event in our lives so far and we are really excited about it. Really excited!
Power Meter Tips will be updated
I have been writing a couple of extra posts these days, because I know that there will be some days where my eyes are going to focus on our little baby. Who cares about blogging or computers when they get parent for the first time? Well, I probably don’t, but I guess there will be some visitors for my blog anyway, so I have scheduled a couple of posts for the next 14 days. There will be updates a couple of times each week.
It is uncertain how much time I will spend on answering emails and comments rest of July. I guess you understand my priorities.
Guest Bloggers are welcome
If there are any cycling coaches or riders out there that would like to help me in this situation I will appreciate all kinds of guest posts related to the following topics:
- Cycling Training
- Power Meters
- Heart Rate Monitors
- Reviews
The post will include a short presentation of you and a link to your personal blog.
You can read more about contributing here.
July 13, 2007
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
or Polar CS600 with integrated Power Meter here.
July 11, 2007
Exercise-induced muscle cramps are common among cyclists in the end of hard races. Some riders seem to have more frequent episodes of muscle cramps than others, but most cyclists have experienced the phenomena.
It is often written that hydration with water and different electrolytes may protect riders from muscle cramps, since dehydration and electrolyte imbalance is very close related to these involuntary, painful muscle contractions. One of the potential risks is exercising in hot environment because of dehydration and massive loss of sodium, potassium, magnesium and other electrolytes. When this water loss is recovered with plain water, there will be a net loss of electrolytes. In old days hard working people who worked in mines died because of an excessive water intake that diluted the concentration of electrolytes. This was called ‘Minors Cramp’.
Scientists from the University of North Carolina have published an article in Journal of athletic training, June 2005: Influence of Hydration and Electrolyte Supplementation on Incidence and Time to Onset of Exercise-Associated Muscle Cramps.
In this study 13 men with a history of exercise-induced muscle cramps performed two tests that were made to provoke muscle cramps in the calves. One test was done with supplementation of water, carbohydrates and sodium, while the other test was done without any supplementation. The findings were that 9 people developed muscle cramps in the hydration/supplementation trial and 7 people did in the dehydration trial. These findings do not indicate that hydration and supplementation with carbohydrates and electrolytes protect against muscle cramps. It tells us that there are other factors implicated in development of exercise-induced muscle cramps. However, in the hydration/supplementation trial, the time to onset of muscle cramps were prolonged (36.8 minutes completed before onset, compared to only 14.6 minutes in the dehydration trial.)
In my opinion, the study should have included a trial with plain water only. This should be done to see if it was the water or the supplementation that prolonged the time to onset of muscle cramps.
July 9, 2007
When you start your cycling career, central adaptations increase your performance rapidly in the first three months. After one year of training you will discover that it takes more time to gain improvements. Now you will have to think more about how to train to keep improving. At this time improvements are often due to peripheral adaptations.
When you have trained seriously for a couple of years, you will experience that more training is needed before you get significant improvements. At this time you get the feeling of a training vacuum. You train more than you have ever done before, but your form does not change at all.
This is a critical moment in every serious riders´ career. The common outcome is that you sooner or later realize that you are not making further progress with the current program. You take the consequences and start making things different. This could be quitting, switching coach, switching club, different training methods, more training, less training, new bike, new wheels, eating nutritional supplements or getting so desperate that you take drugs. But often you will not realize that the problem is a training vacuum, because you have optimized cycling performance through proper training, eating and resting. Instead you victimize your coach, club or material because your performance has reached a plateau.
In the final part of your career cycling efficiency, tactics and experiences play a bigger role. You will use your knowledge about race tactics to eliminate eventually stronger opponents. You can win races without being the strongest rider, but making the correct moves at the correct moments, because of your gut feeling.
July 7, 2007
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).
July 5, 2007
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.”
