Riding with a Power Tap or SRM Crank mounted on your bike doesn’t have to be rocket science. Actually you can benefit from using a power meter without knowing much about exercise physiology. In this article I will show you how you can benefit from a power meter without knowing anything about exercise physiology.
In the Power Meter Project I used maximum power tests to get a profile of the rider’s performance at different distances. These tests represent what freaks like me would call anaerobic alactacid sprint power, anaerobic lactacid endurance power, maximum oxygen consumption power and threshold power. But it is not necessary to fully understand these terms to get a great value from a power meter.
Example: Time trialist, 25km, personal best: 40min. avg. 320Watts.
You are a time trialist that competes in competitions with a finishing time of 40 minutes. By using a power meter in a couple of these events you will know how many watts you can maintain for such a period and then you will know how you shall pace yourself in a future race or at training sessions. Whether you try to do long rides at your maximum race pace or try to split it up in shorter intervals is not as important right now. What I want you to know is that you have a great opportunity to do some really good workouts by knowing your race pace power. Also there should be some seconds to cut off from your personal records by having a better pace strategy during the time trial. This is easily achieved with a power meter.
Suggestions for interval training:
5 x (6min 320Watts + 4min 160Watts)
2 x (15min 320Watts + 10min 160Watts)
Not that difficult, right?