Subject: RE: Give me power or give me (slow) death? Dan and Jeremy both make good points about the uses of a Power Meter. Not having a power meter isn't going to doom you to being a MOP cyclist nor is having one going to guarantee that you will become a super cyclist. Power Meters are tools just like a HRM or trainer or anything else you use to make you a better athlete. I just started using a Power Tap last fall, but I have been coaching athletes using Power for a couple of years now and just from anecdotal evidence I see them getting faster. I believe that this is a result of more efficiently using your training time as much as anything. For example if I were to prescribe trainer intervals that take and hour to do and you go by HR and RPE you may or may not be training at the same level by the last interval or two (your HR may be higher and you may feel like you are working just as hard), where as with a PM if your intervals were 5 min @ 105% of Threshold Power (which for arguments sake lets say is 300w) you would know that you have to hold 315w on each and every interval, so the first and last one are exactly the same. It may not sound like much over the course of one workout, but over a training cycle for a race or a race season it adds up. A PM is also useful for pacing in longer events (and shorter ones as well), taking the 300w FTP into account you would look to hold somewhere around 210w-220w for an Ironman (~70%) and 240w-250w for a Half (~80-85%). This is going to allow you to come off the bike and run like you are trained to do and not walk half or all of the run because you went too hard on the bike. Power also gives you the ability to see inprovement (or lack there of) over the life of your training cycle and allows you or your coach to make corrections to acheive the desired result. Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Allan Coggins and Hunter Allen is a great book to read in order to get a working knowledge of power. |