Power, it’s what keeps you going

I have been asked a lot of questions about power. From what is it, to why use it, to how do I get more of it. Having used power in my training since 2004, I still feel like I have only scratched the surface of power in my training. But I can tell you that it is the one thing that has truly been a measure of what I do on the road when I ride my bike. Everyday I ride, is a little test, you could say. That does not mean I go all out every time I rode, quite the opposite.

I know that most people use their heart rate monitors and think it’s the same. But you have to remember that power, or watts, is the immediate work you are doing. Your heart rate responds to that work. And it takes your heart rate a few minutes to respond. Power, or watts, is immediate feedback based on the work you are doing. For example, when you start climbing up a hill, you generally start to produce more watts because of the increase in grade and power required to get your ‘weight’ up it. Your heart rate does no respond until a couple minutes up the hill, but you have been working at that effort since the bottom. It has just taken your cardio that long to respond. So you could be above your lactate threshold on many climbs and not really know it because you wait for your heart rate to tell you, whereas power would tell you instantly.

Power is a measure that is not impacted by health, rest, or sunny days. It is what it is. If you are producing 200 watts by drafting someone… then that is what you are producing. If you are producing 200 watts on a climb, then that is what you are producing. If you are producing 200 watts going downhill…It is what it is. So when you go and do interval training, you can immediately get into a ‘power zone’ rather than waiting for your heart rate to respond to a certain heart rate zone. Again, power is immediate, heart rate is not.

Probably the most common question people ask me is, “How much power do you generate?” or “What is your LT power?” That’s like asking someone how much they weigh and determining how fast they can knit (might be more of a positive correlation there than I think). One of the easiest ways, and commonly accepted ways, to ‘compare’ power is to divide your LT power by your weight in kilograms. There are some charts that compare this, but it does not mean you are a great cyclist or a poor one either. Just another number to compare. Because if a 100 pound cyclist produces 150 watts at their LT, and a 250 pound cyclist produces 350 watts at their LT, does that make the bigger person a better cyclist because of an increase in watt production? Not necessarily. The 100 pound cyclist produces 3.3 watts per kilogram. The 250 pound cyclist produces 3.1 watts per kilogram. So the power to weight ratio is similar, but will they ride the same speed? The lighter athlete will probably climb better and ride into headwinds better. But the larger cyclist will probably motor on the flats better and obviously go downhill better too because they do not have to deal with gravity and once they get their weight moving, they can produce a higher wattage. But turn that flat into an uphill… different story. You also have to factor in wind drag, and the bigger person obviously has more drag. But I don’t have a formula, that I simple, for that.

Now you just have to go and buy one... don't ask.

Power on…