I get a lot of questions on the Performance Management Chart (PMC) from athletes. Its a popular topic that can get complicated quickly, so thought I would post a short primer that goes over the basics. The PMC and its related terminology was developed originally by Dr. Andy Coggan. TrainingPeaks licenses the concepts and an automated version is built into the TrainingPeaks tool.

When looking at the physical/fitness components of training, the most fundamental elements any coach or athlete need to consider in prescribing a training plan are: volume (how much) intensity (how hard) and frequency or recovery (how often) a training “load” is being applied to an athlete. The PMC provides coaches and athletes an objective way to monitor fitness, stress loads and fatigue levels to better manage these factors. Here is a sample chart for reference as we walk through the elements:

Fantastic to get another opportunity to work with TrainingPeaks on a guest blog post.  This article provides an overview of a new modeling tool called Best Bike Split that can provide insight into time trial and triathlon bike split planning and execution.   Check out the full article here:

Fantastic to get the opportunity to guest blog for the TrainingPeaks blog!  Check out my post that outlines Normalized Power and how its used.

1. Gradually work power into the equation.  I highly encourage athletes to install their power meter and then just ride like they have been and do their scheduled workouts for a few days or even a couple of weeks without trying to control their effort based on the meter.  Initially just observing the variations and gaining a sense of what kind of numbers you are seeing for a particular feel and/or HR effort level will provide context as zone structures are included in a training program.
2.  Power readings are erratic, don’t stress!  One of the first things athletes notice when they start to use power is that the numbers jump all over the place and it’s nearly impossible to maintain a steady number.  This can be stressful at first making them think they are doing something wrong.  Don’t fret, it’s perfectly normal, your power IS constantly changing and the meter readout is reflecting reality.  The good news is you will never have to ride at one single power number.  When you or your coach begin to develop target “zones” for you to train with, you will always have a fairly wide targeted range to stay within.  Even then, a little time over or little time under your prescribed workout zone is not going to ruin your workout or training objectives.  I generally recommend to just get used to the nature of power and move past it, but if the erratic changes just drive you nuts, in most cases, you can change the view on your display unit to show 3 or 5 second average power vice a direct feed to smooth out what you are seeing during the ride.  This keeps the visible wattage more steady and prevents you from trying to “chase” the numbers.  If you go this route, I’d recommend maintaining 1 second capture for recording though.  For analysis purposes the extra sampling can be useful.
3.  Power doesn’t replace anything, it complements.  “Feel”, heart rate and even speed are still important tools that should continue to be used in concert with power.  As athletes incorporate power into their training, I generally recommend a routine of starting off a ride or effort by feel first, and then checking in with their power meter and heart rate “on occasion”.  How often you need to look and adjust depends on experience and how good you are at self-regulating at a particular level of effort without the numbers as a guide (back to that “feel” thing).  Monitoring different gauges also helps you hone in on if there is an issue or problem with devices or if you are having an “off” day.  A good analogy for this is driving.  When you first start off as a teenager, you are probably looking at the speedometer pretty frequently as you don’t have a well-honed sense for speed and you don’t want to get a ticket (or you want to brag to your friends about how fast you were going :-)).  But, as you gain experience you hardly need to look at the speedometer at all, and can probably guess your speed pretty accurately by sensations (sound of the car engine, wind and tire noise etc.)  This analogy correlates to power meter usage very well.
4. "Calibrate" or set the zero offset before every ride.  The purpose of these routines is to account for different temperature and environmental conditions that may impact the strain gauge in your power measuring device.  Each power meter has a different but similar approach for making these adjustments.  Some actually have routines to automatically do it during periods of coasting if they are switched on.  Check your user guides for the options for your meter and get in the habit of making these adjustments before every ride to ensure accurate data is being displayed and captured.
5. Power tests are tests of current status, not pass/fail.  Another point of stress I find with a lot of athlete is power testing.  There are few widely agreed upon approaches to “field” and lab testing that help athletes and coaches determine what an athlete’s power zones are for a given period in time.  They usually involve some level of warmup and then a steady intense effort of between 5 and 60 minutes depending on the protocol.  The results of these tests can be used to measure progress, but are primarily used to establish and adjust training zones with target power ranges to help the athlete optimize certain aspects of their training.  It’s common for athletes to want to improve their test results every time out, and in many cases they will improve.  However, sometimes they won’t for a number of good reasons.  This can lead to athletes often getting more nervous and stressed about the test then they might even for a race.  This in turn can cause performance anxiety and skew results for a test even more, causing undue stress on the athlete and capturing information that is of no use for refining zones.  It’s important to remember that testing is intended to be a snapshot of where an athlete is now, good, bad or indifferent.  There are alternative methods for determining zones that do not involve “formal” testing that can be used as well.  So if you find yourself having an adverse reaction to testing, it’s ok.  There are other ways to adjust training zones and other ways to gauge progress and fitness by monitoring day to day workout and race files.
6. Get out of your comfort zone.  I know athletes that steer away from training with power as they think it will take all of the fun out of riding their bike.  I also know others who hyper-focus on power going as far as to abandon group rides and avoiding certain routes in order to “stay in zone”.  Everyone is wired a bit different in this regard and that is ok.  There are times that training with power does constrain or radically shape an athlete’s training (generally in regards to recovery), but much of the time power monitoring and related training can be integrated fairly organically into an existing routine with minor tweaks.  Pretty much anything an athlete “likes” to do can be accounted for in a bigger picture training program, and the level of influence a power meter has on training can be adjusted based on the athlete’s naturally tendencies.   That said, the “free form” athlete could usually benefit from focusing a little more on the numbers on occasion and the strict numbers rider could stand throwing the Garmin in their back pocket and jumping in the local group ride every couple of weeks.  Getting out of your comfort zone and focusing on a different aspect of your cycling can be beneficial.  Ultimately, power monitoring can still be of use to all athletes especially in post workout analysis. 

Need a little more background on power meters and how power can be used in a training program?  Check out this two part series I did early this year that reviews some fundamentals on meters and approaches.  Have a question?  Feel free to post up in the comments.

Last time, we went over the fundamentals of power and power meters.  If you missed it, you can check it out here.  To understand how power can be used in a training program, let’s first consider the most fundamental aspects of training itself.

An athlete improves or becomes more “fit” by applying stress to their body through a combination of exercise volume and intensity.  The body at first breaks down and then adapts to that stress via recovery.  In turn the athlete becomes stronger through that adaptation and can then handle additional stress via more volume and/or intensity and the cycle repeats.

Sounds simple enough, but every person and their situation is different.  So when developing a training protocol there are many fundamental questions: How much stress for how long is enough for a particular athlete?  How much is too much?  When does an athlete need to recover and for how long?  Is the athlete getting “fitter” or not?  Given this variability, determining the optimum duration and intensity of exercise for a particular ability level, physiology, goals and time is the big challenge for any athlete and for coaches working with them.  Having objective insight into what the body is doing on a given day, and what the physiological limits of the body are at any given period during a training cycle, is hugely beneficial and is what power capture and monitoring provide.

Prior to power, perceived effort or “feel” and heart rate were the primary methods available to manage an athlete’s training protocols.  Each of these methods still has value, and can be used alone or alongside power, but each have limitations and issues to consider.

Subjective “feel” is still a very important thing for athletes to develop.  But, interpretation of “sensations” as they relate to what is actually going on in the body can be right on or misleading depending on the individual when used alone.  Plus, if the athlete is using a coach, there is the additional challenge of communication and interpretation to ensure coach and athlete are on the same page.  It takes time to sort out the signals an athlete’s body is sending, and there is a lot more trial and error in the process and more room for misinterpretation of signals.

Heart rate (HR) was a step in the right direction of removing some subjectivity, but it’s a lagging indicator, meaning its giving you an indicator of what HAS happened where power is giving you an indicator of what is happening right at that instance in time.  Additionally, HR is impacted more by environmental conditions and hydration in its effectiveness.
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As of today, power is the most direct and “pure” objective measurement of effort we have.  Through the use of some fundamental exercise science principals, and a couple of decades worth of real world testing and analysis, an athlete or coach well versed in power training can more precisely adjust and monitor an athlete’s training protocols.  There are also methods to monitor stress levels, “fitness”, and recovery allowing for more accurate adjustments to duration and intensity both short and long term.

All that said, a power meter is not a prerequisite for riding a bike.  Even if you have competitive goals, there is nothing wrong with grabbing a bike and just riding.  Especially if you are new to the sport, the additional information can be overwhelming at the start and may stifle the development of good instincts and “feel”.  Also, some people have a fantastic intuitive sense of feel either naturally or developed over time, and can effectively self-monitor effort levels.  Other athletes may have a long history of using HR and can still very effectively train using either of those methods alone.  But in any case, if you have performance goals and have access to someone with knowledge in looking at the data and applying it (or spend the time to learn how to do it yourself), a power meter is only going to provide additional insight into your training effectiveness.  Ultimately this insight can help you get to your goals quicker and more precisely develop and monitor your training to do so.

I am going to break this question into two parts.  First let’s start off with what power is, and what a power meter is and does, then in the next entry, we will go into some more detail on the benefits of power in a training program and how a knowledgeable athlete or coach can use it to positive effect.

Without getting too science-y, power is the rate of work (or force times distance) a system is producing over time.  That rate of work is represented in Watts which is Joules/Second or more simply energy expended per second.

A power meter, is a strain gauge and some electronics packed either in a crank set, pedals or the rear hub of a wheel.  When you apply force to the pedals, the meter can sense disturbances in that force applied. (sorry, Obi Wan, couldn’t help myself)  The meter also has a way to transmit that force reading to a handlebar display and capture device.  The combination of these two devices measures the work being done and displays it in Watts instantaneously for the rider to see, in addition to capturing a data stream of power readings, usually in 1 second samples, of an entire workout for further analysis post exercise.

So in a simple but fuller picture, your body turns food into biochemical energy, and that biochemical energy is turned into mechanical energy when you turn the pedals.  You are literally “doing work” by applying force to the pedals, producing power which is measured in Watts and in turn making speed!  The meter is capturing a record of that output and displaying the immediate power output instantaneously.

None of this on its own makes a rider a faster. The meter and display unit are just giving you a number on your handlebar that changes every second depending on how “hard” or “soft” you are turning the pedals.  The value comes in the interpretation of that data by a knowledgeable individual and then applying it to an athlete’s training program.  The data captured by the meter provides insight into the athlete’s current ability and how hard or easy they are training at a given time, and enables the establishment of parameters to optimize how an athlete trains given their ability, goals, potential and individual situation.  The less time and more constraints they have, the more beneficial this becomes to whomever is designing the athlete's training approach.

Next time we will go into a bit more detail why using power in training can be beneficial relative to other methods of measuring effort.  If you have questions or comments, please feel free to post up.