Louis Passfield - Training with Power Meters

TRAINING WITH POWER METERS

LOUIS PASSFIELD

FOREWORD BY ROB HAYLES

First published in 2015 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book published 2015

Louis Passfield 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 898 1

Frontispiece: Radu Razvan/Shutterstock.com

Science in cycling has been there from the start of my career. Initially it was quite basic, before first advancing to using heart rate monitors in training and then, a little later on, to power-measuring cranks. Thanks to Louis, I was the first rider in the UK to use the German SRM power meter in a race. During the race, riders were coming up to me and joking, Whats on ITV? or Can you get Eurosport on that? But in recent years power meters have come on in leaps and bounds. With modern power meters and help from guys like Louis and the other team physiologists, I was able to implement my training much better than was previously the case.

In recent years, especially within the last decade, other previously strong cycling nations, Italy and Germany for instance, which led the way, are now looking at Britain and seeing what we do. From a British point of view cycling has turned itself on its head. One of the major factors in British Cyclings success has been its strong coaching and scientific input and the use of power meters has been central to this. Louis was the first person I knew to start working with a power meter. In this book he uses this scientific and coaching experience to explain clearly and simply how to get the best out of yourself by training with a power meter.

Rob Hayles is a successful former professional cyclist who now presents regularly on television. On the track, Rob won two World titles and three Olympic medals. He was a member of the British Cycling team for more than sixteen years with team mates Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish.

Rob Hayles competing in the Tour of Britain.

When I was younger I wanted to win the Tour de France. It was the reason I studied sports science at university and learnt about the science of training. I tried to apply this knowledge to my own bike training and became a successful cyclist.

Shortly after graduating I made it to an Olympic training camp. At dinner I sat at the same table as Sir Steve Redgrave. Even before the 1992 Olympics, with many years still to row before his fifth gold medal, he was already a sporting legend. I was there with other dedicated athletes preparing for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It was a heady experience. To get there I had spent a decade dedicated to bike training and extending myself further with academic study. This was why on the last day of the camp I was sat in the team car alongside the national coach, reflecting on how things had worked out for me. I was watching several members of the Great Britain team dominate a road race. The only thing was that these were younger, junior raw talents powering away on their bikes. And with all my physical and academic training I realized that I could perform better as a scientist than as a cyclist.

2014 Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali, during Stage 14, Col du Lautaret. (Radu Razvan/Shutterstock.com)

A quarter of a century later I continue to study and research training. I have witnessed first hand exciting developments in cycling and training. I can even claim to have added a little to what is understood about the science of training. And along the way I have had the privilege of working with some of the best riders and coaches in the world.

This book is about sharing some of the benefits of this experience. You do not have to be a serious competitive cyclist, triathlete or coach to read this book. You just have to be interested in improving fitness and be motivated to find ways of doing it more effectively, especially on a bike and by training with a power meter. I hope you find it useful.

In July 1992 Chris Boardman won Great Britains first track cycling gold medal for seventy-two years on the Barcelona Olympic velodrome. As he raced, I became clearer on what is required to reach the top step of the podium in one of the worlds major cycling events. I was then British Cyclings sports scientist, working with Peter Keen, Boardmans mentor. I had returned to the UK from our Olympic training camp in Majorca just in time to watch the race on television. At home in Sussex, the BBC coverage allowed me to watch Boardman fly around the track on his black Lotus bike to catch his tall German rival, Jens Lehman. Having been the scientist for the Barcelona Olympic team I knew better than most what it had taken for Chris to succeed in his gold medal quest. In my flat, mounted on my own bike was an SRM power meter, probably the first to be seen in the UK. How I wished that wed been able to install it on that Lotus before the Barcelona Olympic Games began. From laboratory testing we knew that Chris was in the form of his life. But we could still only guess at how he had performed during the race itself to set a new World and Olympic record.

Any data on elite athletes was extremely scarce in those days, and there were virtually no measurements available from actual competition. This was why I had been working on a special project earlier in the year, before the Olympic Games started. My aim was to better understand the demands of road racing and how hard the riders had to work during a stage race in particular. A heart rate monitor without wires that could record data was still quite novel in 1992. Polar had produced one and were keen for me to use it with the British team riding the Milk Race (a forerunner of the Tour of Britain). Using the Polar Sports Tester I was able to conduct ground-breaking research by recording the riders heart rate each day of the stage race. From the riders heart rate I could calculate their power output in order to estimate how hard they had worked. The problem with this approach is that your heart rate is not only affected by how hard you have worked. Lots of other factors like excitement, tiredness, hydration and temperature can affect your heart rate too. Of course these factors are part and parcel of stage racing. My calculations could therefore only ever be considered a crude approximation, no matter how cutting-edge the Polar heart rate monitor.