An introduction to training with a power meter

So you are thinking of getting a power meter but want to know exactly what you can use it for?

If you are the sort of person who loves knowing what's going on inside your body, what's going on with your aerodynamics and what's really happening in a race then you will absolutely love having a power meter. However if you are the sort of person who prefers to just ride along steadily remaining oblivious to many variables then power meters probably aren’t for you.

When you first get a power meter you will want to fit it to your bike and go out cycling straight away. This is a good idea but ensure it is fitted professionally – SRM power meters need to be fitted correctly to the bottom bracket and Powertap power meters need to be built into a new back wheel. Both of these power meters will need the digital display unit fitted to the handlebars and connected, either wirelessly or through wires to the power measuring component of the power meter.

The first thing to do when you get your power meter is to just ride as you would normally for a couple of weeks or so. Don’t adapt your training, just check your display and stats on your home PC to start mentally making the correlation between what your regular efforts feel like and what wattage figures you are putting out. This will help you integrate power meter training into your general training routine. You’ll get used to seeing how quickly the power meter responds to your change of efforts and how high your wattage goes when you make short sharp efforts.

When you are familiar with your power meter it’s time to start using it to record some important data… its time for the all out power test.

Get your bike on a turbo trainer, on the velodrome or on a long hill and ride flat out for 5 minutes. Use your power meter software on your PC to tell you what your average power output was and record this along with your current body weight so you can get an accurate watts/kg figure. You will want this data when you are planning your next training programme.

To collect more useful data you can do a power test over 20 minutes and also over an hour. Obviously you will need to give yourself enough days to recover between these tests and treat them as you would a competition to ensure you are going into them in the best condition possible.

When you have your first road race with a power meter keep it recording all the stats throughout the race so you can see how many watts was required from you when the bunch was chasing breaks, when it was windy, when you were sheltered and when you were in a break. The results can be quite surprising and with the data from your power meter you can train for these race specific requirements more accurately.

If you are a time trailers or triathlete you can benefit from additional aspects of power meters if you have got access to an indoor velodrome. It is possible to use a power meter to refine your on the bike positioning – you are looking for a position that is as aero as possible without overly compromising power output. The way to measure is to compare power output to a given heart rate compared to the time to do a set number of laps. With some fine tuning you should be able to get yourself as low and aero as possible to go faster without requiring any extra effort.

Additionally time triallers and triathletes can set a target wattage that has been pre-calculated from their training schedules to stick to during a race to ensure they work at an optimum efficiency. Too low and they are wasting potential, too high and they will suffer with fatigue during the event. Ride at the optimum efficiency for their body however and they will be setting personal bests as a matter of course.