# Become a Faster Cyclist With a Power Meter | Ep 495

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 26 Jun 2024, 19 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/88462302/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-5-25%2F381651173-44100-2-1f8b609ce8f78.mp3

Coach Rob delves into how triathletes should use power meters to optimise their training and deliver faster bike splits without compromising run performances. From installation to understanding fluctuating power numbers, Rob explains how power meters offer more consistent and reliable feedback than heart rate monitors, especially during races. Learn about: 👉 Setting up your Garmin with the right data fields 👉 Interpreting 1, 10, and 30-second average power 👉 The importance of normalized power 👉 How to use training stress score (TSS), intensity factor (IF), and variability index (VI) to gauge and improve your performance. Ideal for triathletes and cyclists aiming to enhance their bike splits and overall race performance. * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:03] Hello and welcome to the Oxygenating Podcast.
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[0:21] Fuel and hydration.com Welcome to the show, everybody.
[0:24] I'm your host, Coach Rob Wilby, and every week we bring you an
[0:28] episode of this podcast to help. Motivate and inspire.
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[1:08] Help at Oxygen Addict. Dot com.
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[1:17] help you out with your triathlon goals for this season.
[1:21] OK, on this week's episode of the show, I'm going to be
[1:24] talking to you about how you can get the best from your power
[1:27] metre. And it's really common question
[1:30] we get from the athletes that we coach and even listeners who
[1:32] send these questions in and say, look, I've just bought a power
[1:35] metre. I've installed it on my bike and
[1:37] I've been out for my first ride. I don't know what's going on.
[1:40] The numbers are jumping all over the place.
[1:43] I've read that this is going to be the key to unlocking great
[1:46] performances, Iron Man, but I just can't see how to make sense
[1:49] of it. So can you help me?
[1:51] O this episode is really designed around people who are
[1:54] either contemplating getting a power metre and haven't got one
[1:56] yet or have just got one. Or even some of the people out
[2:00] there who I think there's more people who are in this situation
[2:03] would like to admit have got the power metre, but don't really
[2:06] understand how to use it as a tool.
[2:08] And it's designed to do a job. And that job is to help you get
[2:12] a better bikes let for less effort effectively.
[2:15] So we're going to jump right into it.
[2:17] So first up, let's talk about why a power metre is better than
[2:20] just using heart rate. Heart rate is better than having
[2:23] nothing at all. It gives you some feedback about
[2:25] what your body's actually doing and whether what you feel is
[2:29] what your body's experiencing. But heart rate's got some
[2:32] limitations. It's affected by heat, it's
[2:36] affected by dehydration, it's affected by fatigue.
[2:39] If you're very tired, your heart rate numbers can be way off.
[2:42] Most importantly for racing, heart rate is massively affected
[2:46] by adrenaline. And so on race day, when you're
[2:48] very excited and then a race, it's not unusual for your heart
[2:51] rate to be 1015. Even 20 beats a minute above
[2:55] where it should be for the given effort at the time.
[2:58] Now it won't be that way for the entire race, but certainly at
[3:01] the start of the bike leg when you need that feedback.
[3:04] It's really common that people's heart rate numbers are
[3:06] completely out from where they think they should be relative to
[3:10] how they're feeling. O heart rates are good guide,
[3:13] but it's not infallible and it's not great for racing on race day
[3:17] for those reasons. Power metres are much better
[3:20] because they're going to give you essentially scientific
[3:23] feedback into how much power your body is putting out.
[3:27] It's not going to be affected by how tired you are, how excited
[3:30] you are. And arguably it's better
[3:32] feedback because if you are tired and you're struggling to
[3:36] put the numbers out you think you should, well that's good.
[3:39] That lines up. That means that the power
[3:41] numbers you're expecting to see for how you feel are not lining
[3:44] up. That shows you that something's
[3:46] wrong that day. If you're very excited.
[3:49] And again, it's very common at the start of a race, someone's
[3:51] going to head out, look down at the power metre and they're
[3:54] putting out much more power than it feels like they are.
[3:58] The temptation is to think I am having a fantastic day out on
[4:01] the course, All of my training has come together and now I've
[4:04] magically got an extra 40 watts. Well, that's unlikely to have
[4:08] happened. What's probably going to happen
[4:09] is your power metre is reading 240 instead of 200, and you're
[4:15] not feeling it because of that adrenaline and that excitement.
[4:18] So you know, then to dial the effort right back down.
[4:21] Think of it as an unemotional, unequivocal feedback guide to
[4:27] the energy that your body is expanding to produce the speed
[4:30] that you're doing at the time. Now, power is really useful when
[4:34] you've got headwinds, when you've got tailwinds, when
[4:37] you're going uphill, when you're going downhill.
[4:39] It gives you feedback on how much effort your body's having
[4:42] to make to get that speed. So we've all had the experience
[4:45] of riding into a very strong headwind.
[4:48] You're working really hard, but you're only doing 18 kilometres
[4:51] an hour or you've got a tailwind, you're barely riding
[4:54] at all and you're putting out 43 kilometres an hour.
[4:59] The power metre gives you direct feedback on how much work your
[5:02] body's having to do to produce that speed.
[5:05] O you'll know if you're riding into a headwind and often I
[5:08] think this is important. The subtleties that come through
[5:10] with the power metre is often the kind of headwind that's
[5:14] going to affect your speed. You might not even be aware of.
[5:16] All it takes is a 10 mile an hour headwind, which you're not
[5:20] really going to feel on your body, and that's going to make a
[5:22] massive difference to your perception of how hard you're
[5:26] having to work to ride at a certain speed.
[5:28] Similarly with A10 mile an hour tailwind.
[5:30] So the power metre is really good are giving you accurate
[5:34] feedback on what your body is having to do to produce the
[5:37] speed you're going at. It's great for making sure that
[5:40] your workouts are going to be appropriate and training, but
[5:43] it's fantastic on race day to ensure that you don't go too
[5:47] hard by mistake and also that you're going to have enough
[5:50] energy left. You have a great run off the
[5:52] bike. So first up, in order to read
[5:55] your power metre, you're going to need a head unit, you're
[5:58] going to need a Garmin or something similar.
[6:00] And the skill of this then comes in setting up the Garmin.
[6:04] So it's got the right fields and the data fields on the screen
[6:07] for you to read so that you can get the information and the data
[6:10] that you need. Because here's the thing, no one
[6:13] talks about where the power metre, when you first get it,
[6:16] the amount of power that you put out in one circle of the cranks
[6:21] changes every millisecond at the very top of the power stroke,
[6:25] the zero power, halfway around the stroke, when you're pushing
[6:29] down the most, the power jumps right up.
[6:31] And so if you saw the actual power readout from that power
[6:35] metre, it would cycle like a sine wave U and down.
[6:38] And your brain can just make no sense that number at all.
[6:42] O the Garmin does the maths and turns it into an average that
[6:45] you can make sense of. So typically it'll show a one
[6:48] second average power or a 10 second average power or a 32nd
[6:53] average power. Now the one second average power
[6:56] will jump up and down massively because the average is just not
[7:00] long enough for it to be a number that our brains can make
[7:02] sense of. So think of the one second
[7:04] number as the immediate power that you're putting out right
[7:07] now. But again, it's not unusual to
[7:09] see even when you're riding along in a flat Rd, that number
[7:12] to jump between 350 and 100, it just goes up and down all the
[7:16] time. Any slight increase in effort
[7:18] will have a massive jump in what the power metre reads.
[7:21] So the one second power I think is useful to have on the screen,
[7:25] but don't go by it. The more important number there
[7:28] is the 10 second average power. That is I think the shortest
[7:32] number, the shortest average that your brain can make sense
[7:36] of. And if you start to gradually
[7:38] increase your effort on the road, that number got massively
[7:41] jump. It's if you like, it is
[7:43] representing what our brains can make sense of as the power that
[7:47] your body is producing right now.
[7:49] Now, the next useful number to have on the third data field is
[7:53] the 32nd average power. And I think what you then have
[7:56] to do is develop the skill of using the 10 and the 32nd
[8:00] averages and comparing the two together.
[8:03] If you start to go up a hill, say your 10 second power number
[8:07] will start to jump much quicker than your 32nd average does.
[8:11] So if you look down as you're going up a hill and you see that
[8:14] 10 second power is now 300 watts and you're 32nd power is still
[8:18] 200 watts, you know that you've accidentally put out more power
[8:23] than you meant to and you have to rein yourself back in again.
[8:26] And so that number again is really important.
[8:30] And it's in the comparison between these two numbers that
[8:33] you're going to learn how to read the power metre.
[8:35] I give you an example from my own life today.
[8:37] I was out for a ride. There was a bit of a hill in
[8:39] front of me. I've been rolling along at about
[8:42] 150 watts. And this is relative to a
[8:44] threshold number, an FTP of about 2:50 at the moment for me,
[8:48] I was rolling along about 150 watts.
[8:51] So a nice cruisy gentle ride. The road went uphill.
[8:54] I changed UA couple of gears to make it easier, but I started to
[8:59] push down a bit harder on the pedals as we do to kind of
[9:02] maintain that feeling of keep the cadence going, going up the
[9:05] hill. I look down at my power numbers.
[9:07] After about 10 seconds on this hill, my heart rate hadn't
[9:11] changed at all. My 10 second power had jumped to
[9:14] 320 watts. So it's gone from 150 watts to
[9:19] 320 watts. So context being here, that's
[9:21] way above my VO2 Max power, so that is going to put me in a
[9:26] real hole come race day if I do something like that.
[9:29] It's just poorly skilled riding from me by getting excited and
[9:33] pushing on up the hill again. Heart rate barely changed at all
[9:38] over that 32nd period. Just hasn't got time to react.
[9:41] But inside my body I've just burned a 32nd or a one minute
[9:47] long match at above the O2 Max watts that I wouldn't have the
[9:52] energy then to go and run off the bike in a race situation.
[9:55] And if I hadn't looked down at a power metre, I wouldn't have
[9:58] even realised that I'd done it. I would have probably backed off
[10:01] the power a bit. But again, 30 seconds above the
[10:04] O2 Max wattage is something that's really going to burn
[10:07] matches in races. And so I have to learn to not do
[10:10] that in training. So I can then race in the same
[10:14] way that I train and train in the same way that I write.
[10:17] O OK. So far we've got on our Garmin
[10:19] screen one second power representing what's happening
[10:22] now, 10 second power representing what's happening
[10:26] now that our brain can make sense of 32nd power as something
[10:31] to compare against to see whether we are accidentally
[10:34] putting out more power than we need to right now.
[10:37] The fourth data screen that I'll have on there is lap normalised
[10:42] power. So what I'll do when I'm out
[10:44] riding and what I advise all our athletes to do is when the
[10:47] terrain significantly changes, ress the lap button on your head
[10:51] unit O. If you start to go uphill, ress
[10:53] the lap button. If you start to go along the
[10:55] flat, press the lap button. If you go over the top of the
[10:58] hill, press the lap button. Anytime the train changes, do
[11:02] that. And then when you look down at
[11:03] your lap average power for this lap, it tells you what you've
[11:07] done. For example, from the start of
[11:09] this hill with I'd press the lap average at the start of the
[11:13] largest described to you, I'd have seen I'd been doing 320
[11:17] watts for the last minute. That's a massive red flag that
[11:20] I'm going too hard and I need to slow down and I need to back
[11:23] off. OK, now most garments you can
[11:28] get eight data screens or some of them even 10 data fields U on
[11:33] the screen. You can then choose the other
[11:35] ones that you want to have on for yourself.
[11:36] I'd advise you having heart rate on there and I go with heart
[11:41] rate right now rather than an average heart rate so you can
[11:44] see what's happening with your heart rate.
[11:46] I'd advise you having a timer up there.
[11:48] I'd advise you having what some other numbers I've got, distance
[11:53] covered, average speed and things like that are OK to have,
[11:56] but I don't think they're essential on that first data
[11:58] screen. What you want to have there is
[12:00] numbers that are going to stop you making making mistakes later
[12:04] on, if you like. OK O let's talk about normalised
[12:09] power and average power and the difference between the two
[12:12] because that's something people get confused by.
[12:14] Average power. I think people understand your
[12:17] power is going to go up and down during the ride and the average
[12:20] at the end of it represents the average of what you've done.
[12:23] Everyone understands what an average is.
[12:25] The easiest way to understand the normalised power is it's a
[12:28] weighted average relative to what your threshold power is.
[12:32] And what we mean by that is it's telling you what the
[12:36] physiological cost of the ride has been.
[12:39] And often it's much higher than the average power.
[12:42] And the reason it works like this is anytime that you spend
[12:46] at or above threshold power or FTP power is exponentially more
[12:52] draining energy wise to your body than being below threshold.
[12:57] So the average doesn't tell us the whole story.
[13:00] If you did, for example, 2 minutes of VO2 Max wattage and
[13:03] two minutes riding really easy and two minutes at VO2 Max
[13:06] wattage and two minutes riding really easy, The average of
[13:09] that, if you did it for, I don't know, if you did that for an
[13:12] hour, the average would look like really easy ride because it
[13:16] doesn't take into account how difficult and how challenging
[13:19] riding way above threshold wattage actually is on your
[13:23] body. The normalised power for that
[13:25] ride would be much, much higher than the average power.
[13:28] So we're going to use the normalised power because all of
[13:31] us have to ride on hills, all of us have to ride with headwinds,
[13:34] all of us have these changes happening.
[13:37] And so normalised is what your body feels at the end of the
[13:41] ride rather than just a mathematical average.
[13:43] OK, so always use the normalised numbers.
[13:46] That goes for when you do an FTP tests and everything.
[13:48] OK, next we can come to talking about at score T score stands
[13:55] for training stress score. And all this is, is a way of
[13:58] trying to compare different rides with each other.
[14:01] And they've set a scale that says one hour riding 100% of FTP
[14:07] is worth 100 points and then everything else is relative to
[14:10] that. So for me, two hours of a steady
[14:13] ride usually is about 50 points per hour.
[14:17] So the same sort of training stress score as an entire hour
[14:21] at threshold in a 2 hour passion.
[14:24] And it reflects I've not been going as hard, but I've been
[14:27] going for longer. That's not to say that the
[14:30] training effect of a 2 hour easy ride is the same as one hour at
[14:34] threshold, but it's to say it's the same kind of fatigue effect.
[14:38] So that's very important to kind of put across to you.
[14:42] You're not going to get the same training effect doing lots of
[14:45] long steady rides as you would doing some really short hard
[14:48] intervals. It's going to have different
[14:49] effects on different elements of your fitness.
[14:52] But it's a way to log how much stress your body's experienced.
[14:56] And some of you will know if you do a, you know, a relatively
[14:59] punchy 3 hour ride at the weekend, you can feel really
[15:02] wiped out at the end of it like you would do at the end of a one
[15:06] hour interval session. And that's because the T for
[15:10] that long ride is probably higher or will be higher than
[15:13] that one hour of interval training over here.
[15:16] O TSS is just a way to understand how much training
[15:19] stress it's produced in your body.
[15:21] OK, couple of other things to talk about.
[15:24] IF stands for the intensity factor.
[15:26] That's just the percentage of normalised power of your ride.
[15:30] So if the normalised power was 78% of your functional
[15:34] threshold, the IF of the ride would be .78.
[15:38] And the last thing is the VI number, the variability index.
[15:43] What this shows is typically is how much up and down there was
[15:47] in the power on your ride. That means if you're riding on
[15:51] lots of hills, you're going to have lots of sections putting
[15:53] out big power, lots of sections putting out zero power.
[15:56] The variability index is the bigger that number gets, and
[16:00] it's expressed as one point something in a perfect ride
[16:04] where you had no variability, you would have a 1.0 VI at the
[16:08] end of it. So perfectly paced U to 1.4 is
[16:13] an incredibly hilly ride where you've made big efforts up the
[16:15] hills and you've recovered on the way down.
[16:18] Typically what we see is, especially for race day, the
[16:22] higher the variability index, the more costly it's been on
[16:26] your body and the less likely you are to run well.
[16:29] And so for those of you doing hilly races later in the year,
[16:32] your mission and training, if you like, is to learn to try to
[16:35] reduce the variability index by slowing down a bit on the
[16:38] uphills and levelling out that power.
[16:41] I don't make massive efforts on the hills.
[16:42] You'll see that VI number come down.
[16:45] That'll give you a better chance of running well off the bike
[16:47] come race day. Now then to wrap this up, I
[16:51] think the key thing here is when you get a power metre for the
[16:54] first time, just just let you go.
[16:56] I'm not like we've said, and go out and ride with it and just
[16:58] see what the numbers do to start with.
[17:01] And then start to compare the 10 second average power with the
[17:05] 32nd average power. And use those numbers to try and
[17:09] you know, pick a stretch of Rd that's a long flat stretch of Rd
[17:12] puts out a given amount of power for that time and see how
[17:15] accurately, if you were aiming for 200 watts, see how
[17:19] accurately you managed to put out a normalised power of 200
[17:22] watts over that stretch. When you get back and you have a
[17:24] look in your analysis software, we need to practise in training
[17:28] the things we need to do on race day so they become second nature
[17:33] and on race day you don't have to worry about them.
[17:35] For those of you with races coming U relatively quickly you
[17:38] might haven't got a lot of time to get this practise, so try and
[17:41] make all your training rides account.
[17:43] For those of you whose races are further away, try and use every
[17:46] outdoor training ride you can to practise doing the kind of ride
[17:51] on race day that's going to give you the best chance of running
[17:54] well off the bike. OK then that brings us to the
[17:59] end of this week's episode. So here are some discount codes
[18:02] and deals for you. I've read Precision Fuel and
[18:04] hydration.com use the code Oxygen 24 for 15% off your first
[18:08] electrolyte order and over at teamoxygenaddict.com I think
[18:13] we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching programme
[18:16] for. Busy age groupers.
[18:17] If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and the advice has
[18:20] helped you out, well, great stuff.
[18:22] I hope that's helped put some of your fears at rest and I know
[18:24] from some of the calls we've had, it's helping raise the
[18:28] right questions in the minds of people as to whether their
[18:31] current coaching relationship is working for them.
[18:34] If you're looking for a change or if you're looking for high
[18:36] quality, proven coaching for Iron Man or 70.3 Triathlon this
[18:40] year, you can just check out the details of our coaching packages
[18:44] on our website at teamoxygenaddict.com.
[18:47] And then if you're interested, there's a link in the show notes
[18:49] below. You can join our waiting list
[18:52] and you'll be notified if the slot becomes available and at
[18:55] that point you'll have a chance to book a call with us.
[18:57] And see if. You'd be.
[18:58] A good. Fit for joining the team.
[19:00] So although we don't have slots available at the moment, we'll
[19:03] make those call appointments available to people as and when
[19:06] we do have athletes who and their coaching packages during
[19:10] the season if and when that happens.
[19:12] So remember there's links in the show notes so you don't have to
[19:15] remember them till next week. Have a great safe training and
[19:18] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[19:21] been listening to the Oxygen added.
[19:22] Podcast. See ya.

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