The Powermeter Thread

[CoachFergie]

Power Meter Summaries from Kona...

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/races/ironman-world-championship-kona/2013.aspx

 

[FrankDay]

Power Meter Summaries from Kona...

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/races/ironman-world-championship-kona/2013.aspx

Does this suggest that both the men's and women's winners didn't have power meters? Where is their data?

 

[CoachFergie]

Does this suggest that both the men's and women's winners didn't have power meters? Where is their data?

Didn't realise that riders were legally required to race with a power meter and if they did that they had to submit the files to TrainingPeaks.

 

[42x16ss]

Does this suggest that both the men's and women's winners didn't have power meters? Where is their data?

Mirinda Carfrae used a Quarq, Van Lierde an SRM. They just didn't put the data on TrainingPeaks.

Nice try

 

[FrankDay]

Mirinda Carfrae used a Quarq, Van Lierde an SRM. They just didn't put the data on TrainingPeaks.

Nice try

Not a "nice try" but an honest question. The finishers and their times were listed on that page but no explanation as to why their data wasn't there. Not everyone uses a PM in training and or racing. How is one to know? (edit: I would be especially interested in seeing Carfrae's data. I would bet her power is almost identical to the other top ladies but her time, of course, was slower. This would substantiate my eyeball determination that her position is pretty awful for good aerodynamics. Would be nice to see the data to confirm my thoughts)

 

[CoachFergie]

Good analysis of two rides in the Women's race. Be cool if we saw a few more power files from different riders especially the winners from the Tour de France or the World Champs.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Kessler_vs_Corbin_-_power_3970.html

 

[FrankDay]

Good analysis of two rides in the Women's race. Be cool if we saw a few more power files from different riders especially the winners from the Tour de France or the World Champs.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Kessler_vs_Corbin_-_power_3970.html

What strikes me about this analysis is how much they try to force the numbers as being more meaningful than they really are.

First, they assume that they know what the FTP is but then when the numbers numbers are too high they surmise that maybe the FTP of one or both of the riders is wrong.

The Training Stress Scores (TSS) for both these ladies were extremely high (314 TSS for Kessler and 330 TSS for Corbin), and might even suggest their FTP’s are actually higher than reported. 100 TSS denotes a one-hour, all-out effort at FTP and most Ironman athletes don’t tend to run well when going over 300 TSS for a bike effort. (For reference, Luke McKenzie’s ride was only 293 TSS.)

Yet, earlier I posted the effort of Sam Gyde who rode a sub 4:30 bike who had a TSS of 365 (an IF of 0.9) and ran a 3 hour marathon. What does it mean? Well, it either means the numbers are pretty useless if we don't know the real FTP, the algorithms for determining FTP are not very good, or riders can vary quite a bit in their ability to ride at different intensities. How does someone, who is using a PM to help them with their training/racing, know which is the correct assessment for them? If Sam had been told to stay at an IF of less than 0.8 (because we all know it isn't possible to ride an IM at an intensity factor of 0.9 and still run well) he would have had a terrible ride and not won his age-group.

Second, the analysis of the ride in this article ignored any role that different aerodynamics might have played in comparing these riders. Again, it is all about power because that is what is being measured. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Hence, my asking for some scientific substantiation that having these numbers actually help people to race better. There is none. And, now, perhaps, we can understand why.

 

[CoachFergie]

The analysis and comparison of the cycle ride in Kona highlights the ideal nature of a timed event to break down an individual ride or two or more riders power data. Whereas in a road race the team and tactical elements, in particular drafting, play such a huge role that one can not say that a max mean power on an early climb was bad pacing if it put a rival under extreme pressure.

 

[FrankDay]

The analysis and comparison of the cycle ride in Kona highlights the ideal nature of a timed event to break down an individual ride or two or more riders power data. Whereas in a road race the team and tactical elements, in particular drafting, play such a huge role that one can not say that a max mean power on an early climb was bad pacing if it put a rival under extreme pressure.

Perhaps. What I see from this analysis is it points out the weakness of using power and TSS in dictating training and racing strategy. Unless one knows for certain the FTP of the rider and how close that rider can ride to his/her FTP then what one is dictating based on these numbers is little more than a guess. That is the problem. It all sounds so scientific until the flaws are exposed. I think this analysis (when combined with Sam's numbers) exposes those flaws.

 

[CoachFergie]

Perhaps. What I see from this analysis is it points out the weakness of using power and TSS in dictating training and racing strategy. Unless one knows for certain the FTP of the rider and how close that rider can ride to his/her FTP then what one is dictating based on these numbers is little more than a guess. That is the problem. It all sounds so scientific until the flaws are exposed. I think this analysis exposes those flaws.

FTP is easy to determine. People use short cuts. There are several decent ways to determine this that don't require a 60min maximal effort.

What flaws, the only flaws are people trying to short cut the testing process or misunderstand the potential, and limitations of the process.

For Triathlon a main limit is the swim and the run where one does not get the same level of data and has to estimate the TSS.

It is also not outrageous to expect in the biggest race of the year for athletes on peak form to have a higher FTP than the ones determined in training. Assuming that one does not taper fully and have the hype of race day when performing FTP testing.

 

[FrankDay]

FTP is easy to determine. People use short cuts. There are several decent ways to determine this that don't require a 60min maximal effort.

What flaws, the only flaws are people trying to short cut the testing process or misunderstand the potential, and limitations of the process.

How is it that both these ladies and, especially, Sam seemed to get their FTP wrong. Remember, Sam rode at an IF of 0.9 and still ran a 3hr marathon.

For Triathlon a main limit is the swim and the run where one does not get the same level of data and has to estimate the TSS.

Really? The main limit in a 9 hour race are the parts that take about 1 and 3 hours?

It is also not outrageous to expect in the biggest race of the year for athletes on peak form to have a higher FTP than the ones determined in training. Assuming that one does not taper fully and have the hype of race day when performing FTP testing.

Then, why wasn't this part of the analysis if this is so obvious. Why, in this analysis, didn't they say, with a taper it is possible to maintain a higher IF? Are you the only one who knows this? Wonder what Pete Jacobs got wrong that accounted for his disastrous race compared to last year?

There simply is no scientific support that because one has this number that this information helps the athlete more than what was available before.

 

[sciguy]

\ Wonder what Pete Jacobs got wrong that accounted for his disastrous race compared to last year?

.

Despite having a power meter on his bike and perhaps using the data in some way, Pete has mentioned in several interview that he trains and races strictly by feel rather than heart rate or power. More importantly he we slightly injured coming this years race but put on a happy face for the world to see.

 

[CoachFergie]

How is it that both these ladies and, especially, Sam seemed to get their FTP wrong.

Speculation that FTP was right or wrong. And as I said not unreasonable to expect on race day with the appropriate taper that can ride at a higher IF or that their FTP for the day increased.

Remember, Sam rode at an IF of 0.9 and still ran a 3hr marathon.

Sounds like he tapered really well then. Question is how much FTP testing do you do to get your Training Stress Scores and Performance Manager spot on compared with training for the event. Alex Simmons has suggested FTP of +- 5 watts is acceptable. I use the 5min maximal effort followed by a 20min maximal effort and use 95% of the 20MP as the FTP, but I do cross check that number with other methods like Critical Power, Normalised Power from a 1 hour race or effort, 2nd 20MP in a 2 x 20min training session etc.

Really? The main limit in a 9 hour race are the parts that take about 1 and 3 hours?

The main limit for determining TSS in Triathlon is having to estimate the numbers from the swim and run. I am not a Triathlon Coach.

Then, why wasn't this part of the analysis if this is so obvious.

While Training = Testing I would expect a Triathlete has more important things to do than repeatedly testing their bike FTP.

Why, in this analysis, didn't they say, with a taper it is possible to maintain a higher IF? Are you the only one who knows this?

I am only speculating with regards to Triathlon. However in TT cycling it is fairly common to see a rider put out a higher IF on race day.

Wonder what Pete Jacobs got wrong that accounted for his disastrous race compared to last year?

Could be a multitude of things that went wrong with any one performance as well as a multitude of things that went right. Someone can get an amazing result in spite of the coaching, training or equipment they use.

This is the difference in racing with power not to power.

I don't suggest riders race looking at the power meter for firstly safety reasons and because we often see with good tapering they have better power or because they feel fresher due to the taper they push a little harder than they should. Or the counter to that is that they hold back too much going off the powers they saw in training. I prefer they use the power meter to calibrate the feel they need to take into racing and look at the power afterwards to see how well they did this.

There simply is no scientific support that because one has this number that this information helps the athlete more than what was available before.

Well we know that some riders perform better on race day than their training FTP would predict.

We know that some don't and then we can look back and see if the taper was correct.

With TSS's we can monitor the workload ensuring the athlete is improving. In the Wallace paper TSS had a higher correlation with 1500m running performance than HR or HRV based measures. The authors highlighted this saying they would have expected internal measures like HR and HRV to predict training loads better than an external measure like estimated TSS. To those of us who work with training stress scores based off actual measures of work from a power meter this is not all that surprising.

What is interesting is that both studies have looked at Quantifying training loads using various impulse - response models have used a 1500m running race as the dependant variable. This event would be similar to a 4000m pursuit and would involve competing and training at higher than VO2max. Competing or training at VO2max involves attaining a maximal heart rate so any efforts beyond VO2max reduce the utility of HR based methods of quantifying performance.

My study is looking at power from road cycle races and cycling time trials. My expectation is that we will see higher correlations between Chronic Training Loads and Time Trial performance than in road races as tactics influence road racing. Won't be part of this study but hopefully future work will include comparison of HR based models vs Power based models of quantifying training loads and their ability to predict performance.

 

[FrankDay]

Despite having a power meter on his bike and perhaps using the data in some way, Pete has mentioned in several interview that he trains and races strictly by feel rather than heart rate or power. More importantly he we slightly injured coming this years race but put on a happy face for the world to see.

So, is his win last year or his failure this year to be given the credit/blame for those performances based on feel?

I mean, just having this power number is so meaningless as we know so little about how to use it. People talk like this is all so scientific but I think it is clear from this analysis that it is little more than a lot of mumbo jumbo.

In fact, I have been thinking a bit about Sam's IF of 0.9 for 4.5 hours. Do you think it is possible that he can ride closer to his FTP because of how he pedals (he has trained exclusively on the PC's for about 3 years now), spreading the work around more muscles so it less likely he reaches the limit in the weakest muscle in the chain? Could that be another variable in this equation to explain what is being seen?

 

[sciguy]

The simple and most likely answer is that Sam just picked a nice round number to input as his FTP. I'm always suspicious when I see numbers like 200, 250 or 300 when looking at files like this. Since Sam doesn't train with a power meter he may not even have a handle on his actual FTP.

On another note, Sam's actual power is a few percent lower than reported. His use of Qrings causes the SRM Power meter to slightly over report wattage due to their non circular shape. It's not a huge deal but worth noting.

Obviously Sam is an excellent athlete. He trains very hard, races very smart and perhaps most importantly picked the right parents. How much his use of Powercranks has actually helped his performance is impossible for you or I to say.

Hugh

 

[CoachFergie]

So, is his win last year or his failure this year to be given the credit/blame for those performances based on feel?

You can not seriously blame a failure or credit a success to one element consider the huge number of variables that go into performance.

I mean, just having this power number is so meaningless as we know so little about how to use it. People talk like this is all so scientific but I think it is clear from this analysis that it is little more than a lot of mumbo jumbo.

You would like to think.

In fact, I have been thinking a bit about Sam's IF of 0.9 for 4.5 hours. Do you think it is possible that he can ride closer to his FTP because of how he pedals (he has trained exclusively on the PC's for about 3 years now),

But he races on normal cranks with an SRM. Then if he trains exclusively with a Gimmickcrank then how is he measuring power? If IF was .9 then one would expect his FTP was not set correctly. If he is using the Performance Manager to quantify his training load then he would be having to estimate his TSS for training.

On his web page he says 1.5 years and intensive use. This needs to be clarified. Also he claims to be an agent for the product and offering coaching sessions on their use. So hardly an unbiased source of information. Not that we have any data beyond his ride in Kona.

Then one needs to ask if the SRM was calibrated, was a zero offset performed, when was it performed (before the start or before the ride), did he do a zero offset during the ride? Not that he is racing to supply us geeks with power data but if we are going to draw any conclusions these are important questions.

Same applies to the data put up from the Tour de France. Unlike previous years we didn't have data from one rider over the whole Tour just various riders from selected stages. Even with past tour that still offers limited information beyond the W/kg that riders need to be competitive and very rarely do we see a file from a contender. A lot of speculation on the Power to Weight's of various riders.

But even this tells us little without the data from racing and riding over the whole year or career so we can confirm if a rider was actually IF over 4.5 hours or is their FTP not set correctly. Was that amazing power they rode up Mont Ventoux real and reflection of building a high CTL over time and getting to the bottom with low ATL and good TSB or should we be suspicious.

 

[CoachFergie]

The simple and most likely answer is that Sam just picked a nice round number to input as his FTP. I'm always suspicious when I see numbers like 200, 250 or 300 when looking at files like this. Since Sam doesn't train with a power meter he may not even have a handle on his actual FTP.

True, Having looked at power meter data for a while now, regular data from calibrated and frequently zeroed power meter is essential. A trap is looking at the max mean powers when the performance manager gives you the real information to predict performance and to make training and racing decisions.

Obviously Sam is an excellent athlete. He trains very hard, races very smart and perhaps most importantly picked the right parents. How much his use of Powercranks has actually helped his performance is impossible for you or I to say.

Talking of people who choose their parents right it would be interesting to see what has happened to Taylor Phinney after Cadel Evans suggested he use Gimmickcranks. 2012: 6sec behind Tony Martin at Worlds and 2013 nearly 2mins behind!!!

 

[FrankDay]

The simple and most likely answer is that Sam just picked a nice round number to input as his FTP. I'm always suspicious when I see numbers like 200, 250 or 300 when looking at files like this. Since Sam doesn't train with a power meter he may not even have a handle on his actual FTP.

I guess then that if he had a better handle on his FTP he could have had the best bike split amongst the men as another amateur PowerCranker did amongst the women (by 5 minutes no less)

On another note, Sam's actual power is a few percent lower than reported. His use of Qrings causes the SRM Power meter to slightly over report wattage due to their non circular shape. It's not a huge deal but worth noting.

Does that mean his time is actually longer than recorded? LOL

Obviously Sam is an excellent athlete. He trains very hard, races very smart and perhaps most importantly picked the right parents. How much his use of Powercranks has actually helped his performance is impossible for you or I to say.

Hugh

Is it impossible for him to say?

 

[FrankDay]

On his web page he says 1.5 years and intensive use. This needs to be clarified. Also he claims to be an agent for the product and offering coaching sessions on their use. So hardly an unbiased source of information. Not that we have any data beyond his ride in Kona.

LOL. This is his third win in three years since starting using PowerCranks essentially 100% of the time in training.

Then one needs to ask if the SRM was calibrated, was a zero offset performed, when was it performed (before the start or before the ride), did he do a zero offset during the ride? Not that he is racing to supply us geeks with power data but if we are going to draw any conclusions these are important questions.

Ugh, he rode a sub 4:30 112 mile time trial after swimming 2.4 miles in a little over an hour. Only 4 professionals were faster. Who cares whether his SRM was calibrated or not? I guess those of you who think that power number is more important than how fast you race. LOL

 

[sciguy]

I guess then that if he had a better handle on his FTP he could have had the best bike split amongst the men as another amateur PowerCranker did amongst the women (by 5 minutes no less) Does that mean his time is actually longer than recorded? LOLIs it impossible for him to say?

No it just just a case of GIGO for the computed TSS value.

While we're talking Powercrankers, how did Greg Taylor make out this year? Top of the age group again or was he beaten by some of those darn Fixedcrankers?

Hugh

 

[FrankDay]

No it just just a case of GIGO for the computed TSS value.

While we're talking Powercrankers, how did Greg Taylor make out this year? Top of the age group again or was he beaten by some of those darn Fixedcrankers?

Hugh

I think he was 5th. But, since he is 59 I am not so sure that means that much. I talked with him and he was salivating over aging up next year. We also talked about a couple of ideas I have to help him get more out of his training. Thanks for asking.

 

[sciguy]

Only 4 professionals were faster. Who cares whether his SRM was calibrated or not? I guess those of you who think that power number is more important than how fast you race. LOL

It is worth noting that Sam's swim was of such a time that he was given the opportunity to pass 950 other competitors over the course of his bike ride. The sling shot effect of all these passes is a rather significant benefit that the pros don't have the luxury to take. At 20 seconds per pass that works out to 5 hours worth of legal drafting time..........well that's got to be a GIGO value as well;} He certainly did not experience the same race as the pros.

Hugh

 

[FrankDay]

It is worth noting that Sam's swim was of such a time that he was given the opportunity to pass 950 other competitors over the course of his bike ride. The sling shot effect of all these passes is a rather significant benefit that the pros don't have the luxury to take. At 20 seconds per pass that works out to 5 hours worth of legal drafting time..........well that's got to be a GIGO value as well;} He certainly did not experience the same race as the pros.

Hugh

Wow, 5 hours of legal drafting in a 4.5 hour ride. No wonder he was so fast. If he had swam even slower he would have had an even bigger advantage I guess. I guess the same hold true for Stefanie Adam, in her 4:50 ride. (Wait, except for her 58min swim only meant there were about 200 ahead of her at the start of the bike (about half of whom were pros) but she only managed to get to 72nd overall before slower swimmers but faster bikers started to pass her - although I am sure she took advantage of that don't you think?) Darn, all those advantages making those age groupers look so much better than they actually are. LOL

 

[FrankDay]

It is worth noting that Sam's swim was of such a time that he was given the opportunity to pass 950 other competitors over the course of his bike ride. The sling shot effect of all these passes is a rather significant benefit that the pros don't have the luxury to take. At 20 seconds per pass that works out to 5 hours worth of legal drafting time..........well that's got to be a GIGO value as well;} He certainly did not experience the same race as the pros.

Hugh

I am beginning to understand the natural advantage Steve Larsen had when he was racing. Back then the pros only got a 100 yd head start, not a 30 minute head start. This meant that his 1:10 swim gave him about 1,000 people to slingshot around, saving him so much energy that when he passed the last pro he was then able to dig deep and put in another 10-15 minutes into them before T2. Yes, a big advantage to swim slow over the pros who get in a line 10-15 deep within the first 5-10 miles and ride together (7 m apart for sure). Ahhhh, the natural advantages of being a slow swimmer. I am beginning to understand all this now. Thanks for the insight.

 

[CoachFergie]

I guess then that if he had a better handle on his FTP he could have had the best bike split amongst the men as another amateur PowerCranker did amongst the women (by 5 minutes no less)

Don't recall any studies showing knowledge of FTP or any threshold improving performance in any event.