echappist

define great gains. How do you know what type of intervals are appropriate at certain stages of training? You can bang out 5x5 at VO2 max, and you'll make gains, but there's no guarantee that gain will stay. Reading that book and understanding the concept of acute and chronic training load will help to make sure those gains are lasting. One of the often unappreciated facet of a powermeter is the fact that you can have a very good qualitative idea of where your training is.

jrobe

This just shows that you really do need some education on how to use the data (as we all would - this isn't intuitive).

The purpose of the power data is not to reproduce the same effort each time. Instead, the purpose is to provide your body with the correct power stimulus to cause the correct adaptation so that your power output improves with time. For example, a proper training regimen would have different intensitites, different time intervals, different stimuli each day. You won't figure that out how to design that program without education or a coach (that has educated himself).

If you are applying the exact same stimulus each time but it is the wrong stimulus, you won't see maximal improvement or maybe no improvement at all.

ericm979

+1 to everything jrobe said.

A power meter won't magically make you faster or "train better". It just supplies the data; you have to know what to do with it. Hence the book.

ancker

I agree with you, partially. A few of the books I've read that described intervals have mentioned doing N intervals at N% of LT or VO2Max power. Assuming my LT isn't changing on a minute by minute basis I would expect I should be producing the same output for each of the intervals in the set. Everything I've read indicates the only sure fire way to do that is with a powermeter. So you're right, it's not ALL about the producing the same effort every day, but certainly within a specific set of intervals.

As I'll restate below, I'm not pretending to know everything there is to know about anything. I fully expect to learn a LOT more about everything from BF and other books going forward.

I was mostly referring to the "You must buy this specific book and all others are wrong" approach. Carmichaels book relies heavily on power and I intend to use it for training. I'm not expecting to become an elite athlete afterwards, but I do expect to be leaps and bounds better than I am now. Any type of structured training is better than what I'm doing now. So to me, 'great gains' means a measurable improvement in speed, fitness, and training structure over my current level of each.

I'm the first to admit I have a great deal to learn about power. Let's not get too deep into my current lack of knowledge.

I understand some don't like/agree with the Carmichael Time Crunched method but it's the best I can do. I don't have more than 6-8 hours a week and can't afford/justify hiring a coach. I'll probably end up getting the 'training with a powermeter' book as I like to get as much information as I can. So expect me to know more and have more questions as I go.

ericm979

There's nothing to keep you from doing structured training now. You don't need a power meter to do it. You are putting too much stock into the idea that a power meter is more accurate than HR. It is, but the difference in results you get is not that large. Especially for a rider who is relatively new to the sport and hasn't raced yet. You'd get more out of riding more and doing race-oriented group rides than training by yourself with a PM.

The power meter book is about how to use power meters to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are, and to train using a power meter. It's not a training book per se.
Reading it doesn't mean that you have to reject Carmichael's training philosophy.

echappist

I hope you read the part where Carmichael coyly tells you that you can't maintain your peak form for very long on the CTS. This is a direct consequence of the type of periodization required by CTS. At the end of the year, you probably will have increased fitness somewhat, but not as high as you could.

What is often recommended is that you do 6-8 hours of training consisted mostly of rides at 75-90% (tempo) of functional threshold power(FTP), with more emphasis on the part from 85-90% (known as sweetspot) as you get stronger. These are the types of training that you can do for at most 10-12 hours a week and would be more effective in raising your FTP than doing either a lot of zone2/base (traditional plans that often requires a lot of time commitment) or doing the CTS. After a good 6-8 weeks, then you introduce VO2 max intervals and the such. You have to ask yourself how sensible it is to do a lot of VO2 max intervals when you haven't worked on your low end. By all means, feel free to be disciple of Carmichael, but even he can't hide the fact that your peak forms (assuming you don't burn out after suddenly losing a good bit of peak fitness) will be very short.

PS. You may also want to register for this group. It's fully dedicated to training by power, with the guys who wrote the power training book, Allen & Coogan, as regular posters.

kleinboogie

Carmichael's book is excellent so by all means, try it. He does say that his programs are geared towards a specific event or short time-frame like 1 month into a season. I like it because he talks about nutrition and training. Besides, last I heard he's got a good handle on helping riders improve.

Reading a book first and committing yourself to everything it says to do is ridiculous. I recommend the opposite. Get the PM. Go ride your normal rides while reading the book, not light reading. Then start to analyze your data with good software. I get two good pieces of info with a PM; knowing where I'm at during a ride (i.e. not blowing up on climbs) and how I'm doing with my overall progress (i.e. am I getting stronger, are my recoveries helping). You certainly don't have to race to want to know what's going on with your performance.

If it helps, PMs have a pretty good resale value and HR sucks. A PM tells me how I'm doing, HR just tells me how I'm reacting to what happened in the past. Both are useful but PM trumps HR as far as usefulness during a ride.

GL

ancker

This is exactly my point of view. I'm hoping to use the PM to get data that I wouldn't get without it. I'm not expecting to be shattering any records or impress anyone with my speed or climbing ability. I just want an honest to goodness measurable way to gauge my progression of fitness and ensure I'm doing the prescribed workouts at the level intended by whatever program, if any, I'm using. I plan to use Golden Cheetah for analysis via data from the Garmin 500 I'll soon have.

I did read this and fully understood what it means. A program of this type isn't going to replace a large base, Carmichael explains that. The little bit of what I know about periodization lets me understand and accept that. Perhaps you can suggest a program that will increase my fitness/speed with only 6 hours a week to train. Remember I'm not looking for 6 hour high speed endurance, I'm looking to be fit enough to be relatively fast for a 2-3 hour ride. I'm not committed to CTS:Time Crunched or anything at this point. It just happens to be the one program I've found that claims it will make me a fitter/faster rider on a limited time budget.

--
All,
Thanks for the tips about the Powermeter book. I assumed it was a training program, of which I didn't need yet another book of. If it helps me understand and interpret the data I'm getting from the PM then I see it as a requirement and will be ordering it soon and will likely have it read before I get the PM itself.

echappist

Direct from Allen & Coggan's Book:

If you have limited time, however, or if you are trying to increase your muscular endurance, then this level [level 3/ 76-90% of FTP] is for you. If all you have is 3 hours a week to ride, then drill it in the upper range of Level 3 (termed as Sweet Spot) and get in a great workout...

From two pages later:

Riding at this range (SST) certainly does not help significantly with your sprint, your power at VO2max, or your anaerobic capacity. Nor is it going to make you the best criterium racer. But at the same time, if all your training were in this area, at least you probably wouldn't get dropped.

shovelhd

Back in the stone age when I last raced, the average cyclist didn't have a powermeter, didn't have an HRM, didn't have a coach, didn't even have a bike computer. Training was less structured, but it all revolved around RPE. You did one, two, or no workouts per day. Workouts were easy or hard. Easy was JRA or some SST/tempo depending on how you felt. Hard were group rides, hill repeats, sprints. What workout you did depended on how you felt. It was fine to take a workout, or an entire day off if you felt like crap, and you went to bed early. Some people still train like this. There's nothing wrong with it. However, it can dominate your life.

These days, though, with all these great tools available, one can maximize their available training time to fit into their lifestyle. This is where measurement devices like HRM's and PM's are worth their money. They can keep you on a plan that doles out just the right amount of training to increase your power and strength without having to ride the roller coaster that is unstructured training. RPE is still a big part of the plan. To ignore it and depend solely on what the meters are telling you is foolish.

You can make great strides using technology, but you don't need it. You still have to listen to your body. It's the best meter available.