Speed/Power
 

Do you train for speed or power?
what are the differences and can someone train for both?

I train by power. Speed is interesting but it is a by-product of power. My focus is on improving my critical power curve with emphasis on a couple of key areas for the type of riding that I do.

Well considering the craze over power-meters, it seems the trend in cycling is training with power. Maintaining speed, heart rate etc, is in the garbage shoot, now it's all cadence and power.
- I ride by neither, I just maintain cadence. And when I look down and see I'm on a larger cog than I like, I feel a little ashamed. Whatever.

Per the Eddie B. system "back when" an effective cyclist has Endurance, Power & Speed, all three are required in balance. A good base & long rides to build endurance, hill work for power & sprint work for speed. Intervals, time trialing & paceline work round out the fun and don't forget fixed gear in the winter.

-Bandera

I was thinking training for "power" is mostly for short power output compared to training for "speed" ie steady long speed.

Good theory but what if you live in flat lands and no hills?

what's your critical power curve?
I was thinking of;
power - Andre Griepel/Cavendish
Speed - Peter sagan

You can still do power intervals. Hill repeats are a nice, ready made version, but doing the power vs. time on flat ground will give you the same benefit. Unless you are trying to prepare for standing climbs that you are going to do on a trip or something. Then you may want to try to find some bridges or overpasses and/or spend some time in a standing position on trainer.

Fit a straight block and work wind, pretend it's Holland and you are Niki Terpstra. :eek:

-Bandera

Intervals? Power out is power out. Hill repeats are nature's intervals.

I appreciate the wind.

Speed and power are always proportional. When drag dominates, power is related to the cube of speed. When gravity dominates, power is related directly to speed. Train one you train the other, especially when you are talking about geared bikes. Things are a little different on the track where you have leg speed to consider, but that's for a different discussion.

If you have hills, the most effective way to train power is hill intervals. If you are on the flats, time trialing works. In the extreme case, adding friction drag works as well. In that case, if the friction drag dominates (say you are holding your brakes to add resistance), power is related to the square of speed.

My goal is to ride faster, not more powerfully (whatever that is), so speed...

I try to ride smarter, not harder.

I have an interval page on my Garmin 510. I don't even know what my speed is when I'm doing intervals.

I wouldn't say heart rate is a garbage shoot--there are plenty of effective training plans that rely on HR only. Power is better, but also much more expensive.

Speed is defined as the distance traversed within a specific unit of time. Power is defined as the amount of energy output within a specific unit of time.


As the energy output increases, speed should also increase at some proportionate rate, given that all other parameters are held constant.

+1

Speed is a side effect of power. "Training for speed" is just an inefficient way to improve power.

The critical power curve is a graph of tour maximum power output for a given interval of time. Each rider has a different combination of slopes and plateaus depending on their style and genetics.

The distinction between the riders above is simply a matter of different curves. Greipel/Cav have extremely high power over the first 30 seconds to a minute. Much farther out, their max output is substantially lower. Sagan's curve is probably a bit higher in the 3-10 minute range.

All of that is speculation ased on how these riders perform in varying circumstances.

As for training, I say train your weaknesses (raise your power curve) in your weakness areas. In the race, ride to your strengths.

Both. Training power is more or less the same as training for speed. There are differences, however. When I train for speed, I hold an aero position and pedal at a high cadence, much higher than I use for climbing or ordinary cruising on the flat. That's a big difference. It uses different muscles and slightly different pedaling mechanics. One doesn't need to motorpace. One can simulate motorpacing by doing as describing out in the wind. It's not exactly the same thing because speeds are much lower, but if you concentrate on maintaining that high cadence I think it accomplishes the goal of putting out power in an aero position on a road bike.

If you're talking about training power as training for short bursts of peak power, that's sprint training and a whole 'nother subject.

If you're contrasting sprint training with climbing training, no, you really can't have two such divergent specialties. You can switch specialties, but you can't train them both and excel in both because you'll lose to the specialist. That said, there are exceptional individuals who do both well, but they're rare.

And as we see every year, those who train to excel in both TT and climbing do both well, because both depend on threshold power. But they do train both of those specialties consistently or they don't do well.

The op's original question doesn't makes sense. What exactly are you asking?

And you come to the 41 between smart intervals.