Two Wheel Blogs

If you ever decide to go to a cycling seminar to learn more about training with a bicycle powermeter let me recommend you select one where Dr. Andrew Coggan is presenting.

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend one where Andy presented. I learned much more than I expected to learn. The information I picked up was many times the price of admission.

Even if you don't have a powermeter and don't train with wattage, I still recommend you go. You will both learn and be entertained by the depth of experience and the great stories Andy has to tell. Plus he'll open your eyes to training and racing with a bicycle powermeter. So be apprised, you'll come away "needing" an SRM or a Powertap or whatever.

So you're wondering when I'll get around to the part about increasing your Functional Threshold Power. OK, here we go. I took a wealth of information away from Andy's seminar. But the one thing that really hit home with me was a particular graphic he presented in his section on increasing Functional Threshold Power. That's the graphic you see here.

In a nutshell what it says is: Spend a lot of time training in the 85-95% range to get the best balance between Functional Threshold Power increasing training effect and recovery ability or training time.

Get that? OK good.

For me it took someone like Andy to hit me over the head with it before I got it. I grew up thinking (and the predisposition lives on - old habits die hard) if I wanted to get better, faster, stronger I had to train harder. It had to hurt. If I hurt more than the next guy it meant I was getting more out of my training. Turns out I was wrong. I was increasing my Functional Threshold Power alright, but I was spending an inordinate amount of time recovering from the monstrous efforts. Every workout was a killer effort. The extra recovery time I needed kept me off the bike more than what was optimal for realizing gains in Functional Threshold Power.

Others, and you know who you are, tool around on your bikes for great lengths of time at tempo or endurance levels. You get increased Functional Threshold Power, but you spend a lot of time getting each additional watt. It works, but for me it's inefficient because I want the greatest increase in Functional Threshold Power per minute spent on my bike.

So there you have it, baby bear, the training level that's just right. It was there all along. I for one just didn't see it. Maybe you did. Andy sure did; and I'm glad he goes around telling people about it. I'm glad I went to that seminar.