What can you achieve with a power meter?
17 August 2017
Powermeter in the heat of battle
17 August 2017
Key takeaways
- A power meter makes it easier to compare cycling performance between athletes, especially when power is expressed relative to body weight in watts per kilogram (W/kg).
- Comparing your power profile with other cyclists can help assess whether goals such as beating a local climb time or competing for a podium are realistic.
- Regular power tests make it possible to track whether performance is improving, declining, or remaining stable over time.
- Changes in power data can be used to adjust training load, introduce new stimuli, or change the timing of harder and easier training periods.
- Regular testing and race data can also help estimate current fitness and influence when peak form should occur during the season.
- Some power meters measure left-right power balance, which can reveal differences in contribution between the two legs.
- The article suggests that a difference greater than approximately 3% can be a reason to investigate the imbalance through physiotherapy, corrective exercises, or work on pedaling technique.
- More advanced cycling data can also show factors such as time spent standing, force distribution during different phases of the pedal stroke, and pulling contribution.
- Power and cadence data can be analyzed together to identify the pedaling rhythm at which an individual cyclist produces power most effectively.
- The article gives an example of 3 × 15-minute intervals at 96–105% of FTP performed at different cadences to identify a potentially optimal cadence.
- A single workout is not enough to establish an optimal cadence; the article recommends confirming the pattern across multiple training files and preferably race data.
- Power meters can estimate the mechanical work performed during training in kilojoules, which the article uses as a practical basis for estimating exercise energy expenditure.
- Combining training energy expenditure with basic metabolic requirements can help estimate daily energy needs and support nutrition planning.
- Training-load tools such as the Performance Management Chart can be used to monitor accumulated workload and identify periods when fatigue may be becoming excessive.
- The article emphasizes that training-load metrics should be interpreted together with the athlete’s subjective feelings rather than used in isolation.
- Monitoring workload over time can help explain performance drops after strong training or racing periods and support decisions about recovery.
- Power data should not replace heart-rate analysis; the article recommends comparing both metrics to better understand aerobic fitness, recovery between intervals, and the athlete’s response to a given workload.
- Comparing historical and current heart rate at similar power outputs can provide additional information about changes in fitness and recovery.
- The central message is that a power meter can be used for much more than displaying watts: it can support benchmarking, progress tracking, pedaling analysis, cadence optimization, nutrition planning, fatigue monitoring, and combined power–heart-rate analysis.
We continue the list from the previous article. What else can we achieve with a power meter?
7.You may compare yourself with other athletes
There are many graphics on the internet that compare the power values obtained by different athletes. Strava is also a big source of knowledge. Knowing the individual parameters (best expressed in watts generated per kilogram of body weight – W/kg) enables you to see how far you are from beating a friend on the local uphill or reaching the podium of the national masters Championship in time trial. This way you can get an idea of whether the goals you set are realistic or not.
You can compare yourself now with the help of our experience – enter “The progress of our athletes”.
8. You will easily be able to track your progress
During subsequent tests of power and training you can see whether the power values go up or down, or maybe they keep the same values. We can then respond by changing the nature of training loads, releasing or accelerating the loads or by introducing new stimuli.
Regular tests and racing allow us visualize the current state of our fitness and introduce changes to raise it or, for example, delay the arrival of the peak of the fitness.
9. You will see the distribution of power between the left / right leg
Some devices on the market allow you to measure the percentage distribution of power between the right and left leg. If the difference is greater than 3%, we have the opportunity to work on reducing this disproportion – through consultation with a physiotherapist, appropriate balancing exercises and work on the effectiveness of pedaling.
This parameter is basic when it comes to tracking the cycle of pedaling. Currently, you can also track, for example, the amount of time spent standing up, the percentage of pressure in the individual phases of the pedaling cycle or the power of pulling the pedal up. All this makes it possible to work on and follow the development of the cycle of pedaling, which can sum up to your cycling advantage.
10. You will find the optimal cadence
By repeating subsequent units of training on different values of rhythm and power, we are able to see what cadence is optimal for us at a given time.
Example:
- we do repetitions of 3x15min on 96-105% of FTP in flat terrain
- 1. repetition: cad. 95, avg 97%
- 2. repetition: cad 94, avg 96%
- 3. repetition: cad. 101, avg 100%
- based on this workout, we can draw a hypothesis that the athlete generates optimal power in the flat terrain at the rhythm of about 100.
- confirmation of this hypothesis can be found (or denied) in the analysis of successive training files, preferably racing ones (when we mostly use the “natural” rhythm and often choose the cadence unconsciously)
11. You will set the dietary assumptions
Direct measurement of the kilojoule burn values allows you to easily estimate the amount of energy burned during a workout. Adding to this the basic value of metabolism, we gain a fairly precise picture of our daily energy demand. Then we can adjust the caloric content of the diet (or provide data to the nutritionist) to manage our meals.
12. You will avoid overtraining
Tracking current loads through the Performance Management Chart tool lets you see if we’re pulling the string too tight. There are certain parameters to assess (in different cases) whether the applied load is not too high. In conjunction with (always prioritized) feelings of the athlete, it gives us a fairly full picture of the current state of the fitness and possible fatigue.
Think about how many times you have had a fantastic training period and a great series of races, and then a crisis, smaller or larger, came from somewhere out of the blue. With the help of this tool (among others) we can measure the size of the crisis, go out of it and prevent it.
13. You can compare power with heart rate
Using the power meter does not give us the permission to stop analyzing the pulse graphs. At least for the coach :). The reference of the historical pulse values to the current (at a given power range) is invaluable in analyzing the increase / decrease in aerobic capacity, the degree of recovery between intervals or the evaluation of muscle acidification in subsequent repetitions. You can also see to what extent the athlete got involved in a given effort, regardless of the results of the power meter.
