With power meters for bikes becoming more affordable more and more people are getting them. But what advantages do using a power meter provided for someone that wants to improve on the bike?
Many will use RPE (Rate of Perceived Effort) while training. This will always be different from day to day. Also if you’re not always paying attention you may be going easier than you should during your workout. With a power meter after you have gone through setting your zones, you can easily see if you’re in the proper zone. This helps keep you doing the correct effort for the particular workout.
Train properly for the race you training for. Say you’re doing a race that you know has a lot of climbing. Your workouts can be structured by the power to help you prepare for the hills. This works well if you’re using an indoor trainer to simulate hills. Especially if you live in a flat area.
HR (heart rate) is slow to respond to what you are doing. So you may want to do intervals and while increasing or decreasing zones there is a lag time while waiting for your HR to catch up. Power meter data is almost instant. No lag and you know right away where you are and what you need to be doing. HR is like looking at the fuel pump of a car instead of the engine for performance. Also, many things can affect your HR from day to day. Caffeine, race day excitement, stress, sugar, temperature, and humidity to name a few.
As you train you can easily see that a power level that you thought was hard has now become easier. You can do an FTP (Functional Threshold Power) test when you first get your power meter. After training with it for a while you can do the test again and compare results.
Setting speed as your goal. Power is always the same. 200 watts on a flat road with a tailwind is the same as 200 watts on a road with a headwind. Whereas 20mph with a tailwind is not the same as 20mph with a headwind.
You start on the bike. There is a crowd there cheering. Family and friends are there to see you. You’re excited and feeling really good. You take off harder than you should. Later in the race, you slow down and just can’t push as hard because early in the race you expended too much energy because at that time you felt great. Using a power meter a plan can be made before the race and you can monitor your effort much better versus going by feel.
These are the advantages of training with a power meter. There are many manufacturers and types of power meters to choose from. Do your research and get the one that works best for you.
READ MORE: CYCLING: IMPROVE YOUR FTP
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