Power Basics
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Power. This one word has strong associations with the world of cycling today. All of the pros are training and racing with it. More than likely most of your competitors are doing the same. But why are they using power and more specifically, what is power?
In cycling, power is simply a measure of force applied to the pedals when you turn the cranks over and is expressed in watts. In the Ergomo system, this is calculated in the proprietary bottom bracket. The data is then sent to the Ergomo CPU, which allows you to monitor the data while you ride. Power training has great efficacy in cycling because it isn’t affected by any external or internal factors. Altitude, temperature, gradient and wind affect typical training metrics such as speed and distance, while hydration, fatigue and too many other factors affect the old stand-by training metric of heart rate. Riding at 250 watts is the same whether a rider is going uphill or down and with a headwind or tailwind. Having this objective power number and combining it with heart rate is actually one of the best ways to measure fitness and fatigue. With all of the data available on the Ergomo pro system, a rider virtually has measurement laboratory at his/her disposal on every ride. Power, heart rate, speed, distance, time, altitude and a host of other measurements are all accessible at the push of a button.
Also, the system is capable of measuring your energy output in kilojoules and kilocalories. (We usually see kilocalories as calories.) The two energy measurements are roughly equal to each other and allow riders to easily manage food intake on long rides or facilitate weight loss because they know the exact number of calories burned.
For training, riders will generally have power zones that closely mimic the different heart rate zones that riders have been using since the nineties. With the help of a coach, a specific training plan can be tailored to the specific needs of the rider, and the rider will therefore have specific power goals for each training day. This allows riders to more efficiently use their training time and in turn, get stronger and faster, probably without training any more than they were before using power.
With all of these benefits that come from training with power, isn’t it about time you stepped up your level? Here’s some food for thought: 1 horsepower is roughly 800 watts. How much horsepower do you have in your body?
