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In this final chapter of the Power Training e-book, Gene leaves us with this message, “This is why this book was written. This is why this is my full time occupation–creating resources for indoor cycling–because to train properly with the objective of wasting no time, insuring results, and having fun along the way takes time and dedication to get right. Not only are we spending time to get it right, but we are also making sure we can repeat the process, and thus reap the benefits multiple times over. That seems worth it to me. What about you?Read more…

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What turns a workout into a power workout is simply the overall objective of that ride. While we can call these ‘power’ workouts, they will also improve your cardiovascular performance. The physical systems that produce energy in your body are all connected, and it is hard to affect one without impacting the other. We can target our workouts for specific applications of power, and this chapter will provide examples of this.Read more…

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As a way of establishing a sort of profile or fingerprint of your metabolic efficiency and rate of decoupling, you can establish what power you are able to generate at the top of each zone. The reason we look to the top of each zone is that in at least two of the five zones, this represents the point right before you ‘cross over’ into an area of more costly power generation. In other words, you are likely to get the most ‘bang for your buck’ if you can keep the effort just short of the threshold crossovers. Read more…

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Part 2 of Gene’s amazing Chapter 17, truly a pinnacle of tips for teaching with power. In this segment, you will learn whether “competitions” in classes are truly legitimate if power is so different from bike to bike, and what to do when bikes differ. Because this is so common with power bikes, you NEED this information! Read more…

Teach with Power

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In: Biomechanics, Cadence, Power, Coaching and Cueing, New Instructors
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This is the money chapter in this e-book on teaching with power! Even though bikes with power are increasing, instructors aren’t receiving the education they need to teach with power properly. Gene gives six “Dos” and six “Don’ts” when teaching with power, and lists numerous tips and tricks to increase your effectiveness when teaching with this amazing tool. (Part 2 of this chapter will post tomorrow)Read more…

Indoor Power Testing

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Knowing the importance of having purpose for our training, and that no one wants to spend time doing something and have nothing to show for it, we must test ourselves and then validate our training programs and techniques. This chapter will discuss the assessments you need to incorporate in your power training program, and how to interpret the results.Read more…

Power Profiles

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Even if we don’t understand slow twitch from fast twitch to nose twitch, the muscle fiber mixes we are born will inevitably guide us towards riding or racing that takes advantage of our strengths, and minimizes the drawbacks of our weaknesses. We are encouraged by what we do best and thus we continue to build on it. Add a little training that continues to improve on our strengths, and some desire to achieve objectives with those strengths, and now we will begin to see specific rider types emerge in a way that can actually be quantified to help with both prescribing training as well as understanding just how variable power is from one individual to another.Read more…

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I am a big proponent of using all of the tools at your disposal, so the idea of training without a heart monitor just leaves too much information on the table. Why handicap yourself for something that is both easy and relatively inexpensive to measure? More to the point, heart rate should be seen as what it ‘costs you’ to generate a specific power level and sustain that level. Read more…

Training Tools

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Maybe a better title for this chapter would have been ‘What’s It All Mean?’ This is really the bottom line, after all. If we are going to research the best power bikes to buy, learn how to use the power consoles, perform heart zone and power zones baseline tests, we need to know how to understand the data that flows from all this work. Since this chapter is a bit long, we’ve broken it into two posts.Read more…