Have you ever subbed a class where the riders didn’t know what to do with the console? Have you had a mixed class with some who understand watts and others who have no idea? Izabela inspires you to use the great tools you have at your disposal and provides you with some of her favorite ways for dealing with these scenarios, including a great way to help riders to understand watts even if they’ve never done an FTP test.Read more…

Here is the analysis of the power files I posted a few weeks ago. I had two winners, Karyn and Bill, who posted their suggestions about what was going on with power output, heart rate, and cadence. Posts like these will serve to increase your knowledge, helping you create profiles with purpose. They should also be eye-openers to help expand your coaching, even if you don’t have power!Read more…

This drill is perfect for those who are just learning how to teach with power. It shows your riders very clearly how heart rate response can be very different at different cadences, even when output is the same. This drill may become a “light bulb moment” for your riders and their understanding of how power—and their body—works! For that reason, it may be the most important educational drill in your repertoire.Read more…

With the New Year upon us, you will be getting a LOT of questions about calories burned in your cycling class. How much do you know about the calorie estimates you see on your heart rate monitor, computer console, or power meter? Are these estimates accurate? Here is everything you need to understand how the wrong information—or faulty understanding of the data—can lead you or your riders to believe they did more work than they actually did. Read more…

There’s even more great news about the benefits of exercise—this time it’s been discovered that it will help our brain health. But not just ANY ole’ exercise. To reap these benefits, you need to have developed powerful legs, and cycling is the perfect place to build that strength and power. But heed this warning…it probably won’t happen if you prefer non-traditional methods of indoor cycling. Even more reason to #keepitreal and #rideright!Read more…

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…

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…

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…

Indoor Power Testing

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…