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Building power

An article by Mike Schultz CSCS of Highland Training

How many “watts” will it take for you to be the best? That will depend on whether you want to be the best at your local race, regional competition, national races or world class races like the Tour De France. If you would like a chance of winning the Tour De France, and are a 160 pound rider (72.7Kg), you will need to be able to produce at least 500 watts while working at your threshold heart rate ranges for long twenty to thirty minute periods of time and a very good team. You will also need the endurance properties to recover from such efforts while maintaining high watt outputs within your endurance ranges. It is the ability to recover and produce good power that makes a strong athlete. The ability to produce good power within your aerobic systems will also relate to your potential to produce more power at your threshold. The ability to measure power for endurance athletes has been around for a long time. It has again recently emerged as a great tool to measure increases in strength and as a guide to fatigue. The science behind building power, in terms of “watts” is interesting and always evolving.

What does a “watt” mean in terms of aerobic strength? We all know that turning on a light will generate a certain amount of watts. The more watts the light generates, the brighter the light. Unfortunately, the more watts an athlete can generate will not relate to his or her brightness but it will relate to his or her speed. Generating watts in athletic terms relates to a combination of force and speed. The more force you can apply to each pedal stroke the more power you will generate. The faster you can spin the legs, in an efficient manner, the more power you will produce. Producing large power outputs with muscle force will elicit different adaptations within the muscle compared to producing large power outputs from spinning fast. Training with the best combination of muscle force and leg speed, over time, will help give you increases in power. Building more endurance properties to handle more force and leg speed, over a longer period of time is another important factor behind building power.

Power is best if used as a guide to how your body is reacting to the training stimulus and stress over time. Increases in power can come from many different adaptations within your system. On the other hand, a loss of power can be a result of fatigue from one of the many parts of your system. You may experience a loss of power on a day where your legs feel good and your perceived exertion is low. The loss of power may be related to neuromuscular fatigue, not allowing you to activate all the muscle fibers available for that day. The loss of power for the day may also be related to a decline in oxygen supply to the muscle, relating to some fatigue within your cardio respiratory system. Either way, a loss of power signifies some fatigue within your system.

It is the goal to provide good stress to your body to create adaptations. But it is not the goal to overstress any part of your system. Using power in comparison to heart rates, breathing, and perceived exertion will allow you to learn when you are experiencing a decline in power or an increase in power. If an athlete uses power only to work on making gains, then he or she is going to focus on their strengths to attain the power needed for the day of training. It takes many systems within your body, working together all at once, to produce aerobic strength and power. If you are only working your stronger systems to gain increases in power then you will risk overtraining your weaker systems. If you are always carrying around a weak link, such as a cardio respiratory systems and the ability to transfer oxygen to the working muscle, or weaker core strength, not allowing you to maintain good form for long periods of time, then you will always have a limit to the gains you will make within each month and year. Using power along with your breathing, heart rates, and perceived exertion will teach you more about your weak systems within the body. Working to make your weaker systems stronger will allow you to make bigger gains within your strongest systems over time.

Power meters are increasingly becoming more popular on stationary bikes, and within workout centers, the local club riders, and the serious racers. Using power to test the aerobic abilities off all athletes, such as football and hockey players, is also becoming a popular way to view strength gains and study fatigue. Whether you use power or not, gains in strength are made the same way. Power makes a nice tool to use when training but it will not help you log that extra mile or extra hour. Only your dedication will determine how strong of an athlete you can be.

Mike Schultz CSCS