Justin Wagner of TeamODZ leads the “Watts up with Power?” ride each Wednesday at 6:30AM PST.
The “Watts up with Power?” ride is likely the slowest group ride you’ll find on Zwift, because it focuses on learning the basics of power based training while riding together on Zwift. Each ride is streamed live to Zwift LIVE on Facebook and focuses on teaching specific principles of power based training. Each teaching is made available for all to review afterwards.
The content taught in “Watts up with Power?” is based on the book “Training and Racing with a Power Meter” by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, PhD.
Here is the summary for Wednesday February 1st.
As these lessons progress you will be finding yourself asking questions like, “So what should I do with all of this information?” Rest assured that information overload is NOT the goal! There is a fundamental reason we teach these concepts: so you can quantify your training in order to better understand yourself and your performance.
This week’s lesson drills down on a few different data analysis techniques. Specifically Power and Cadence distribution charts are covered, discussing what specific differences should be visible in these charts between a trainer based workout and an outdoor 205 mile long race. In addition, we discuss how the power distribution chart is a good feedback mechanism to determine how well your performance on a specific workout matched up to the prescribed efforts.
The Critical Power (CP) chart is covered in detail, paying particular attention to how the critical power chart is used to develop a pacing strategy for time trial races.
Next in the lesson, we take a deep dive into using Strava segments as a way to compare hill repeats in a particular workout, or on workouts on different days, and we see how wind can be a HUGE factor in performances, even on hills.
Several other data analysis techniques are covered in the book, so be sure to grab a copy of the book and give chapter 6 a read, there is plenty of more good detail that just can’t be covered in a 15 minute lesson.
This week’s lesson was based on Chapter 6 of “Training and Racing with a Power Meter” by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, PhD, titled “Interpreting the Data”
