bubba 02 said:
Ok, I have tried to dig this article up on the internet for a cut and paste, but no luck. It was written in this month's Road magazine by Coach Scott Saifer, M.S.P. He states the following:
"It is dangerous to make ever-higher average speeds or powers the measure of the quality of rides. These are good markers of the effects of the previous few weeks of training, but not of the quality of the ride just completed. If average speed with the same effort on the same course from month to month, the training is working. The danger comes from riding hard on a given day to get a new record to show that training is working. Using average speed or power as an indicator of quality encourages ignoring perceived effort to get a number. This is an error because perceived effort is the one thing no rider should ever ignore in racing or training. For riders who like to mark their progress with numbers, I suggest a different variable; efficiency as measured by power versus heart rate on similar rides. If training is working, a plot of daily average watts divided by average heart rate on similar types of rides should show a gradual upward trend. Any day the new point comes out below the trend line, there is a problem in need of correction. The rider is tired, dehydrated, under fed, injured, poorly fitted on the bike or doing something else wrong that needs correction. Good training and recovery behaviors yeild efficiency plots that rise steadily and performance that rises along with those plots. Any day that the plot is above the trend line, one has done good quality training. Any day that one has done other then the recovery ride with the efficiency below the trend line, one has done junk miles (remember that for the plot to be meaningful it has to compare with similar rides: spinning endurance rides with spinning endurance rides and TT intervals with TT intervals for instance)."
Sorry for the lengthy article, what is your opinions?
Firstly, what's written (as shown above) is a bit confusing.
I get what he means about not trying to chase PB power all the time since that is not what training is all about. I also get the bit about learning to listen to your body and look for the signs of fatigue beyond that caused by an appropriate training load.
That really should have been all that needed saying (or expanding on).
But then he talks about getting number focussed riders to focus on Power:HR ratios (when really they should simply understand the basics of training). And then what? Let's say the number suggests a ride was junk miles. What now?
Problem with using HR as part of that assessment, you still don't know the reason for the elevation (or in some cases the depression) in HR. Hence, you are none the wiser about why it was considered "junk" nor what to do about it (indeed whether it actually matters in the first place).
It all sounds more complicated than it needs be.
You go out to do a workout and you can either do the
target watts or you can't (and the target generally isn't a PB for the target duration, typically it is a fractional range of that). If you can't do the watts, you cool down and go home/get off trainer, you're tired (for whatever reason) and need some recovery. Some days training seems harder than others. So what? Some races seem harder than others.
However just because my HR might be elevated on a particular day doesn't mean my training was bad or junk. It just means my HR was elevated on that day. No more, no less. If I was still capable of doing the prescribed work, what's the problem?
The only junk training is that which is inappropriate to attaining the short, medium and long terms goals.