When I walked into my spin class today, I figured it'd be another regular class. Little did I know that I would get to ride a bike with a power meter! I did the first 45 minutes of class on a regular spin bike. Then, the spin instructor announced that the bike with the power meter had become available and invited the gym members to give it a whirl for the second half of the class. I looked around to see if anybody would take Jim up on his offer and sprinted to the other bike as soon as I could. I've taken VO2 tests and done work on a computrainer before but I'm always game for measuring my cycling strength on any computer that can give me measurement numbers.
The class was formatted as follows: 6 minutes of "flat" riding, maintaing a minumum of 90 rpms; 6 minutes of a seated climb maintaining or slightly raising your hr from your previous effort; and 6 minutes of a stand-up climb, really pushing hard in the last two minutes of the interval. After a two-minute rest, we repeated the three six-minute intervals.
During the flat portion of the ride, I averaged between 93-100 rpms. My wattage during these efforts were in the 150's & 160's and my hr was an avg. of 161. During the 2nd interval, I tried to maintain a minimum of 60 rpms and my wattage jumped to 170's & 180's. My hr went up to 163-166. During the 3rd interval, my rpm went down to the 50's and my wattage went up to the 190's-200's. Unfortunately, my dang hr became inconsistent during this 3rd off the saddle interval (i.e., the monitor would read 00 or 36). I decided to ignore the hr number and tried to increase my wattage during the final two minutes of my 3rd interval. I pushed myself into the 230's both times.
I kept an eye on my avg. wattage. When I saw that I was at 155, I became determined to finish at a minimum of 160 (although, I have no friggin' idea if 160 is even a solid number.) Still, I pushed myself and my avg. wattage was 161 by the end of the class.
I'd like to think that I might have posted better numbers were I not still dealing with this congestion in my chest. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Nonetheless, I LOVED having that monitor in front of me because it kept me motivated to maintain a certain rpm or a certain wattage.
Perhaps a wattage expert (ahem, Mike Hardy) can enlighten me with the meaning of wattage numbers and how to know where one falls on the fitness scale when they have a set of wattage numbers.
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9 comments:
whoa- i can't believe you went to a spin class this morning, after last night's workout! i am totally zonked!
Ha, you know me too well :-). Well, I'm not sure I'm an expert, but I'm an avid student at least, and willing to share what I think I know. How 'bout that?
average wattage isn't a great indicator of fitness unless you're riding consistently, and since you were doing intervals, I'd say it's of no value for this workout. So toss that one (sorry)
Sounds like you definitely push more watts with lower cadence, but I wonder if you just weren't pushing as hard on the higher cadence stuff? People are different, you may be a low-cadence type for really heavy work.
You don't mention the duration at the various intensities, I think that's the key thing.
200 watts is good for female cyclists, but over what duration? Over 1 minute, it's mediocre but over 20 minutes it's pretty good.
Wattage is also intimately tied to weight (unfortunately) so it's absolute on the flats (everyone has roughly no weight difference with no elevation change) but when you go uphill it's Watts-per-Kilogram that matter
Either way, real power measurement is fun :-)
CyclingPeaks (makers of the best power meter data analysis tool I'm aware of) has this info on where various power output readings over various durations for a person with a given weight put you relative to other folks:
http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/power411/profile.asp
At a rough guess it looks like if your interval was somewhere between 1 minute and 5 minutes long at 200W, you're somewhere around cat 4 power, which is good in a way because I think that's accurate and tells you that the measurement matches reality
The key thing isn't just to look at the number though, but to set targets and push the number higher over time. So if you get that bike again, try 1 minute at 300W, for instance. You'll be gasping, but if you can make it, that's headed up into cat 3 land for one minute efforts
Beth: I have a long way to catch up to your fitness level so I have to fit in my workouts whenever I can. ;-)
Mike: Thanks sooo much for your detailed response. I knew I could count on you to enligthen me. =)
wow, Mike! You're a good marketing tool for power meters because now you have me interested...
Sorry, I removed the last post because of various spelling/typo errors. Anyway, what I attempted to say the first time was this: I TOLD YOU YOU COULD KICK SOME ASS IN THE 4's!!!
do you wanna start logging your watts against your quad/calf/biceps data? and see if there's any correlation? since the watts seem to have 3 digit value, i advise you to start logging your body measurements to the tenth of a centimeter.
I'm not sure how often I'll be able to use the bike with the power meter. Sometime during this spring or summer, I plan on getting my VO2 and lactic acid build-up tested. Fun stuff ahead! =)
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