HyperPower Protocol -- sesssion 2 analysis

HyperPower Protocol -- sesssion 2 analysis - The Cycling Network

Per the previous post, I would like to remind you that a thorough analysis of our week-day sessions is perhaps not as advantageous as the analysis of the three Power Profile Tests (PPT) that the athletes perform before we start the HyperPower Protocol (HPP) to establish a baseline of their fitness, at the half-way point to determine how they are reacting to the HPP and at the end of the protocol to determine fitness gains from this 6-week program.

By keeping the PPT the same, we can use performance in it to determine the effectiveness of the HPP for this sample of athletes. By keeping it the same, I mean to try and duplicate as much of the physiological and environment variables present during the times they performed the first PPT....within reason.
Having said all of this, in this post I will walk through some of the basic things I do when I look at a power file from a HPP session. Some of these were covered in a previous post and you should refer to it for reference. And CyclingPeaks does a fine job of introducing you to the basic elements of power-file analysis here.

For this post, I will look at Mike Ash's file from our second HPP session on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at B&L Bike and Sport in Solana Beach.

After bringing up Mike's file for the session, the first thing I do is to look at the Summary of the workout either in the journal or graph view of Mike's file.


I am interested in a few numbers from this data by doing down the list:

1. The duration of the workout is useful, adding further context into how hard this ride was for Mike when combined with the other data such as energy expenditure (presented in KJs of work) and the Training Stress Score (TSS) and Intensity Factors. I invite you to visit CyclinePeaks to learn more about what goes into and how TSS, IF and Normalized Power are calculated and why they are useful and more about TSS and IF below. But for now, I just want to see how long Mike rode, in this case 90 minutes total time.

2. Next is the measure of the real work Mike performed during this ride. I say real work because a power meter measures actual force applied to propelling a rider forward, which is one of its advantages over other meters such as heart rate monitors that measure physiological changes, in this case to your heart and other body parts attached to it: where a heart rate monitor measures changes to your heart and power meter also measures how much work you are doing to move forward. With a heart rate monitor you can fool your coach if you, for example, ride at 10mph and hold your breath so that your HR goes up. With a power meter, no such luck! We, coaches, love power meters!!! In Mike's case, we can say (for simplicity sake) that he performed a 827kj ride.

For more advanced riders, I often prescribe a work ride followed by specific intervals once that work has been performed. Such as: go on a long group ride to burn 3,000kj then do 3X10min intervals at 90% of your LT with 10min recovery in between. For Mike, averaging his number to about 415kj/hr, we can determine that overall this ride appears to be moderately paced. In other words, if the analysis were to stop right here (90min ride and 827kj of work), I would think Mike was out on a moderately paced endurance ride with his friends talking pretty much the entire time. However, the analysis is not yet done and we press on.

3. Next are the TSS and IF scores briefly mentioned in #1 above. If you want to geek about TSS, IF, Performance Management and more, feel free to visit this document written by Andy Coggan, Ph.D. But for the rest of us, to put it briefly, TSS represents a calculated number that takes into account the duration and intensity of a workout to arrive at one, single score of the overall training load and physiological stress created by that session. For example, a TSS score of 100 with an IF of 1.0, correlates with one hour of effort at your lactate threshold, or a one hour honest-effort Time Trial!

This is where it starts to get interesting. For Mike, a TSS score of about 130 and IF of 0.93 means that he was not putting around and that he actually did some good work during this workout. This TSS score means that he may feel some residue fatigue in his legs the day after, which is valuable information in planning the rest of his rides for the week and the IF score tells me that he kept the effort level honest. Now I want to discern the quality of work that Mike has actually done and to answer this question I refer to the rest of the numbers.

4. I look at Mike’s Normalized Power next and just make a note of it, again in context with the other numbers. His normalized power of 215 watts for this ride is close to the Functional Threshold Power that we assumed for Mike, 250 watts, even though we know from prior lab work that his true Lactate Threshold is somewhere around 300 depending on the season. We purposefully underestimated FTP numbers for all athletes for the first few weeks so that we would get to know one another better and give them the opportunity to ease into the HPP. Okay, so with this number I now know that Mike for sure did not putt around during this workout and that perhaps he performed intense bouts of work followed by intense bouts of recovery, which is right in line with one of the primary goals of HPP: lots of short burst intensity and recovery.

5. I also look at the total distance. In this case, Mike covered the equivalent of 20 miles in about two hours. This is an honest ride on the road, especially given all the easy recovery spinning we did! Good to know…again, in context with the other data.

6. Last, I also look at average, min and max numbers for power and heart rate, although I do not give too much weight to these numbers because there is a ceiling to the max power Mike puts out under the controlled intervals of the HPP. I also look at his heart rate briefly to gauge what the physiological cost on his body was like during the workout…a higher than normal HR means that he was really working and that perhaps he was tired or fighting something. This is why it is a good idea to know and track your morning heart rate frequently…a significant swing up could mean you are fighting something and should adjust your training accordingly. In Mike’s case, I am interested in the max watts number in relation to the normalized and average power. The greater this gap, the better I like it in regards to the HPP. If his were an actual road ride or race, his max power would be a lot higher…and I know this because I have seen him hit and hold 1500-1700 watts consistently during hard rides and races. Power and heart rate numbers are within norm and so we move on.

With all of these numbers noted and properly stored in my brain, I now turn to the graph. Again, you may want to refer to the previous blog post in which I analyzed Stan’s file.

I toggle the view the entire graph, smooth it to 10% and draw a horizontal power line across Mike's approximate FTP at about 250 watts: this line will help me visually determine how many times Mike went over his estimated zone. You may also want to toggle some of the other numbers such as speed and cadence to view a cleaner graph.


I then go back to the Stacked Graph view to dissect Mike's ride more closely, following the graphs as I remember the workout.

One of the most valuable variables in a coaching-athlete relationship is the knowledge coaches gain of their athletes through time. I have worked with Mike for a number of years now and know, pretty much, what type of athlete he is. I know, for example, that Mike is an enthusiastic, energetic guy and likes to push himself and to go above what is prescribed for him. Normally, in training, this can be advantageous...unless it backfires. And, in this session, Mike's enthusiastic and energetic to make the most of his workout backfired on him. In addition to coming to the workout a bit tired, Mike pushed himself way above his prescribed numbers as evident in this graph. The circles areas are times when Mike pushed himself, perhaps not to his limit, but enough that he paid for it later on in the workout: notice the absence of consistency in the final set of intervals, especially around an hour and 15 minutes. The highlighted section is the longest interval during the workout: 25 minutes at 150% of his FTP.


Well, believe it or not that is it! Coaching is about utilizing tools and science to combine with quite a bit of art and experience to formulate a program that will help an athlete achieve his/her goals with the least amount of effort and quickest possible time.

Having knowledge of Mike's abilities combined with this data I know that physiologically he will be a bit fatigued for the next couple of days. I also know that Mike is a bit stressed at work and that perhaps the stress will interfere with his recovery. I also know Mike to be resilient and know he will keep at it until things turn around. My coaching suggestions for Mike of the coming days are to:
1. Keep your rides relatively short and at no harder than endurance level.
2. Learn from last Wednesday's physiological tax and come to the next workout with a plan to avoid the mistakes of the previous session.
3. Learning from these mistakes will keep him from beating himself up mentally.
4. Mike spends the weekends with his family and does not get the opportunity to ride. Get in a couple of 90-120min rides over the coming two days, perhaps ride to and from work, to enjoy your weekend with your family.

I wish you success with your training and thanks for following our HyperPower Protocol.

Kam