Interesting event with the team Sunday - 1km on a CompuTrainer to get your average power for 1 minute, then onto a scale to determine watts/kg. The bottom line - 418 watts, 214 pounds/97 kg, 4.3 watts/kg, 38th of 39 Greyhounds.
The top Greyhound was at 8.5 watts/kg - to get there at my current weight I'd have to average 827 watts, just under 2x my output. Not likely. Or drop my weight to 108 lbs. That one, I'm willing to say is impossible. I probably haven't weighed 108 pounds since I was about 10 - let's just say as a kid I shopped in the extra-Husky section at Sears and Roebucks...
So, what's realistic for me? I know I can get to 185-190 pounds, I was there the spring before I broke my collarbone, and that was my racing weight when I was racing karts. With no change to power output, that's 4.8 to 5.0 w/kg. 11% to 16% improvement. I can also get stronger, maybe 10%, I know from weight training that I'm down by at least that much from a couple of years ago. Assuming that translates directly to power output, that puts me at 460 watts, 5.3 to 5.6 w/kg.
Another area to work on is endurance. The CompuTrainer output shows my max power was around 10 seconds into the trial, max average was at about 15 seconds. After that it was all downhill for the next 45 seconds.
The big drop between 15 and 20 second is probably a transition from sitting to standing. Or standing to sitting. I was already seeing stars at that point.
The other people doing this also seemed to peak early and trail off, but I only have my data so I can't say if my drop off was more or not. I think I'm safe saying it probably was.
So, what to do with this information? The obvious thing is to get serious about losing weight - I'm probably down 10 pounds in the last 6 months, but I need to lose about 15-20 more ASAP. People keep telling me it's harder to lose weight as you get older - I don't know about that. Your metabolism slows down a bit so it's probably easier to gain weight if you don't adjust your eating and activity to match, but weight loss is always more calories out than in. Not being able to lose weight as you age just sounds like an easy out. I know how to do it, I just need to step up my game.
Strength training and yoga are obvious, too. Maybe yoga isn't as obvious, but more flexibility will help me get more power to the pedals, especially on my right side.
Intervals should help the short term power output. I've never been a great sprinter, but I can do better.
And an electronics project - my old Tacx CycleForce trainer has everything it needs to be a discount CompuTrainer except a brain - 7 resistance levels and a published table of power vs mph for each level. Replace the manual level selection lever with a stepper; add speed and cadence pickups (multiple points/revolution to improve accuracy; Polar receiver for HRM strap; add an Arduino to handle sensor input and data output to a PC; some PC software to handle display, analysis, programmed training sessions - done! Not 100% accurate for watts, but consistent so you could chart your progress anyway. Probably less than $100 in hardware (big costs are the Polar receiver and stepper motor from SparkFun). Certainly less than the $1600 or so that a CompuTrainers goes for. Useful for my teammates, a great Instructable, and an overall interesting project. And a bleed over to my other blog, Black Dog Blog.
Stay tuned....
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