Doctor Andrew Coggan's zones comparsion with FaCT zones

[Robh]

For a bit of fun I decided on Sunday evening to compare the zones devised by Doctor Andrew Coggan based on Watts with the FaCT zones. The reason for this was some people felt the zones I've found using the LBP test were too low.

For this experiment I needed a willing subject who had already done the LBP test. A name that sprung to mind was Marky Mark as I know he likes a challenge and is interested in learning more about his body.

For people not familiar with Andrew Coggan he is the co-author of the book "Training and Racing with a Power Meter". This is the programme I followed for 7 years and nearly everyone else who has a powermeter does as well.

The zones I was interested in finding were the ones for Active Recovery, Endurance & Tempo and would require Mark to ride as hard as he could for 1 hour to find his Functional Threshold Power (FTP). Now in the real world I know most powermeter users don't ride for an hour as the test is pure torture especially when done on a turbo tariner.

What is FTP? It is the power a person can maintain for 1 hour and correlates to their power @ Lactate Threshold. Wattage Zones are based on this FTP figure using percentages.

With Mark I had 3 choices to find his FTP :-

1. Ride for an hour
2. Ride 20mins then multiply by 0.95 (used by many people to asssess FTP)
3. Ride for 40mins

Option 1 - I decided against asking Mark to do 1hr as it's very stressful.

Option 2 - decided against this method as this can overinflate the 1 hour power.

Option 3 - as a compromise I offered this option to Mark as I feit it would be very close to his 1hr FTP than the 20mins test.


Here's images of Mark's power & HR :-

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Image1-4.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Image2-5.jpg[/img]

Results from test:-
45mins - 197 watts avg/173 HR avg

Will post more later on comparison.

[Robh]

Besides Mark having to ride hard for 45mins (he felt he could go on for a bit more than 40mins) I also collected some extra data besides watts & HR.

First table - data recorded @ rest.

Second table - HR held for 3min intervals used as part of warm up.

Third table - the 45mins FTP test.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Image3-4.jpg[/img]

[Robh]

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Image4-1.jpg[/img]

[Robh]

Mark's 3min intervals plotted on FaCT software to work out the wattage for the LBP zones.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Image5.jpg[/img]

[Robh]

Conclusions :-

The results I collected on the night, the wattage figures from both methods are very similar.

The difference as Mark found out on the night, it is much easier to get the LBP figure as compared to a 60 min FTP test which can be for some a very gruelling mental test of survival and can't be easily done regularly to reassess the changing situation of a physiological system.

The true test is 60mins but Mark only did 45mins would his power at the end of test have been a bit lower?

The fundamental difference between the 2 methods is :-

Using the Coggan method pacing by watts people do not accepting the fact physiological changes inside the body will alter wattage performance.

So the dying question if Mark paces by watts on this weekends Saturday clubrun and rides in the Coggan Endurance zone will his road speed be quicker than using last weeks FaCT prescribed HR zones if conditions were the same?

[Marky Mark]

Firstly I would like to thank Rob and his trainee vampire for their time last night.

Evil was very impressed with everything that goes into a test and the effort people put into it, including the odd bead of sweat from me.

A freezing cold night soon turned into getting most of my kit off and putting the fan on to try and ride full on for 45 mins, the warm up was hard enough.

Full on is such a hard one to judge as if I did truly give it 100% I'd be dead on the floor in 10 minutes flat. So you do mentally try to work out exactly what you have in the tank, I possibly could of given it a few more minutes but my lower back started to hurt and calf's nearly cramped, but not enough to worry about.

I still have my L plates on when it comes to what all the facts and figures mean, but I'm having fun being tested and trying new stuff. Shame I missed the forum last night. But the chicken Kebab made up for it! Well earned me thinks.

One thing I did find that helped a lot while riding was the breathing technique, my breathing was far too shallow when I done the LBP test. So being Lab-Rat number 13 has helped me already, I find taking deeper breaths helps Immensely. oh and the other is that maybe and warm up and cool down would help.

[img]http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u235/ponygal1129/labrat.jpg[/img]

So what was the bottom line from the test?
Does a LBP zoning compare to the power zones? Don't have a clue, the answers are in the above.

Marky Mark

[Michelle]

So I take it you have the information from last weeks Saturday yo-yo ride Mark - ie average speed and all that jazz.

Are you going to ride in the watts training zone suggested by Andrew Coggan to see if you would ride any faster this coming Saturday?

And which watts were you using - do you have a powertap, or how are you going to measure it to make sure that the information stays the same?

[Marky Mark]

[quote="Michelle"]So I take it you have the information from last weeks Saturday yo-yo ride Mark - ie average speed and all that jazz.

Are you going to ride in the watts training zone suggested by Andrew Coggan to see if you would ride any faster this coming Saturday?

And which watts were you using - do you have a powertap, or how are you going to measure it to make sure that the information stays the same?

[Robh]

Calling Lab rat 13 you made it on the FaCT forum...

I posted your results on Juerg's forum so you better not let me down this Saturday? Only kidding...

Here's some comments from Juerg (edited slightly)...

Thanks Rob. I will add the rest of the story from the Australian research to it , followed by our case studies with carb loading and depletion to show how wattage isn't an optimal way of zone training if circumstances change ( e.g temperature & energy supply ) therefore the bodies challenge to maintain the ATP production may have to shift to a different energy source in the same wattage zone, meaning different physiological needs and different physiological reactions.

Last but not least from Marks data :
2.7 mmol lactate just by LBP HR, great confirmation of a potential shift in energy supply.
Mark's data of 9.0 + mmol lactate and over.
Zone 3 Tempo in Mr. Coggans book is 75 % - 90 % of FTP.
Mark dropped by 20 watts in the 45 min test , so potentially 25 % drop over 1 hour ( if he can maintain this intensity ) . So lets take 200 watt as FTP.
75 % = 150 watt
90 % = 180 watt Workout suggestion for time in Zone 3 1 - 4 hours.
So for 4 hours ride he can possibly ride @ 150 watts.
In his FaCT test he was pushing 150 watts by LBP. So it would be interesting to see whether Mark can maintain 150 watts on an outside ride over 4 hours and then assess where the HR is moving to . Compare later with another 4 hour ride by LBP HR and see whether he can maintain that.
Cheers Juerg

[Paul H]

Does anybody use Power Zones in ACC?

I have a power meter but do not use it for this. I find it helpful for monitoring effort, pacing, interval and turbo training.

Its always interesting to use on Club CRs and see watts happening depending on who is at the front.

[Robh]

[quote="Paul H"]Does anybody use Power Zones in ACC?

I have a power meter but do not use it for this. I find it helpful for monitoring effort, pacing, interval and turbo training.

Its always interesting to use on Club CRs and see watts happening depending on who is at the front.