Power Meter City

Had a great chat with Josh Matthew – owner of Power Meter City – during our weekly coaches hour. Full replay at the bottom…

Just a heads up, we had some video problems with Josh’s feed – that’s NOT actually what Josh looks like.

So what all did we discuss?

- We chatted about the different types of power meters.
- The benefits, price points, and potential drawbacks of different styles. (For the folks who hate calibrating before each ride, go with the Verve Infocrank.)
- Josh dove into a lot of the specific questions – like why to train with power. If it’s okay to use two different brands of power meters. Reliability of brands…just to name a few.

I know I really enjoyed his 3 reasons for training with power:

1. It is the best way to QUANTIFY your training stress. Power tells you exactly how much “work” you are doing over the course of a unit of time. That may be a minute, week, month, or year. So, was that actually a “rest” week, or did you do almost as much stress on your body as your “hard” week?
2. Structured Intervals – No better way to get the most out of your intervals. You know immediately if you’re in the zone you want to be, unlike heart rate which has a delayed response.
  Plus, HR can be unreliable because it will read lower when you are fresh and higher when you are fatigued. We see this all the time. (We may need to do a little coaches hour just looking at training files to dive into this stuff a little more.
3. Power can keep you honest – are your easy days are ACTUALLY easy? Remember, recovery is when the body rebuilds, adapts, and comes back STRONGER. Power meters can help keep you honest on recovery days.

Coach Dale and I added a couple other reasons of our own.

If you’re interested in a power meter, there is a LINK and 10% off DISCOUNT CODE on your dashboard as well.

Not an Arsenal member?

Try it out for a month for only $5 (it’s only $29 after that per month) and start reaping the training, performance, and sponsor discounts today.

Onward!