At Track Nationals Bike NZ ran a coaching session for High Performance Coaches and Lead Coaches (coaches of Carded riders). It featured a short talk by Craig Palmer on the use of SRM to monitor racing and training. The main highlight was two days of Simon Jones who had lead the British team to countless World titles and was the lead coach to Bradley Wiggins leading into his Gold Medal in Athens riding the individual pursuit.

Craig Palmer is the lead coach to Alison Shanks who broke the NZ record at Nationals for 3000m. He will lead the data analysis of SRM power measuring cranks for Bike NZ. His main points were...

*Power is the ultimate measure of intensity
*They allow one to determine the effect of different environments. The ILT velodrome can vary greatly depending on the weather.
*Simon Jones added the effect of other riders on the track leading to faster times and the need for empty tracks to carry out effective tests.
*Both Simon and Craig stressed that SRM was the Gold standard of power measurement and that the SRM needed to be calibrated regularly (which Craig can do in Otago btw).

Simon Jones then took over...

*At the start of his coaching he acted more as a manager and number cruncher as he didn't have much coaching experience and hadn't been a elite rider.
*He made his pitch for Lottery funding based on there being 10 track gold medals as opposed to 4 road (of which the RR is a lottery) and 2 BMX golds and 2 MTB. And that it was easier to control the training and plan outcomes from track racing.
*The best plans got the biggest funding
*This didn't go down too well with the British establishment who didn't care for track racing.
*He established standards for riders to meet to be part of the team and for riders who wanted to succeed at the highest level.
*Not just power. He gave the example of Roger Hammond who produces very little power but won 15 Pro Tour races last year.
*He stressed the 3 main factors were Desire, Commitment and Ability.
*As Wiggins lead coach he gave plenty of examples of why the guy is so successful.
--Has a huge passion for the sport
--Has an amazing recollection of cycling details
--In the final against Magee didn't even realise he had won till the end.
--Was too focused on his own race.
--Did 13 weeks of pursuit specific training for Athens.
--8-10 hours a week of riding.
--Was able to ride the Tour de France on 8-10 hrs a week of training.
--Led the culture of success amongst the enduros
--As Junior World IP Champ had a very low max min power (420watts)
--Simon advised him to target 570watts for Athens.
--We watched videos of him missing the target and hitting the bike in frustration.
--He plans to break Boardmans record at Beijing.
--This will require a max min power of 590watts
--Emailed Simon Jones every day
--Simon would have regular meetings while he raced for Cofidis
--Wiggins would lose fitness doing the Pro Tour classics
--Did pursuit training in road racing doing 2km attacks off the front.
--Zone 3 rides for Wiggins = 350watts
--Typical track session
----Progressive warm up
----Rolling 3km effort
----Rolling 2km effort
----Team Pursuit drills for tolerance and speed
----2 X Standing 3km efforts
*Like Wiggins with the enduros Chris Hoy led the culture for the sprinters.
*Said Hoy was mad on the details of cycling
*Jones set commitment expectations for the team.
*Wasn't questioning commitment just broadening horizons
*Set essays and questions for the riders to improve their knowledge
*Suggested setting big goals as small ones were not motivation for change.
*Suggested coaches never want success more than their riders.
*Analysed the Teams Pursuit to amazing detail.
--Timing pursuit changes
----Steve Cummings 5 sec change
----Luke Roberts 3 sec change
--Had people video the rides then overlay with SRM and speed data
--Riders could see the cost of bad or slow changes
--A small gap following the wheel had a huge cost.
--Made it easy to sell riders on improving technique
*Training for pursuit
--Event is 98% aerobic
--Wiggins would start at 1200 watts
--Lactate tolerance is required for the last kilometre
--No training is done below the lactate threshold
--Event is 4km not 4 hours
--Rider do lots of zone 3 base rides (80% of max HR)
--Mostly 1-2 hours, occasionally 3, very rarely up to 4 hours
--Brits did no low cadence training or weights.
--No high freq training.
----Stressed power delivery at higher cadences.
----No point in high cadence without race level power.
--Never takes riders to limit in training
--Favours little and often track training
--Very little motorpacing on the track
--Some motorpacing on the road
--Suggested Bartko (2000 IP champ) was doing too much madison racing to do good IPs.
--Does a 7 day rest block after major events.
--Mixs blocks of tempo training with track efforts all year round.
----Helps to have a indoor track to do this
*Stressed that aerodynamics offer huge gains for no training
*With regards to the Madison he stressed it was hard to develop a recipe for success but pointed out that the same people kept winning this event.
--Used a very short warm up for Madison as riders tend to overeat (10mins)
--Suggested the Dutch do too much motorpacing for Madison
--British use either 48X14 or 52X15 gear at International events.
--When coaching juniors they would split riders into groups to use different tactics.
----Ride with group
----Ride from back
----Ride at front half
----Attack *Teams Pursuit
--Man 2 is key rider
--Lots of lactate tolerance (5min of 20s on 10s off)
--All training is done on aero bars
--Light bikes can be very twitchy
--Lots of race day drills
--8 week taper to big events
--20min warm up
----3min easy
----8min progressive to anaerobic threshold
----2min easy
----3 X 10sec efforts
----Exactly 10mins easy to event start
--Test for National Team
----Flying Kilo under 60sec
----Standing 3000m in 3.25
--Changed from 5000m tempo efforts
----Lower power = non specific
----Changed to 2min on 2min off teams efforts
--Over gear work if needed was at most one sprocket higher or 2 chainrings
*No altitude training
*Sprinters train best in fast environments
--Aim for maximum technical load
*Boardman did all his training on 108" gear and double discs.
*Always chasing new peaks in training
--Peak power
--Peak cadence
--Peak max min power
*No sub max drills
*Stressed the psychological management of the rider was the most important factor
--Pendalton was very high maintenance
*Sprinting
--Juniors did 7-10 day camps in School holidays covering all aspects of sprinting
--Queally was the first to shift from old school to highly neural training
--Queally also did few weights after 2000
--High cost of sprint programme is getting adequate track time.
*Funding for UK cycling will go after 2012 ever worse than it did for Aussie after 2000.