What wins in almost all endurance events lasting longer than 20 seconds is the ability to sustain the highest percentage of your Absolute Power Output the longest! (APO)
You do this without thinking when you are searching for the perfect gear (Maximum Sustainable Power) on a climb or the flats.
·Power= Force x Velocity. You have to understand this concept!!
·Strength is your ability to generate a force. This is different than power.
Add increased velocity and you have more Power!
Increasing you strength takes mobility, stability and improved force production.
Increasing Velocity is a product of training in high speed low resistance exercises. Plyos, Olympic lifts, walking explosive lunges. These are NOT strength exercises they have velocity and are typically about 30 to 40 percent of your max strength!!
Step 1 in the book: Self-Assessment
Step 2 Work on any mobility, stability, or biomechanical issues.
Step 3 Work on the force production or strength in the basic lifts
Step 4 Work on establishing your Absolute Power Output, (APO)
Step 5 Start the Maximum Sustained Power workouts. In the book this is exampled with an explosive walking lunge for one minute.
Step 6 Continue to improve all of the above, but continue to add more time to the MSP workouts. I have cyclists doing the MSP efforts for over 7 mins in duration! You start with one min and then keep adding more time as long as you can keep up the speed in the movement.
Your body makes and adaptation ( change) in being able to hold a higher percentage of your APO longer because the MSP workouts are asking the body to hold APO for long durations of time. The rest between the short mini sets allows you to train close to your APO much longer than traditional training methods for power that do all the reps at once.
This type of training focuses on what you need to go faster longer. Power and Maximum Sustainable Power. This is how you win a bike race!