How To Increase Your Power On The Bike | 3 Bike Workouts To Make You Faster

It's the beginning of a new season so you've probably already started to look at your diary and plan those goals for the upcoming months. And now, as athletes, we naturally aspire to improve and get faster and faster year on year, but how exactly can we get faster? Yes, finding more power is one sure way of shaving seconds, if not minutes, off your overall race time.

Thanks to Club La Santa for the locations used in this shoot.

So you've probably heard the terms power and watt bandied about, but what exactly is a watt? Well, it's a unit used to measure your power and power is the rate at which you put force down to your pedals.

Well, enough of the science, how can we actually find more watts?
There's a common misconception that to increase your power you need to get stronger, but that's not the only way you can improve your power.

Yeah, so power is just the amount of force that is going through your pedals, but also, to improve power, you can up your cadence. So, how many revolutions per minute that your pedals turn over. So, if you increase your cadence and hold the same force, you'll actually increase your power.

Upping your cadence is basically just a quick fix to improve your power, but if you want to improve your power in the long run, I'm afraid it does mean some hard work. And we've put together a couple of sessions that will help you improve on your own power.

So a great first session is the 40/20 drill. So that's basically 40 seconds pretty hard at about 120% of your FTP, and then you have 20 seconds real easy steady riding. And then, maybe, do that for five to 10 minutes if it's your first time trying it. And if you do feel okay after that, maybe do another set after it.

Well, we've got another session that's at a higher level of intensity, and this basically involves riding at your 100% maximum, so you don't need any FTP, you just ride hard as you can for 60 seconds and then five minutes easy. And that sounds like a lot of rest, but if you've done it properly, you'll need all of those five minutes and then repeat that six times through.

So another great way to improve power is a bit of over gearing work. So find yourself a nice, constant gradient, a little bit of an uphill drag, drop it down a few gears and really slow that cadence down. You want to hold this for about five minutes.

You want to be roughly 50-60 RPMs so that's one pedal every second. And the idea is, if you know your FTP, to be at about 90% of that. Or, if you're not sure of that, you should struggle to talk a bit like me when you're going up the hill. When you reach the top, ride easy back to the bottom. Repeat this four to six times.

Music: Epidemic Sound
Beat Them Up 1 - Jan Chmelar (1)
Beat Them Up 2 - Jan Chmelar (1)

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[osanshouo]

One of the most major improvements is to do mix twice a day workouts.Power lifting during the morning, and cycling in the afternoon, mixed with a swimming laps and later in the day bike. Swimming will really make you improve quick, throw in some power squats and a class A group ride on the weekends...Do 5 x 5s, if too hard start with 8 by 8srunning sprints are a plus

[jimholland]

Nice.... I enjoy watching you put what we should know back to the forefront👍

[mrjonnylowes]

For anyone that is interested. You can increase power just by increasing velocity (cadence) as stated in the video.

The relationship between power, force and velocity is directly proportional.

If P=FV ( Power = Force x Velocity) then it is also true to say that F=P/V

Therefore an increase in velocity will mean a decrease in force applied through the pedals to achieve the same power output.

Eg 225 Watts = 2.5Nm at 90 rpm
(225=2.5x90)

2.368Nm = 225 Watts at 95 rpm
(2.386=225/95)

237.5w = 2.5Nm x 95rpm

Spin it to win it!

[everydayhealthandtriathlon]

I'm focusing on power and speed this year in my training. Thanks for the info. This is very useful stuff.

[fatblokeonabicyle]

Mark just needs to be a permanent fixture on gtn as he's not only an inspirational athlete but actually a really cool presenter too!

[ethantoth]

Lowering body weight is a lot cheaper then lowering bike weight

[ja]

hahaha 3:26, Heather calling out Mark B. that response = priceless

[beachgal]

Can't wait to try some of these training tips!! Thanks guys!!

[PianMon]

Any plans on making GTN workouts for Zwift?

[anthonyescareno]

I always enjoy Mark's presentations.

[pauldavies]

Are 40:20s good for all distances? Sprint up to Ironman?

[SotaMaehara]

Heather firing shots at Mark on not hitting the gym xD

[brianklippel]

I ride a single speed in the hills of Nevada with 30 lb of groceries on my back, that's how I build up my legs

[markshort]

Video location...Arizona? Looks warm and wide open for miles!

[stefersonpatake]

Great tips as always. But it's hard to imagine to do this kind of trainning at that road. Too dangerous. It doesnt have even a road side. If a car breaks or something?

[bobtheog]

Crossfit, Back Squat... people just wanna swim bike and run... u need muscle for power. At least 2 times in a week introduce Crossfit and watch ur life change. Give a try

[andy-the-gardener]

true cyclists have no 'cycling season'

[liambarber]

How to increase power? Just pedal harder.

[rbakbike]

you should always try to think of who your audience is. I have been doing tri's for more than 10 years, have done IM Arizona twice. I have never heard of FTP, had to look it up. I am sure most of those watching do not have power meters and therefore have no method of knowing their FTP.

[joeyalfaro]

get high or small edible the ride will seem effortless