Wattbike Training

That's a bit scary, you'd hope they'd at least be able to advise! Ho hum!!

Had to chuckle at "Downward Spiral" - I've not used the Sufferfest, oh lols!

You'll be pacing Sir Brad up a Col in no time.

I'm going to cover the basics of power training as if you understand you'll benefit in your approach to what you are doing. There's not too much difference between power and Heart rate work outs. Power adds the benefit that, as your heart is a muscle, it can improve, or be suppressed. Depending on your previous work outs, so you can be working out hard and not move get your heart rate beyond 159 bpm, or your heart rate races and it seems higher than usual. But power is the single determinate if your work, whatever happens to your heart.
That all said, if your training and goals remain the same your heart rate may not fluctuate all that much. The trick is that to maximise your results you need to create work overload and with periodisation you are more likely to put strains on your heart which lead to changes in your HR.
"Power training" is not really any different to HR training, just a different emphasis on the figures. If you are not able to implement a global training plan then using the Watt Bike won't make an appreciable difference. But it is certainly good for smoothing the pedal stroke.
As Mooleur says, interval training is the way to go. Get the heart rate up and down. But building your base is key.

TP often post up power profiles from pro's btw! Their blog/news articles are pretty awesome for that sort of stuff.

Although sometimes it makes me want to cry.

Dean Downing posts his power on strava when he uploads which is pretty cool too

Ahahah I know what you mean about gym staff! Yeah don't see why that wouldn't work though (with the USB and free software) - I'm not sure how in depth the archival data is from the sessions but I know you can export the data into spreadsheets and the like using their software, I'd imagine if they have those sorts of figures the session is recorded fully. Though it might even be worth asking WB on that one!

Good shout on the saddle, not sure if they just started shipping those type anyway as I think there was a lot of sore bums when they first came out!

You should be able to plop your own pedals on there like a normal bike, I used to bring my looks along to sessions back in London - as far as I'm aware it should just be an allen like a normal set of cranks, I guess again it's just a case of making sure with the staff that it's OK to do that, can't see why it'd be a problem though

You can grab session data if your gym have the bikes hooked up to software (you should be able to request this if they don't already, as a lot of folks will more than likely want to use their session data regularly) - I'm not sure about using the data for other apps like Garmin Connect but you can import the file to Training Peaks at least; http://wattbike.com/uk/wattbike/training_peaks

BUT I think you need to be under a coach or premium (don't buy premium it's a rip off) edition of TP. Might be worth asking your Gym guys if they have a coach edition training peaks that you can register under.

If you can't get the session data into your preferred software platform I would just make sure you note down all of the session information, grab things like average power, length of intervals, you can then type them in manually to your application of choice - not ideal but at least you'll have some of the numbers.

On testing, I only do one every 6 weeks and thats between 12 and 20 hours of training a week (though I usually use my 10mile timetrials as one so thats once a week normally) - unless you're hammering it, don't worry about Friels advice to do every month, that's just crazy talk

One note of warning, the stock saddles that WB come with are POO, maybe coax your gym into getting their "sport" version for one of them for the more serious athletes

Noelieboy is spot on - training with power is largely meaningless till you have worked out an FTP figure. Theres several different ways to go about this, the procedure Noelieboy shows is about right- normally you take 0.95 x average power (95%) for the 20 minute test segment to get your FTP number. This number dictates any power based training plan you go for. This is what is commonly called the "20 minute test". There are some variations like the 2x10min test, but I think the 20 min gives a good balance between easy to do and accuracy.

FTP is basically just a measure of the maximum power your body can sustain for a 1hr period. The most accurate measure would in theory be a 1 hr FTP test, but for many reasons this doesn't actually work that accurately. Your body will not perform the same as it will on a race day, you simply can't push as hard in a test environment, no adrenaline etc. The 20 min/2x10 try to compensate a little for this. The FTP number is the baseline for training plans.

You'll ideally want to redo the test every 6 to 8 weeks, depending on how often you train. The 20 minute test should be ridden flat out at a time trial pace, but don't go out so hard that you can't sustain the pace. If you've never done one before, I'd recommend doing a test, then another one a week later. On the second run you'll have a much clearer picture of how to pace yourself. In my experience its rare for someone not to push too hard at the beginning of a test the first time, ruining the results.

Good questions!!

By the short intervals I mean the more high intensity stuff, think of it like things like doing a climb, recovering, then doing another. Or sprint for a sign, recover, sprint for the next one (to put it into real world examples!). Friel covers these different excersises quite well but you might wanna also check out the likes of Cycling Weekly (or BC) and also Cycling Tips (they're awesome!) for articles on more real world advise on training, you can then use those examples and join those up with the examples Friel gives.

Doing the short, high intensity low recovery intervals gives your muscles a chance to churn up a whole ton of lactic, increasing your ability to do these and then recover and then restart them can help your strength no end - as climbing and timetrialling, while usually is a long continuous exercise, actually takes in more of the top top end stuff than we realise. The body needs to learn to be able to go into the red, then futher into it, then back into red etc as much as possible without fatiguing. I find my best hillclimbs are done when I alternate my threshold, sweet spot (the "easy" bit just below threshold) and vo2max (the bit that you can only do until your lungs exploe - Friel covers this terminology) - acutally using sweetspot as recovery. None of that probably makes sense right now, but it will!

I'd also suggest Friels training bible, or at least the first bit, as if you've not been training with power there will be some terminology that Training With Power covers that might be a bit whooooooaa there cowboy, the Training Bible outlines the very basics of the techie stuff from an early point. I think you can get the first few chapters on PDF, and if you've a kindle or e-reader the bibles on Amazon (or at least was) very cheap.

You didn't used to be able to use the Wattbike stuff with normal garmins etc but they've recently changed that; http://wattbike.com/uk/blog/post/wattbike_connects_to_your_favourite_onl...

This means you'll need a Garmin or other compatible ANT+ device, if you've an ANT+ heart rate monitor this is always handy, as if you train with power you want to track your health and fitness along side it - HR is a good way of monitoring this.

The new Garmin Connect software (online) is really good if you don't want to use training peaks, but the algorithms that TP uses work really well for most athletes.

I'd ask the staff at the gym for some guidance on the WB's too - they're there to help and I'd imagine they have been given at least a bit of training, usually WB do make sure people who provide them as a service can advise clients to certain degree. My coach, for example, runs a WB studio and the WB guys regularly visit him to make sure he's advising his clients properly.

Hope that helps, sorry if it's a bit gobbledygook!!

Also (sorry!!) what gym are you at? Most gyms that buy direct thru Wattbike have to do a spot of training on them, so it's worth asking the staff their too, they may be able to provide some initial guidance though I'm not sure on the depth of their training sessions.

If all else fails, I'm sure if you email the guys at wattbike they might be able to help with training direction (they're lovely people).

Get hold of Joe Friels training bible, everything you need to know about training with power (he's literally a genius, most coaches base a lot of their work on his research). Also check out his blog; http://www.joefrielsblog.com/ - hes got loads of articles on training with power. The book itself explains a lot on how to make that transition between training by HR and training with power.

Try out the free version of Training Peaks too, that does a lot of "the maths" so you can start to figure out what your power zones are, so you can then translate that to specific workouts.

For TT stuff I do tons of tempo & higher zone workouts, like 10 min intervals at threshold, bit of rest then back in, but it's really making sure you mix it all, as you need to combine these long efforts with stuff that's gonna improve your bodies lactic threshold.

For the "peanut/sausage" thing on the wattbikes I always found doing short, high cadence spinny intervals a big help, where you really have to focus on keeping a smooth circle to maintain a good rhythm. When you go back to a "nomal" cadence, all that practice filters down.

Can't recommend Friel for training guides with power though, the man is brilliant.