- [James] Chris and I have been given
access to speak to two of the best trainers
at (speaks foreign language).
And in this video, we are going to be diving deep
into the details of how training has changed over the years.
- Yeah, training has changed a lot.
Where they used to train with only heart rate monitors,
back 20 years ago, then they started to
use power metres as a training tool
to quantify their training intensity.
From then, there has been a revolution,
so everybody from under-22, since they're under-22 rider,
until all professional cyclists,
they now use, they now train with the power metre.
- Yeah, if they see that they're improving,
if they see that, that this work,
then it's gonna be really good for the future,
for sure that they're gonna weigh the,
they're gonna find a way to enjoy, you know,
and I think, yeah, to have fun on the bike is just
really really important for everybody, I will say.
And we have to, as a coach, yeah it's,
everybody's different, everybody's individual,
and we have to find a way for different riders to enjoy.
Some people can enjoy
sharing the training with another teammate,
some people can enjoy I don't know.
If you plan all the training in different scenarios,
or I don't know, can be totally different.
But I think that to have fun on the bike is really,
is really important part of this sport.
- And do you set them certain, certain powers to sit in,
or certain zones that they can sit in?
On say, a hard ride, they would sit set it zone five,
or an easy ride, zone one?
- That is the biggest advantage as to heart rate monitoring,
and this with power metres you can
set up a lot of more training zones.
Like we have more than 10 training zones to train in.
Whereas in heart rates, a professional cyclist has
five or six heart rate zones,
but in power, with the power metre,
you can design more training zones.
Why can you define more?
So if you want to do shortened routes,
like less than one minute,
then there are a lot of possibilities,
like 20/40s, 30/30s, 15/30s,
or everything less than one minute.
You cannot describe, or prescribe, this training form,
in terms of heart rates.
You need to use power.
- Concrete numbers.
Because on this shortened route,
there's a delay in your heart rate,
so when you do a net force of
lets say five four-minute blocks,
your heart rate goes up slowly,
but at the end of the block, you're still,
your heart rate is still going up and up and up.
With the power metre, or with power,
you know exactly from second one
which power or which intensity you are riding.
- And we were just chatting earlier,
and you were saying when you go out scouting for new riders,
something you look at is power.
So you kinda say to the teams,
like how does that go about?
How does scouting riders and looking at power,
how does that work?
- Yeah, we set up a power profile for every rider.
All riders in our team, they have a performance ID,
like McDonald's.
There's this passport,
they can see their five-seconds value,
10 seconds, 20, 30, one minute, two minutes,
five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes,
30 minutes, all in power.
And then we benchmark all this data
with the WorldTour best numbers.
And then you can set up a power profile.
- Oh okay, that's really interesting.
- So within the team, yes,
we have this performance ID, this passport,
but also for scouting of our new riders,
we ask them, or we ask the other managers,
their credentials for the software they are using.
So everybody loads up his training files into
for example TrainingPeaks or Today's Plan.
- Everyday without fail.
- Everyday, their trainings are online.
- I was terrible at uploading mine. (laughs)
- Yeah, yeah some, some.
- I don't think so it has changed a lot.
I think 20 years or 30 years ago
people were training really really well,
and today people is training really well.
So I think what it has changed is that
now we can monitor our own, we can control everything.
So I think that's really good part of
the coaching or training.
But at least in my experience,
I can't feel that training has changed all a lot.
- But now for this scouting,
I login in their TrainingPeaks account,
and I set up a performance ID, or a power profile for them,
which I then benchmark with the best WorldTour numbers,
and then we see of course at race results as well.
- So is power more important than results?
- For me, power is more important than results
when you talk for older under-23 riders,
or riders who don't have experience on a WorldTour level.
If you are scouting a rider who has already,
who has rode a lot on pro continental level,
and you want them to ride in a WorldTour team,
the numbers, power, the power of the--
- [James] It's important.
- [Wim] Yeah it is important, yeah.
- Do you have one favourite bit of advice that you'd offer to
a young rider, you know, 17 to 22,
that's maybe hoping to become competitive?
What would you advise them to do?
- Yeah maybe, this is a really important age range,
because a lot of people ask me,
I've got a son who is doing cycling, and what he should do?
And I always say, enjoy, he has to enjoy.
He doesn't need to, I don't know,
to do really strict training programme,
or I don't know, follow really strict advices or,
just share the training with teammates.
Just enjoy, just I don't know.
Then it's time to be serious,
and time to try to develop and improve.
But I think from 17 to 22, 23 or so
is really important part of the cyclist's careers
where they have to at least know
if they want to be professional riders or not.
- [James] So we hope you've enjoyed this video,
and you found it as interesting as we have.
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