We head to the Porsche Human Performance Lab at Silverstone race track to get to grips with power training
Porsche is well versed in horsepower, but it’s far better known for tuning car engines than human ones. Yet tucked away in its ‘Experience Centre’ at Silverstone, where excitable car enthusiasts prepare to tear round a purpose-built race track in souped-up sports cars, you’ll find its Human Performance Lab, where clients are put through their paces aboard the resident Wattbike.
I’d been training with a Wattbike in our office garage all summer, using training zones devised from a 20-minute threshold test. It’s an effective solution, but comes up short compared to Porsche’s lab-based offering. In the home test you pedal as hard as you can for 20 minutes and subtract 5 per cent from your average wattage, which gives you an estimated Functional Threshold Power, or FTP – the power you can notionally sustain for between 45 and 60 minutes. With this figure you can work out training zones, and by riding within each zone you can work at increasing your endurance and delaying fatigue. To get true power zones, blood lactate should be directly measured, and it’s in labs like Porsche’s where it’s possible to do so. Under the watchful eye of its resident sports scientist Eliot Challifour, a former pro triathlete who coaches, among others, McLaren F1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne in his physical training, I was able to do just this.
Bu hikaye Cycling Plus dergisinin October 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Cycling Plus dergisinin October 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Air Apparent - Pollution hasn't gone away. It's still there in every lungful, even if we can't see it in the air or on the news. But there are reasons to breathe easier, thanks to pioneering projects using cycling 'citizen scientists'. Rob Ainsley took part in one...
The toxic effects of pollution have been known about for years. 'Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!' sang 1960s satirist Tom Lehrer.Over recent decades, though, pollution has dropped down our list of things to worry about, thanks to ominously capitalised concerns such as Climate Change, AI, Global Conflict, Species Collapse, etc. That doesn't, unfortunately, mean the problem has expired. Air quality often exceeds safe limits, with far-reaching and crippling effects on our health.
No limits
Not every adventure needs to be that epic, says bikepacking Scotland founder Markus Stitz
UNBOUND UNLEASHED
Josh Patterson was one of 34 starters for the inaugural edition of Unbound in 2006. Now, with more than 5,000 riders taking part in today's event, he charts the rise of the most important race in gravel
FOREST COMMISSION
Looking for a goal race in 2025 that'll stimulate the synapses and live long in the memory? You'd struggle to do better than ENID CRV in Finland
15 OF THE BEST ADVENTURES
Featuring Yorkshire, the USA, Sri Lanka and more, here are our picks of the world's greatest gravel races and routes
The stuff of dreams
Ned sings the praises of the Paris Olympics road-race course
"I rode 3,000 miles around Britain on a bamboo bike to highlight our climate crisis"
Recordbreaking cyclist and triathlete Kate Strong, 45, took to the road to raise awareness of environmental issues
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE
We venture into the hidden gem of the glorious Creuse, one of France's least populated regions
STAR TREK
New tube shapes and carbon lay-up makes the eighth generation of Trek's legendary Madone an aero and climbing bike all rolled into one
GOLD RUSH
With conflict around the world, Paris 2024 was a ray of light. Here are our highs of a mighty Olympics