Speed Skills from Joe Friel

Speed Skills © 2006

by Joe Friel

Of the six racing and training abilities I discuss in my Training Bible book series, the least understood and most neglected is speed skills. Most athletes could make significant improvements in their race performances by devoting more training time to this ability. And the beauty of it is that speed skill training is easy compared with improving the other abilities (endurance, force, muscular endurance, anaerobic endurance or power).

So what are speed skills? The “skills” portion of this ability refers to being able to make the movements of the sport in a fluid and efficient manner. For example, can you pedal the bike in smooth circles or are you a masher? Do you run with a flat footstrike or do you land on your heels? When you ride technical trails can you maintain a decent speed and easily maneuver around and over obstacles? Do you waste lots of energy by creating a froth around your body while swimming or do you knife through the water effortlessly?

“Speed” refers to being able to produce skilled movements at race speed. This doesn’t necessarily mean body speed, but rather body parts speed—how fast your arms and legs move. The skill isn’t mastered until you can, for example, pedal efficiently at a high cadence. Pedaling efficiently at a low cadence is just the entrylevel when working on speed skills.

Skills are generally best learned by breaking the complex movement into smaller segments and then practicing them in isolation until it becomes habitual. This will take some time. The more complex the skill is the longer it will take to develop. Continuing with our example of pedaling a bike, one of the key skills is being able to transition the foot from upward and backward movement to forward and downward movement at the top of the stroke (“10 to 2 o’clock”). One way to separate out that critical skill is to pedal with only one leg. By doing so you will quickly see what the challenge is and soon learn to correct it at a slow cadence and in isolation from all other skills. You may also isolate in other portions of the same workout the skills of unweighting the pedal on the upstroke and transitioning to upward and backward at the bottom of the stroke.

Until you have good speed skills there is little reason to work on the advanced abilities of muscular endurance, anaerobic endurance and power. You’re simply wasting your time if you do. This would be much the same as a poorly skilled Olympic powerlifter trying to complete a cleanandjerk movement with a heavy load. Even though his strength may not change, he would be able to lift more weight if his speed skills for this movement were welldeveloped.

In the Base period of training I devote at least one workout weekly to speed skills in each sport and ask the athlete to work on them daily when developing other Base period abilities. When it comes to speed skills, frequency is key. Your skills will improve quicker if you work on them for short periods frequently. When it comes to speed skills training, a little bit every day is better than one long workout done occasionally. Do not allow yourself to get sloppy in training—ever! Do not sacrifice efficiency for velocity.

Improving speed skills means you will ultimately be more efficient. A 10 percent improvement in efficiency is as good as a 10 percent increase in aerobic capacity—and is a heck of a lot easier to achieve.

Joe Friel is the author of the Training Bible book series and the founder of Training Bible Coaching. He may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Power Meter for Christmas?

Should You Buy a Power Meter? ©

Joe Friel 2006

Should you buy a power meter? If I was your coach you’d have to. I require every triathlete and cyclist I work with to own one. Why do I do that? Because I know they will accomplish more by training with power than without. I’ve seen it happen with every athlete I’ve coached since power meters hit the market about seven years ago.

Don’t get me wrong, heart rate monitors are great training devices, also. They too are a requirement of mine. But they aren’t as important as power meters. The interesting thing is, however, that heart rate monitors are more beneficial now that there are power meters than they were before. Now there is something to compare heart rate to besides how you feel which makes the information much more valuable.

But let’s get back to why you should get a power meter. They are more valuable to the serious athlete than a lighter frame or faster wheels. Given the choice I’d recommend a power meter every time. Why? Let’s start with a basic reason—getting the intensity right for workouts. Power meters remove most of the guesswork that goes into training and racing. For example, I’ve known cyclists who when doing intervals with a heart rate monitor don’t call the work interval “started” until their heart rates reach the targeted level. With a power meter you soon learn that the interval starts as soon as the power hits the zone—which means right away. You’re not trying to train the heart solely when doing intervals or any workout, for that matter. In fact, for most workouts, peripheral systems (in the muscles) are really the key to your success. Also, how do you get the intensity right in the first minute or so of the first few intervals in a workout? Heart rate certainly doesn’t tell you anything as it is still trying to catch up. Are you going too hard or too easy? A power meter tells you precisely.

For the triathlete, using a power meter in a long race such as an Ironman is almost like cheating. When everyone else is fighting the wind, or flying down wind or guessing how hard to go when climbing, the triathlete with a powermeter is just rolling along at the prescribed power. He or she will produce the fastest possible race given the conditions.

For the road cyclist using power in a race tells you afterwards how many “matches” you have to burn in a race and how big these matches are. In a onehour criterium are you burning 18, 600700watt matches or 12, 800900watt matches? In a road race what power do you need to maintain on a long climb to make the selection? Do you get dropped after eight minutes of a twelveminute climb at 250 watts or 350 watts? This is great information for making decisions about what to do in training to prepare for the hardest races. Again, without this you are only guessing.

Power meters also provide highly accurate details about how your fitness is progressing throughout the season. I test the athletes I coach regularly using a combination of heart rate and power. Without this information I really wouldn’t know for sure if they are making progress. I’d just be guessing.

Combining the power meter with Cycling Peaks/WKO+ software (available at www.TrainingPeaks.com) produces unbelievably helpful information. This software creates several charts to track your data. The Performance Manager Chart by itself is worth the price of the software. Using it you can chart the progress of your fitness, understand your fatigue and even predict when you will come into race form. Amazing stuff for the serious rider.

I could go on describing the benefits of training with power. There are many. But perhaps the best indicator of their value for performance is the elite athletes who use them. It is unusual to find a top pro in cycling or triathlon who doesn’t use one. They were early adopters and for obvious reasons. They have a mortgage to pay and a power meter will help them do that.

Fortunately for my clients, few athletes now have power meters. That means my folks can progress quickly and soon dominate their race categories. They make me look like a great coach. So, actually, maybe you shouldn’t get one.

Joe Friel is the author of the Training Bible book series and the founder and President of Training Bible Coaching.