Cycling what is vam

You can also use this to control how hard you go on your own easy days. Just like power or heart rate, you can do intervals on a known climb or use a well-tested threshold VAM to set a goal VAM for your intervals. Ideally, this will be 20—60 minutes for threshold, but you can also do the same thing on a shorter local climb. This is a great way to track your performance in a workout and compare to previous workouts.

Add a little bit to your goal interval VAM each workout and watch your fitness improve. Another workout is to ride just over and just under your goal VAM. Do some research and play with your device to see if you already have this powerful metric strapped to your handlebar waiting to boost your next interval session.

Peter is a cycling coach and registered kinesiologist from Ontario, Canada. A one-mile climb is highlighted. Even though I tried to beat my previous performance, my VAM was 13 meters lower. My legs weren't as fresh on the second attempt. In addition to post-workout analysis, it's helpful monitor your VAM as you ride as well. It's also common for cycling apps to feature VAM.

Plus, it's applied to your entire workout history. It's common for cyclists to disregard the utility of VAM when they have a power meter on their bike. Power meters can revolutionize the way you ride, but they're not impervious to error. VAM is often used by cyclists who don't yet own a power meter as a surrogate for training and racing on climbs. Should your power meter fail completely, or provide numbers that seem incorrect, you can use VAM as a fallback metric to help get you up hills efficiently and competitively.

Because power is based on the weight of the individual rider, it can't be properly used as a shared target for a group or a team ascending a hill. Things to bear in mind These, more than any other values on VeloViewer, are highly dependant on the elevation data being correct. Follow the instructions at the top of the segment list page to find out how to discover and sort out any of your segments with bad elevation data. The longer the climb the more accurate the values. Images: mavic. Welcome to the VeloViewer blog!

Here are the Strava stats for a recent climbing session. It's always our last climb of the day, so we're a little fatigued but it gives us a good indicator of our fitness.

Power was watts, weight was 74 kilos. Which gives 3. Ferrari, reckons that you can multiply the threshold power to weight ratio by and get a pretty good approximation of a riders VAM. Multiply 3. I must of had a head wind! Pantani, when climbing Alpe D'Huez in 37 minutes produced a VAM of , a remarkable number at the end of a huge Tour stage, but not wholly beyond the bounds of credibility.

Santiago Perez however, did stretch the realms of belief when he climbed the last 6. That's right two thousand and sixty seven! This was on the 25th September. So these results were as impressive as they were near the far reaches of what may have been possible. Three days later Perez achieved the impossible. Now, after his subsequent disqualification, we know why and how.

What to do, what to do? Chase, burn energy by holding the gap, leave him out to fry or say goodbye to the stage? Ferrari, according to the myth walking in the woods at the time, was passed all of the info by Bruyneel, a quick mental calculation and the instruction to "let him hang" came back.

The "Postals" sat up, kept their powder dry and Pantani cracked and came back to them. On the figures they had, his VAM even chemically enhanced was unsustainable.

That's what Armstrong insists insisted he was paying for; insight, advice and training plans. Now, we know better Floyd Landis' epic Stage 17 ride from the Tour.

Was it testosterone fuelled or do the numbers stack up. For the 5 hour 23 minute stage, Landis averaged a solo inspired watts. In April I "competed" in the Danguillaume Sportive. I took 5 hours 24 minutes and, if you remember, I blew my nuts off with 20 miles to go. But I still managed to average watts. So watts for a pro is, to be honest, quite believable.

Especially when Jens Voigt, whom we never doubt, clocked up over watts for his Stage 3 breakaway with companions in the same Tour. As a reference, the Tour mountain stages were run off at an average watts while the Tour saw average mountain watts. If you've ever struggled to get just 10 watts added to your climbing power, you'll know how hard this is!

Landis scaled five climbs that day.