Awesome Training Tool: Quadrant Analysis

Hunter Allen did a great job explaining Quadrant Analysis in WKO+/TrainingPeaks.  Never really understood it, but he finally 'dumbed' it down.  Now I can see why it would be such a great training tool.  You can see the posts here:  Part1.  Part2.  Part3.  I'll summarize.

If you're not familiar with the quadrant, take a look at the image below.  If you want the nerdy details regarding the X,Y axis, you'll need to read his book.  Note the different quadrants, this is the information you are looking for.

This particular athlete spent most of the crit in QIV, meaning low force, fast pedaling.  The majority of the remaining time spent in QI, high force, fast pedaling.  Why or how is this type of information useful?  See the other screen shot below:



The quadrant below compares the intensity of a group (yellow) with a race (red).



The race required more time in QI, so this group ride was not adequate training for this particular race.  Almost not time was spent in QI or QII during the group ride.  Yet during the race, the majority of time was spent in QI and QII.  This athlete needs to adjust the training to match the requirements of the race.  See the screen shot below.

In this screen shot, we are comparing a 'micro-burst' workout (yellow) and a crit race (red).  A 'micro-burst' workout is 15 seconds at 150% of FTP (on) and 15 seconds at 50% of FTP (off).  Do 3-6 sets.  As this analysis shows, both the training 'on' time and the race were spent in QI.  Thus the workout was effective for a crit race.  The only issue is the 'off' time.  The training dropped into QIII, which is the basic 'bagel run' force and cadence.  The crit race however, spent the off time in QIV.  Thus the athlete will need to adjust the intensity of his 'off' time if he want's to have a really effective workout.



WKO+ and Training Peaks makes it easy to compare training data and race data in a quadrant.  I think one could see how valuable this type of feedback is.  The downside,is that for mountain bike racing, I don't have a powermeter.  I will not be able to accurately alter my training to match race intensity.  If I could find somebody who does use a power meter on their mountain bike, then that information could prove to be useful.

For triathlons, I do use a power meter so I've already taken a look at my race performance and my training performance.  Even on my hardest workouts, my yellow and red dots seemed to be complete opposites.  Thus, not very effective training.  Now I can adjust accordingly.