EN Power Zones vs Garmins Power Zones vs Training Peaks Zones

Chris Kuebert

Trying to determine how everyone has there zones in Garmin/Training Peaks setup compared to EN's power zones.  Garmin and Training Peaks won't let me have a break in between zones where as EN's there is a break between each zone.  See below: 

For Example: EN Zone 2 - 218 - 234 Garmin Zone 2 - 70-75%, 224-238 Training Pks Zone 2 - 167-226

     EN Zone 2 - 250 - 265 Garmin Zone 3 - 80-58%, 238-253 Training Pks Zone 3 - 227-270

This is probably confusing as I am just as confused trying to get all 3 sources to match.  This is in part to Oceanside 70.3 EPIC FAIL and walk fest!  Race report to follow once I can wrap my head around everything and get over it.  If this isn't clear I can put up screen shots of all three. Thanks for the help and reading

Coach Rich

I haven't thought in terms of power zones in about 9 years. You only need to now three numbers...ok, maybe 4 numbers:

1. Your FTP -- ride at / near / around this number = get faster
2. 85% of your FTP = ABP and also generally the top end of HIM watts
3. 75% = the top end of IM watts
4. 120%+ of FTP = for Vo2 stuff. 

If you need to ride easy, recover, just ride easy. Don't need a number for that. 

That's it, 4 numbers, 3 if you call Vo2 = fookin' drag race, drill myself up this hill, etc 

TH3 FRB

I don't bother with zones in my Garmin 500 - just make sure you have your FTP set correctly. TrainingPeaks and WKO+ use Coggan zones, which is fine for quantifying your complete workouts. It just shows you where you spend your time across the physiological continuum divided into bins. So basically, EN zones are for structuring training, TP/WKO+ zones are for post-ride analysis and record keeping.

zwuba

I don't know what Garmin messes up with my PowerZones but I can set FTP and the Zone-Edges as often as I want and it's still calculating TSS completely wrong!

TP is per default using the 7-PowerZones from Coggan/Allen like they wrote in their "manifest - training and racing with power" but you can change the zones by yourself pretty easily in the settings ... and also overlapping and non-corrrelating zones are supported which is not possible in Garmin at all.

BUT what you really ultimately need to know has already been stated by Coach R!!

I'll print out a small cheat-sheat for my first 70.3 this year having the following numbers on it and stick it onto my cockpit:

Gear 1 = 261W (Goal watts -5% for slight downhills)

Gear 2 = 275W (Goal watts)

Gear 3 = 289W (Goal watts +5% for long uphills > 3')

Gear 4 = 303W (Goal watts +10% for short uphils < 2')

TH3 FRB

Set your FTP under MENU-->SETTINGS-->BIKE SETTINGS-->BIKE NAME-->POWER ZONES

The zones will calculate automatically but they have nothing to do with calculating TSS. Make sure you have your power settings set to ZERO AVG. under DATA RECORDING.