Insight: James Shaw’s Tour of Britain

trainSharp look at the power files for James Shaw of Lotto Soudal from two different types of stages and compare them

Insight: James Shaw’s Tour of Britain

Ever wondered how road and time trial stages differ with regards to physiology?

Well wonder no more. Here is a comparison of trainSharp coached James Shaw’s power files from stage 5 (TTT stage) and stage 6 (Road stage) of the Tour of Britain.

You will see that there are some clear differences in regards to distance, duration and accent but what is less clear to see is figures such as energy consumption, average power, training score and zone distribution. As you may expect the energy consumption is hugely different between stages, burning nearly 4000 kJ more in the road stage. This highlights how important fuelling correctly for events like this is.

Furthermore, there are differences in average power outputs. What is striking is that for the TTT stage, James’ average power was 353 W (5.6 W/kg) and for the road stage was 295 W (4.72 W/kg). There is a 58 W difference between these two stages and a difference in duration of roughly 4 hours. What we can learn from this is that James put in a massive effort in the road stage in comparison to the TT stage, working for the team in the TTT stage. What is also visible is the differences in the training scores. The training score for the road stage is significantly higher, further supporting the fact that this was such an intense stage for James.

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Further support for the intensity of this effort comes from the zone distribution analysis. A greater percentage of time in the TTT was spent in zone 5 and 6, whereas in the road stage. The zone distribution is much more even, with the exception of zone 1. All of this data suggests that the TTT was much more anaerobic in nature than the road stage, whereby the physiological energy systems that were taxed the most were the aerobic energy systems.

Over the past years we at trainSharp have developed James’ physiology in all areas to ensure that he has the capability to produce these numbers and compete with the best in the world. Working on your weaknesses as James has done will allow you to be the best you can be. Investing in yourself will be the biggest performance enhancing decision you ever make.

Contact info@trainsharp.co.uk for more information on how this could be you.