Power Meter Advice

Wrath Rob

BigFatBloke wrote:

Wrath Rob wrote:

Jeez, is this still going? Stop feeding the troll....

I have an opinion, you do not agree, so you call me a troll. Pathetic.

You don't listen to any of the counter points posted and keep harping on with the same blinkered view, dragging the post back round to your unaltered point of view. Its not considered debate and education. Its trolling. Troll.

Tom Dean

BigFatBloke wrote:

Max heart rate and threshold heart rate tend to be stable, FTP moves about.

This is just fundamentally wrong.

Of course FTP changes. We use it as a general measure of fitness. The stress of a session depends on your fitness. That is why TSS is related to FTP.

BigFatBloke

Wrath Rob wrote:

BigFatBloke wrote:

Wrath Rob wrote:

Jeez, is this still going? Stop feeding the troll....

I have an opinion, you do not agree, so you call me a troll. Pathetic.

You don't listen to any of the counter points posted and keep harping on with the same blinkered view, dragging the post back round to your unaltered point of view. Its not considered debate and education. Its trolling. Troll.

My view is not blinkered, I use both power and heart rate. The blinkered people are those who use only one or the other when they have access to both.

imposter2.0

BigFatBloke wrote:

Wrath Rob wrote:

BigFatBloke wrote:

Wrath Rob wrote:

Jeez, is this still going? Stop feeding the troll....

I have an opinion, you do not agree, so you call me a troll. Pathetic.

You don't listen to any of the counter points posted and keep harping on with the same blinkered view, dragging the post back round to your unaltered point of view. Its not considered debate and education. Its trolling. Troll.

My view is not blinkered, I use both power and heart rate. The blinkered people are those who use only one or the other when they have access to both.

give it a rest, ffs - nobody cares.

BigFatBloke

Tom Dean wrote:

BigFatBloke wrote:

Max heart rate and threshold heart rate tend to be stable, FTP moves about.

This is just fundamentally wrong.

Of course FTP changes. We use it as a general measure of fitness. The stress of a session depends on your fitness. That is why TSS is related to FTP.

Max heart rate is very stable. Any decline in max heart rate with age is very slow, in athletes any decline with age is even slower. Threshold heart rate is also stable see Joe Friel. Of course FTP moves about, it is always interesting to see FTP increase alongside the same stable threshold heart rate. But then if you don't look at heart rate you would not see it often would you.

Tom Dean

HR at threshold is not stable either within a given session, or from day to day. You are talking nonsense.

This may be due to all sorts of things - the very fact is supposedly how you would take into account the outside stresses you are so interested in! So is HR data so useful because it is consistent or because it is inconsistent?

BigFatBloke

Tom Dean wrote:

HR at threshold is not stable either within a given session, or from day to day. You are talking nonsense.

This may be due to all sorts of things - the very fact is supposedly how you would take into account the outside stresses you are so interested in! So is HR data so useful because it is consistent or because it is inconsistent?

Tom,

Heart rate at threshold may increase by up to 5 beats per minute over 3 or 4 hours outdoors. Indoors with no fan it might increase by more if it is very hot.

Other than a beginner, or someone with coming back from injury or a lay off, threshold heart rate, the heart rate you can maintain for about an hour is stable provided the conditions are constant.

The whole point of using heart rate in conjunction with power is the very fact that it is stable in the same environment and conditions but reflects fatigue, overheating, overtraining, etc etc.

As you will be aware power the power one can output is also affected bu fatigue, heat, hydration etc etc.

I am not going to stoop so low as to accuse you of talking nonsense, but I will refer you to Joe Friel's 'The Power Meter Hand Book.' You can accuse him of talking nonsense if you like. You do know he is a co founder of TrainingPeaks and a coach on their site.

Tom Dean

It's not stable then is it.

The fact it is affected by fatigue (not to mention any other known and unknown factors) is precisely why it is not a good measure of TRAINING stress.

Whatever you are trying to measure with a combination or HR and power, it is not training stress as defined in the concept of TSS. It is something else. What are you trying to measure?

BigFatBloke

Tom Dean wrote:

It's not stable then is it.

The fact it is affected by fatigue (not to mention any other known and unknown factors) is precisely why it is not a good measure of TRAINING stress.

Whatever you are trying to measure with a combination or HR and power, it is not training stress as defined in the concept of TSS. It is something else. What are you trying to measure?

I don't define anything in terms of TSS which is as far as you use it based on estimates of might have beens.
Power is affected by fatigue but your system gives the same score for 300 watts for an hour when totally buggered as it does for 300 watts fresh. It gives the same score for 300 watts in the Sahara when dehydrated close to death as it does in Tunbridge Kent.

TSS assumes average power does not allow for power variability caused by wind, hills, accelerations, so normalised power was invented to take these factors into account and eliminate the problem of uneven power output which is natural when riding in the real world outside a lab or garage on a turbo. Average power does not reflect the actual physiological responses such as glycogen utilisation, lactate production, stress hormones, which are curvilinearly not linearly related to intensity, if power is not constant. Heart rate tends to smooth out increases and decreases in effort.

Normalised power is basically, wattage you 'might' have produced, it is an estimate of the power your body 'thought' it had produced. If the effort was sporadic and stochastic or on/off, in reality you averaged less watts than the estimated NP.

Normalised power from a road race can be used to 'estimate' functional threshold power. NP estimated from a hard critirium over one hour is often close to what power a rider can average over a 25 mile time trial. The average power over a 25 mile time trial is fact, but the normalised power (NP) is an 'estimate' of what the physiological 'cost' might have been if power output had been constant.


I prefer facts. Average power is fact, it allows for high power and coasting. Heart rate is fact, heart rate inherently smoothes by lagging behind increases in power and hanging when power is decreased. Heart rate automatically normalises effort. The best average power you can achieve over 20 minutes is fact, the best average power over a 25 mile TT is fact. The average heart rate is fact. When and by how much heart rate drifts upwards at the same constant power is fact. Basing things on fact, actual performance, what you really achieved, rather than on estimates and algorithms and what you might have done, is more likely to give you the truth.


To answer your question, I'm measuring effort put in & power out. You are measuring power out in isolation. No matter how many algorithms you use or graphs your software spews out, all you are looking at is power out in isolation and out of context.

Due to abuse, I am no longer posting on this forum.

Tom Dean

BigFatBloke wrote:

To answer your question, I'm measuring effort put in & power out. You are measuring power out in isolation. No matter how many algorithms you use or graphs your software spews out, all you are looking at is power out in isolation and out of context.

Your measure, or rather estimate of effort is of limited usefulness and is frequently misleading.

I am not measuring anything

Why do you persist with the assumption that people are idiots and look at power data out of context? You should give people a bit more credit.

BigFatBloke wrote:

Due to abuse, I am no longer posting on this forum.

That's a shame, but I'm sure someone with similar views will be along soon.

Dave_P1

Surely using both is best, HR & Power.
There's days when you could be trying really hard but your HR doesn't increase which could be a sign that your rather tired

imposter2.0

Dave_P1 wrote:

Surely using both is best, HR & Power.
There's days when you could be trying really hard but your HR doesn't increase which could be a sign that your rather tired

in which case, your power would be down, no ?

ric/rstsport

cant be bothered to read all the recent replies, sorry folks. anyway, trev, you'd have a point if you could measure Q but you can't. HR is worthless because you're not measuring SV (i.e., getting Q) and SV changes.

to counter your point Trev, i have a fair few files where people (including myself) have recorded power and HR and done 25mile TTs on consecutive days. These files show that while power can be maintained between the two days (<5 W difference) HR can vary by 10 to 15 b/min.

ric

BigFatBloke

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

cant be bothered to read all the recent replies, sorry folks. anyway, trev, you'd have a point if you could measure Q but you can't. HR is worthless because you're not measuring SV (i.e., getting Q) and SV changes.

to counter your point Trev, i have a fair few files where people (including myself) have recorded power and HR and done 25mile TTs on consecutive days. These files show that while power can be maintained between the two days (<5 W difference) HR can vary by 10 to 15 b/min.

ric

Ric,

Exactly, the skill is in understanding what can be learned from the variable heart rate and in taking appropriate action.

The very fact heart rate can vary for a given wattage is why it is worth monitoring.

ric/rstsport

sigh. You don't know what's happening to SV.

BigFatBloke

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

sigh. You don't know what's happening to SV.

I'm aware of that, but not knowing stroke volume does not mean the variability of the heart rate is of no use. The fact it is of no use to you is your loss.

ric/rstsport

you can lead a horse to water...

BigFatBloke

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

you can lead a horse to water...

true, but you are the one refusing to drink.

imposter2.0

BigFatBloke wrote:

Due to abuse, I am no longer posting on this forum.

How's that working out?

BigFatBloke

Imposter wrote:

BigFatBloke wrote:

Due to abuse, I am no longer posting on this forum.

How's that working out?

I decided it would be wrong to be bullied off this forum.

ric/rstsport

out of curiousity trev, who do you think is bullying you?

ric/rstsport

BigFatBloke wrote:

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

you can lead a horse to water...

true, but you are the one refusing to drink.

really? are you sure? i'm not aware of any proper physiological work that shows that HR means anything more than how fast your heart is beating. there's plenty of people who are physiologists who would agree with me too.

BigFatBloke

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

BigFatBloke wrote:

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

you can lead a horse to water...

true, but you are the one refusing to drink.

really? are you sure? i'm not aware of any proper physiological work that shows that HR means anything more than how fast your heart is beating. there's plenty of people who are physiologists who would agree with me too.

People who call me Troll and other names, but lets keep to the debate.

To answer your question Dr Eric Bannister's heart rate based TRIMP system which has been scientifically verified unlike TSS.

You are aware that TSS has never been scientifically verified. Now why an evidence based cycling coach would use a tool which has not been scientifically verified, use a tool when there is no evidence the tool does the job it is designed to do is something of a surprise.

You are evidence based or not you can't cherry pick.

Tom Dean

BigFatBloke wrote:

To answer your question Dr Eric Bannister's heart rate based TRIMP system which has been scientifically verified unlike TSS.

For those who don't read the time trial forum, 'BigFatBloke' has been asking whether the TSS and TRIMP systems have been scientifically verified, and received the answer 'no to both'. http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81753

BigFatBloke wrote:

...you can't cherry pick.

Hilarious.

Dave_P1

Imposter wrote:

Dave_P1 wrote:

Surely using both is best, HR & Power.
There's days when you could be trying really hard but your HR doesn't increase which could be a sign that your rather tired

in which case, your power would be down, no ?

No, not if your aiming at a set wattage and you know that your HR should be within a particular range for that effort.

BigFatBloke

Tom Dean wrote:

BigFatBloke wrote:

To answer your question Dr Eric Bannister's heart rate based TRIMP system which has been scientifically verified unlike TSS.

For those who don't read the time trial forum, 'BigFatBloke' has been asking whether the TSS and TRIMP systems have been scientifically verified, and received the answer 'no to both'. http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81753

BigFatBloke wrote:

...you can't cherry pick.

Hilarious.

TRIMP has been verified. TSS has not.

Dr Coggan admits TSS has not been verified. There is no scientific evidence to back up the system.

Tom Dean

You asked Dr Coggan whether TSS had been verified. He replied that it had not.

You asked Dr Coggan whether TRIMP had been verified. He replied that it had not.

BigFatBloke

Tom Dean wrote:

You asked Dr Coggan whether TSS had been verified. He replied that it had not.

You asked Dr Coggan whether TRIMP had been verified. He replied that it had not.

Pathetic.

Tom,

Fact, Coggan admits TSS has not been scientifically verified.

Fact, Coggan himslef, says this,
Quote:"As indicated previously, the above-described model has been successfully applied to a number of different sports, e.g., weight lifting, hammer throwing, running, swimming, cycling, triathlon, and has been shown to account for >70%, and often >90%, of the day-to-day variation in performance (i.e., the R2 between the predictions of the model and the actual data is typically >0.7 and often >0.9). Moreover, the model has also been shown to accurately predict changes in performance-related parameters considered indicative of training (over)load and/or adaptation, such as serum hormone (e.g., testosterone) or enzyme (e.g., creatine kinase) levels, or psychological measures of anxiety or perceived fatigue. The impulse-response model has therefore been used to optimize training/tapering regimens, evaluate the impact of training in one sport (e.g., running) on performance in another (e.g., cycling), etc. In most of these studies, the metric used to track training load has been Banister’s heart rate based “training impulse” (TRIMP) score, but other ways of quantifying training have also been used (especially in studies of non-endurance sports, but also, e.g., for swimming), and, roughly speaking, the model appears to work equally well regardless of precisely how training has been quantified." End Quote

TRIMP has been scientifically verified unlike TSS which has not... Facts..

Coggan also said, "Technically, that isn't really true. What can be said is that the impulse-response model as a whole has been validated when using TRIMP as the input (as well as other things). IOW, TRIMP itself has never been independently assessed (although it would be possible to do so). ""

TRIMP was used when the impulse response model was tested. Thus TRIMP was obviously validated at the same time.
The model worked therefor TRIMP works.

BigFatBloke

For the record. I expect to banned. So if you I stop posting it is because I have been banned, not because I have left.

Tom Dean

What part of

TRIMP itself has never been independently assessed

don't you understand? There is clearly some confusion as you edited your post to include this statement.

Anyway, I can read the TTF thread. There's no point you selectively quoting it at me.