Strava fitness and freshness

littledove44

Anyone use this?

According to the graphs I am training a lot, almost every day, and my form number is gradually getting worse and worse. Currently minus 16.

I know I can improve this by taking a few days off, but the fitness number will go down as well.

Help. I am just trying to find out how to peak.

JayKosta

You can't improve by wearing yourself down faster than you recover!

Recovery rate is different for everyone - you need to find the combination of training & recovery that works for you.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

JustinLeeAtkinson

You need a power meter for this right?

littledove44

JayKosta wrote:

You can't improve by wearing yourself down faster than you recover!

Recovery rate is different for everyone - you need to find the combination of training & recovery that works for you.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

I am not looking for the personal side, just the theory behind what this all means.

dw300

You recover far faster than you loose fitness. Take a day of now and then. You will have a form range that you still ride well in. Positive numbers will almost certainly mean good form, but if you till ride well at -10 then try to be in that range when you want to peak.

wavefront

Strava uses an interpretation of Training Peaks Performance manager. Have a look at

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... ment-chart

which will give you a good understanding of how form, fitness and fatigue relate.

As dw300 indicated, before you hit peak form, you need to taper and reduce the stress on the body to decrease your fatigue, whilst your fitness shouldn't alter much in those days. You will then be fit, and rested, and 'on form'.

Alot of athletes will target 2,3,4 key events a year when they want to be on form and work their training load to acheive this. Having a taper week/period before an event is quite key to optimum performance at specific events.

Hope this makes some sort of sense.

littledove44

Thanks both of you. I understand it a bit more now. I may see if I can get my Data into training peaks as the graphs are more elaborate, particularly the way they split ATL and CTL.

Problem is i am clearly not fit enough for a positive number yet!

chrisw12

How is strava calculating this?? If they are basing it of estimated power figures I'd take it with a pinch of salt. Even if you use a power meter these ideas can get quite complicated.

amaferanga

littledove44 wrote:

Thanks both of you. I understand it a bit more now. I may see if I can get my Data into training peaks as the graphs are more elaborate, particularly the way they split ATL and CTL.

Problem is i am clearly not fit enough for a positive number yet!

I've no idea what Strava do and how closely they COPY Training Peaks, but if the number you're talking about is the equivalent of TSB in Training Peaks, then whether the number is positive or negative has nothing to do with how fit you are. It's a measure of your short term (acute) stress relative to your long term (chronic) stress - if you have a very hard week relative to what you normally do then it'll go negative (which isn't a bad thing). It only works properly though if you have at least 3 months worth of data and have a reliable figure for your FTP.

If you have real power data and want to use it effectively then try Golden Cheetah (free analysis software with more metrics and graphs than you'll ever need) and buy a good book on training with power.

littledove44

I have loaded my data into training peaks using the same source data files.

Very similar to Strava, just a bit more elaborate, particularly i.r.o. very recent workouts.

dw300

For those wandering, it does not use its own estimated power on outdoor rides for this, it uses only uploaded data that already includes power data. So you need a PM for it to assess all your training.

imposter2.0

littledove44 wrote:

Anyone use this?

According to the graphs I am training a lot, almost every day, and my form number is gradually getting worse and worse. Currently minus 16.

I know I can improve this by taking a few days off, but the fitness number will go down as well.

Help. I am just trying to find out how to peak.

You would be better off tracking improvement in the real world, tbh - as opposed to some arbitrary web figures. Either that, or some kind of aerobic limit test on the turbo.

Not sure what you mean by 'how to peak' - is there some event for which you are aiming to achieve good form?

shazzz

Just signed up for a free premium trial.
I see strava estimates FTP too. Anyone know how they do this?
Mine comes out slightly higher than where I thought it was based on my last 20 minute test, which is nice!

dw300

https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/22700245-Fitness-and-Freshness-calculations

There's bound to be info on FTP in the knowledge base too.

shazzz

All I can find is this - basically the same unanswered question:
https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/25563044-Estimated-FTP-

Elsewhere on another forum there's a post from Coggan suggesting it might be based on the CP model, which seems unlikely if the chap linked to above gets a Strava estimated FTP > CP20!

Think I'll assume its as accurate as Strava's estimated power data for now....

bobones

Golden Cheetah does all this too, for free. GC will allow you to base the stress scores on HR data (TRIMP scores) so you get fitness/freshness without a power meter. If you have power data, it will also do running estimates of your FTP. I see no reason why Strava couldn't modify it's fitness/freshness algorithms to use HR data, which would make it useful to a lot more users.

daxplusplus

I use http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/sporttracks/plugins/?p=training-load and it gives me all the data I need at the moment for not very much cash. It can run off power or HR (I use HR).

Without wanting to get flamed my understanding at the moment is that both fitness and fatigue are simply moving averages .. fitness is "simply" a longer moving average than fatigue so it's slower to increase but also slower to decrease. Fatigue, being a shorter moving average, increases and decreases quickly.

My take on these figures are that they are there to help you have a bigger picture of what your feeling and why .. but you still have to interpret and relate them to how _you_ actually feel and perform.

littledove44

Imposter wrote:

littledove44 wrote:

Anyone use this?

According to the graphs I am training a lot, almost every day, and my form number is gradually getting worse and worse. Currently minus 16.

I know I can improve this by taking a few days off, but the fitness number will go down as well.

Help. I am just trying to find out how to peak.

You would be better off tracking improvement in the real world, tbh - as opposed to some arbitrary web figures. Either that, or some kind of aerobic limit test on the turbo.

Not sure what you mean by 'how to peak' - is there some event for which you are aiming to achieve good form?

Yes, I am doing a 100km event early march. I have a ten day training trip this month and then a weeks gap before the 100k. Trying to work out what to do in the week.