Idiot's Guide to Training Peaks

cgfw201

Love a bit of data and looking to ramp things up in the winter with a bit more direction to my training.

Consequently, after a dabble with the free version, I have just signed up to Training Peaks.

Really liking how the data is presented, things like peak 5s/1m Heart Rate aren’t available in Strava/Veloviewer.

I don’t have a power meter (yet), not likely to get one for a few months.

Average week for me looks to be around 900 TSS, with a few weeks up towards 2000 in the summer.

I’m going to start more focused training and generally cutting out junk miles in favour of some more interval sessions on the road and increasingly on Zwift and/or TrainerRoad which I currently use sparingly.

Sure I can work it all out myself, but was wondering if there was any decent starter kits online for how to use and interpret the data on Training Peaks? Their blog is very good but doesn’t have something that consolidates everything into one place, that I can see.

Also open to book suggestions…

joe2008

cgfw201 wrote:

Love a bit of data and looking to ramp things up in the winter with a bit more direction to my training.

Consequently, after a dabble with the free version, I have just signed up to Training Peaks.

Really liking how the data is presented, things like peak 5s/1m Heart Rate aren’t available in Strava/Veloviewer.

I don’t have a power meter (yet), not likely to get one for a few months.

Average week for me looks to be around 900 TSS, with a few weeks up towards 2000 in the summer.

I’m going to start more focused training and generally cutting out junk miles in favour of some more interval sessions on the road and increasingly on Zwift and/or TrainerRoad which I currently use sparingly.

Sure I can work it all out myself, but was wondering if there was any decent starter kits online for how to use and interpret the data on Training Peaks? Their blog is very good but doesn’t have something that consolidates everything into one place, that I can see.

Also open to book suggestions…

2000 TSS is equal to 20 hours spent at FTP, you might want to rethink that

OnTheRopes

Books - Hinter Allan and Andrew Coggan - Training and racing with a power meter (it also deals with using HRM only)
Also Joe Friel - Cylists training bible
To get the best out of Training Peaks you are better off with a PM but can manage without

However you may wish to look at Golden Cheetah it does a similar job to TP but is free. There are some good videos and tutorials and a great user group and is constantly being developed.

supermurph09

cgfw201 wrote:

Love a bit of data and looking to ramp things up in the winter with a bit more direction to my training.

Consequently, after a dabble with the free version, I have just signed up to Training Peaks.

Really liking how the data is presented, things like peak 5s/1m Heart Rate aren’t available in Strava/Veloviewer.

I don’t have a power meter (yet), not likely to get one for a few months.

Average week for me looks to be around 900 TSS, with a few weeks up towards 2000 in the summer.

I’m going to start more focused training and generally cutting out junk miles in favour of some more interval sessions on the road and increasingly on Zwift and/or TrainerRoad which I currently use sparingly.

Sure I can work it all out myself, but was wondering if there was any decent starter kits online for how to use and interpret the data on Training Peaks? Their blog is very good but doesn’t have something that consolidates everything into one place, that I can see.

Also open to book suggestions…

900 TSS and 2000 in the Summer is way out, no doubt because your FTP is set wrong. I also found that HR TSS and Power TSS didn't track all that closely. I ditched HR a long time ago and just used power.

cgfw201

Supermurph09 wrote:

cgfw201 wrote:

Love a bit of data and looking to ramp things up in the winter with a bit more direction to my training.

Consequently, after a dabble with the free version, I have just signed up to Training Peaks.

Really liking how the data is presented, things like peak 5s/1m Heart Rate aren’t available in Strava/Veloviewer.

I don’t have a power meter (yet), not likely to get one for a few months.

Average week for me looks to be around 900 TSS, with a few weeks up towards 2000 in the summer.

I’m going to start more focused training and generally cutting out junk miles in favour of some more interval sessions on the road and increasingly on Zwift and/or TrainerRoad which I currently use sparingly.

Sure I can work it all out myself, but was wondering if there was any decent starter kits online for how to use and interpret the data on Training Peaks? Their blog is very good but doesn’t have something that consolidates everything into one place, that I can see.

Also open to book suggestions…

900 TSS and 2000 in the Summer is way out, no doubt because your FTP is set wrong. I also found that HR TSS and Power TSS didn't track all that closely. I ditched HR a long time ago and just used power.

Mainly due to not having a PM I assume. I know my FTP from trainerroad testing, which also tallied with a wattbike test i did in the summer.

1700 was actually my max in the summer and that was 5 back to back days in the Alps. Couple of other big weeks doing 300+ miles hit 1400-1500.

cgfw201

Have mainly answered my own original question via the TP blog I think. Don’t think I can do Golden Cheetah as don’t have a PC other than a work laptop which I cant download external programs on.

buckmulligan

Yeah, as you've found out there's not really a "TrainingPeaks for Dummies" guide, it's a case of picking through articles on their blog and around the internet and learning things up as you go along. Not sure if you've read these already, but these are two good fundamental articles to start:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... ce-manager
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... ing-stress

I find planning out a long-term training schedule on there and sticking to it religiously is a very good motivator for me. See how the plan looks on the PMC and use it to structure a progressive and consistent increase in CTL.

If your TSS scores from the Alps are based on HR then they're likely overestimated because (1) you're at altitude and HR will be elevated (2) you'll be over-credited during all the descents. You can get good hrTSS estimates in the absence of power if you spend a little while dialing in your zones and keep an eye on them, but as always it can be thrown out of whack on any given day e.g. by a swing in temp.

If you have any questions then the TrainingPeaks support team are really good. Most of the time they'll actually find an answer for your question/query and listen to feedback regarding the service, rather than the usual "quote from the support manual and fob you off" kind of response you get these days. They're well worth a shout if you have any problems.

As we're going into winter, combining it with TrainerRoad is a great idea; get on one of their training plans and use Virtual Power to track your workouts. Do you train in any other sports besides cycling?

cgfw201

BuckMulligan wrote:

Yeah, as you've found out there's not really a "TrainingPeaks for Dummies" guide, it's a case of picking through articles on their blog and around the internet and learning things up as you go along. Not sure if you've read these already, but these are two good fundamental articles to start:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... ce-manager
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... ing-stress

I find planning out a long-term training schedule on there and sticking to it religiously is a very good motivator for me. See how the plan looks on the PMC and use it to structure a progressive and consistent increase in CTL.

If your TSS scores from the Alps are based on HR then they're likely overestimated because (1) you're at altitude and HR will be elevated (2) you'll be over-credited during all the descents. You can get good hrTSS estimates in the absence of power if you spend a little while dialing in your zones and keep an eye on them, but as always it can be thrown out of whack on any given day e.g. by a swing in temp.

If you have any questions then the TrainingPeaks support team are really good. Most of the time they'll actually find an answer for your question/query and listen to feedback regarding the service, rather than the usual "quote from the support manual and fob you off" kind of response you get these days. They're well worth a shout if you have any problems.

As we're going into winter, combining it with TrainerRoad is a great idea; get on one of their training plans and use Virtual Power to track your workouts. Do you train in any other sports besides cycling?

I run a bit but probably just going to stick to the bike for the next few months.

cgfw201

This is biggest day in the Alps, giving a TSS over 500. Is this right?

http://tpks.ws/h0Q5L

HR didn't get out of Z4 on the day.

Tom Dean

No. It's way way off. I'm not sure it's worth trying to used power based metrics like TSS if you're not using a PM.

buckmulligan

cgfw201 wrote:

This is biggest day in the Alps, giving a TSS over 500. Is this right?

http://tpks.ws/h0Q5L

HR didn't get out of Z4 on the day.

I'd say that's a bit of an overestimation.

For example, if you take your ascent of of the Col du Glandon (easiest to assess because it's an uninterrupted effort) you're riding for approx. 1 hr 36min at an Intensity Factor (IF) of 1.06, giving you an hrTSS of ~200. An Intensity Factor of 1.0 is defined as the absolute maximum possible intensity that you can ride for 1 hour (regardless of whether you're using HR or power) and doing so will net you 100 TSS points. Therefore, by definition, it's impossible to ride an interrupted 1:36 segment at an IF of 1.06. Same goes for your ascent of La Toussuire, that's clocked at 1 hr 13 min at an IF of 1.04.

In reality, an hour at anything over an IF of 0.9 is HARD. Your whole ride was 5 hr 13 min at 0.91, which doesn't sound realistic, especially considering half of it was spent descending. I'd say a more realistic figure would be an overall IF of ~0.75 and total TSS of 350-400.

Were your HR zones correct when you uploaded this file? Those are the zones TP would have used to calculate all the stats (TSS, IF etc) and I can't see that it'd be possible to get an overall IF of 0.91 without getting out of Z4 all day. If you've refined your HR zones since this ride then you can go back and recalculate TSS by clicking "Files -> Recalculate".

As an example, here's a roughly similar ride to yours, where I had no power but my HR zones were reasonably well calibrated beforehand; I didn't make any attempt to compensate for altitude effects/temp etc. which I think may have bumped my HR a bit and thus overestimated TSS and IF, but it's in the right ballpark (for me). If you zoom on each climb you can see each sustained effort was ~0.85 IF and that was a hard but by no means "eyes-out-collapsing-at-the-top" effort.

http://tpks.ws/mfRgt

Hope that helps some!

buckmulligan

Tom Dean wrote:

No. It's way way off. I'm not sure it's worth trying to used power based metrics like TSS if you're not using a PM.

Sure, we all agree that power is ideal, but in lieu of a PM I think it's possible to track things pretty well using HR with a bit of experience and keeping a careful eye on the data. It's a whole lot better than just counting miles or hours in the saddle.

cgfw201

BuckMulligan wrote:

cgfw201 wrote:

This is biggest day in the Alps, giving a TSS over 500. Is this right?

http://tpks.ws/h0Q5L

HR didn't get out of Z4 on the day.

I'd say that's a bit of an overestimation.

For example, if you take your ascent of of the Col du Glandon (easiest to assess because it's an uninterrupted effort) you're riding for approx. 1 hr 36min at an Intensity Factor (IF) of 1.06, giving you an hrTSS of ~200. An Intensity Factor of 1.0 is defined as the absolute maximum possible intensity that you can ride for 1 hour (regardless of whether you're using HR or power) and doing so will net you 100 TSS points. Therefore, by definition, it's impossible to ride an interrupted 1:36 segment at an IF of 1.06. Same goes for your ascent of La Toussuire, that's clocked at 1 hr 13 min at an IF of 1.04.

In reality, an hour at anything over an IF of 0.9 is HARD. Your whole ride was 5 hr 13 min at 0.91, which doesn't sound realistic, especially considering half of it was spent descending. I'd say a more realistic figure would be an overall IF of ~0.75 and total TSS of 350-400.

Were your HR zones correct when you uploaded this file? Those are the zones TP would have used to calculate all the stats (TSS, IF etc) and I can't see that it'd be possible to get an overall IF of 0.91 without getting out of Z4 all day. If you've refined your HR zones since this ride then you can go back and recalculate TSS by clicking "Files -> Recalculate".

As an example, here's a roughly similar ride to yours, where I had no power but my HR zones were reasonably well calibrated beforehand; I didn't make any attempt to compensate for altitude effects/temp etc. which I think may have bumped my HR a bit and thus overestimated TSS and IF, but it's in the right ballpark (for me). If you zoom on each climb you can see each sustained effort was ~0.85 IF and that was a hard but by no means "eyes-out-collapsing-at-the-top" effort.

http://tpks.ws/mfRgt

Hope that helps some!

Cheers. Yes it does.

Mainly as have changed my zones.

But hadn’t updated the activity (ies) on TP. Now coming out with a much more realistic 336 TSS. Is there a way to recalculate all my activities?!

*ignore, found it.

buckmulligan

Yeah, that looks a lot more sensible; if you look at each climb in isolation now, the IF of each one is around 0.80 to 0.85 and the total activity is 0.75.

As I mentioned before, if you get on TrainerRoad, start doing some of their structured workouts and pay attention to the numbers you'll soon get a feel for what a certain TSS/IF feels like.

supermurph09

BuckMulligan wrote:

cgfw201 wrote:

This is biggest day in the Alps, giving a TSS over 500. Is this right?

http://tpks.ws/h0Q5L

HR didn't get out of Z4 on the day.

I'd say that's a bit of an overestimation.

For example, if you take your ascent of of the Col du Glandon (easiest to assess because it's an uninterrupted effort) you're riding for approx. 1 hr 36min at an Intensity Factor (IF) of 1.06, giving you an hrTSS of ~200. An Intensity Factor of 1.0 is defined as the absolute maximum possible intensity that you can ride for 1 hour (regardless of whether you're using HR or power) and doing so will net you 100 TSS points. Therefore, by definition, it's impossible to ride an interrupted 1:36 segment at an IF of 1.06. Same goes for your ascent of La Toussuire, that's clocked at 1 hr 13 min at an IF of 1.04.

In reality, an hour at anything over an IF of 0.9 is HARD. Your whole ride was 5 hr 13 min at 0.91, which doesn't sound realistic, especially considering half of it was spent descending. I'd say a more realistic figure would be an overall IF of ~0.75 and total TSS of 350-400.

Were your HR zones correct when you uploaded this file? Those are the zones TP would have used to calculate all the stats (TSS, IF etc) and I can't see that it'd be possible to get an overall IF of 0.91 without getting out of Z4 all day. If you've refined your HR zones since this ride then you can go back and recalculate TSS by clicking "Files -> Recalculate".

As an example, here's a roughly similar ride to yours, where I had no power but my HR zones were reasonably well calibrated beforehand; I didn't make any attempt to compensate for altitude effects/temp etc. which I think may have bumped my HR a bit and thus overestimated TSS and IF, but it's in the right ballpark (for me). If you zoom on each climb you can see each sustained effort was ~0.85 IF and that was a hard but by no means "eyes-out-collapsing-at-the-top" effort.

http://tpks.ws/mfRgt

Hope that helps some!

Great reply, very well explained.

Tom Dean

BuckMulligan wrote:

An Intensity Factor of 1.0 is defined as the absolute maximum possible intensity that you can ride for 1 hour

*for steady-state efforts. You could expect to be capable of a bit more in a variable effort, probably not more than 1.1 though.

cgfw201

BuckMulligan wrote:

Yeah, that looks a lot more sensible; if you look at each climb in isolation now, the IF of each one is around 0.80 to 0.85 and the total activity is 0.75.

As I mentioned before, if you get on TrainerRoad, start doing some of their structured workouts and pay attention to the numbers you'll soon get a feel for what a certain TSS/IF feels like.

Good point that the TR TSS talles with the TP TSS. Got a lot of data from TR over the last couple of years.

supermurph09

No intention other than to give an example, FTP is set at 286W.

buckmulligan

What kind of workout/ride was this? That's a huge difference between AP and NP.

supermurph09

BuckMulligan wrote:

What kind of workout/ride was this? That's a huge difference between AP and NP.

Hard on the flat, harder on the hills

supermurph09

BuckMulligan wrote:

What kind of workout/ride was this? That's a huge difference between AP and NP.

This one was some hard efforts!

Tom Dean

1.05 in training? Re test FTP

pastryboy

For context my highest week was 280 miles which was 925 tss. Got a 124.5 from a 1hr25 ride last week which was a killer.

cgfw201

So since smashing myself to bits in a couple of races recently, I've discovered my LTHR is in fact around 171-172 rather than the 164 I previously thought it was, which led to my slightly inflated TSS numbers.

All looks a bit more realistic now!