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Now while IF is a valuable tool to find out if your training is on track, determining fitness and fatigue is best accomplished with Training Stress Score. While it's true that these “normalized power busters” can occur with a properly set threshold, it's extremely tough to do. Consistently breaking into IF scores over 1.0 (for longer training and racing efforts, of course) generally means that your FTP is set too low, and it's time to go out and test again. You can also use your IF scores to determine if it's time to re-test your threshold.
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88, you've trained too hard that day.īy using these IF values, you can temper your training intensity on a day to day basis and keep your training on track. 78, perhaps your body is excessively fatigued and you're unable to perform at a higher level without some rest.) Consequently, if you have a day scheduled that should be endurance work with spinups or single leg drills, yet results in an IF of. 78, you know that your training was decidedly not hard enough that day (or if it *felt* hard but still resulted in a. 95 due to the threshold intervals.) If you see an IF of. For example, if your training plan calls for a Tempo ride with muscular endurance intervals and maybe a few threshold intervals, you would expect to see and IF between. Greater than 1.15 = (Power Zone 6) = prologue TT, track pursuitĪs you can see from the values, IF roughly follows power training zones, and you can use this to determine if your ride/workout was within your requirements by looking at the IF.0.95-1.05 = (Power Zone 4) = shorter (0.75-0.85 = (Power Zone 2) = endurance-paced training rides.Less than 0.75 = (Power Zone 1) = recovery rides.(Normalized power is “ an estimate of the power that you could have maintained for the same physiological “cost” if your power output had been perfectly constant rather than variable.” Basically, if you pedaled the entire ride at a steady pace, with no variations for climbs, descents, etc, this is the average power you would produce.) What's important to note about IF is that it helps you to determine how difficult a particular ride or workout has been, and helps you to gauge how specific your training has been. Intensity factor is a simple calculation comparing normalized power to Functional Threshold Power (FTP). You'll also find that most of these data points are byproducts of riding and training with power, so you'll also need a power meter like the Stages power meter. To understand the performance management chart, we first have to understand a few things that we're reading on the performance management chart. That's another blog post entirely, so keeping in mind that we'll be discussing power based metrics, let's look at how you evaluate training stress and fatigue after the break: It can also help you vary the intensity of your workouts and tailor them to your training needs more appropriately.Īs a side note, TrainingPeaks online and Strava offer some variety of TSS as well, calculated via heart rate. These metrics, when combined with a performance management chart will allow athletes to calculate Training Stress Balance and can help determine when overtraining becomes a danger. This question is an excellent illustration of why training with power can be so useful: Training Stress Score (TSS) and Intensity Factor (IF) can be calculated from accumulated power data.
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“I've been doing riding four days per week (2 trainer days and 2 outdoor days.) I've been following this pattern for about 6 weeks now and I've noticed in the last week that I've been extremely tired and been feeling worn out. I recently answered a question from an athlete that went something like this: Lisinopril otc Is it possible to use training stress score and a few other derived metrics to manage your fatigue? Can you simply know how hard to ride by just looking at a number on a computer screen?
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