If you’re training in earnest for an event, or you’ve got an entire season of racing planned, then it’s highly likely that you’re using a form of training software.
It’s entirely at the user’s discretion how deep they delve into the tools available to them. Athletes can simply manually log the number of hours and minutes spent riding a bike, or they can use the software as a daily log of absolutely every element of their physiology and psychology.
Those looking to use the software to train their bodies to be ready for a specific event, on a specific date, will likely have further explored the capabilities of their chosen software, using charts that track metrics like fitness, fatigue and form.
What are Performance Management Charts?
(Image credit: Future)
Most training software options offer a pictorial view of an athlete’s fitness based on their training load, fatigue level – and resulting freshness.
Popular training software options on the market are Training Peaks (and its more advanced sibling WK04), Today’s Plan, Golden Cheetah and to a lesser degree Strava.
They each employ their own terms and algorithms. In the interests of making a fairly complicated topic a little easier to explain, we’ve stuck with the terms used – and in some cases trademarked – by Training Peaks.
Glossary of Training Peaks terms:
- Performance Management Charts – the pictorial view which charts the metrics below
- TSS – Training Stress Score – Training Impulse of a given session
- IF – Intensity Factor – how hard a session pushed your body based on watts produced/heart rate, and your current fitness
- CTL – Chronic Training Load – Fitness – training load from last 42 days
- ATL – Acute Training Load – Fatigue – training load from last 7 days
- TSB – Training Stress Balance – Form – how you should be feeling and performing based on CTL and TSB
How do Performance Management Charts work?
Credit: Stephen Gallagher
The chart above shows Cannondale-Drapac Rider Ryan Mullen’s Classics Campaign, as analysed by Stephen Gallagher of Dig Deep Coaching (opens in new tab) – there’s a detailed review on written by Gallager himself on the Training Peaks site. (opens in new tab)
Discussing the system, five-time British cyclo-cross champion and Dig Deep Cycling (opens in new tab) coach Ian Field told us: “Ultimately we can use all these numbers to predict performance on a given day. There are possible downfalls, but I’ve used it for four to five years for myself, and…