Tag Archives: training

Polar Rolls Out Complete Training Load/Recovery Status For Cycling Products

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Cycling, Gadgets & Gear, News

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Polar M450 Pairs to ANT+ bePro power meter Via 4iiii Viiiiva V100

Polar M450 Pairs to ANT+ bePro power meter Via 4iiii Viiiiva V100

One of Polar’s stand-out features has got better…well at least more widely available.

The previous implementation of the Training Load/Recovery stats on the cycling products was behind that of their other devices.

Not any more

The Polar stats and algorithm anecdotally seem more accurate than the equivalent Garmin measures.

IMO Garmin Training Readiness is too imprecise and Recovery Hours are generally a little too long.

 

—– Press Release ————–

Training Load and Recovery Status now also for Polar cycling products

Cyclists, it’s time to raise the stakes and take your training up a notch with the help of the Training Load and Recovery Status features. These are now both enabled in Polar Flow for our Polar V650 users and as the M450 already has the Training Load shown in Flow, it is now accompanied with the recovery status to complete the whole.

Continuous monitoring of your training load and recovery will help you recognize personal limits, avoid over- or undertraining, and adjust training intensity and duration according to your daily and weekly targets. Learn detailed and handy information about the Training Load and Recovery Status features from our support pages.

Accompany your cycling computer with a Polar device with activity and sleep tracking to get the 24/7 total load and recovery status from your everyday life. You get the most out of the recovery status feature when it can combine the training load with activity data. High intensity and/or long duration activities increase the load, slow down the recovery time and affect your Recovery status. On the other hand, significant rest periods and restful sleep help you recover faster.

V650_M450 Tl & recovery

 

–Team Polar

What are WKO4, Golden Cheetah, Garmin Connect, SportTracks, Training Peaks?

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Cycling, Duathlon, Software & Utilities, triathlon

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golden CheetahI’ve re-blogged, below, a description from trainingpeaks.com of the differences between their products (WKO4 and TRAINING PEAKS).

I’ve used similar power-related features to those in WKO4 in the free Golden Cheetah. The features are awesome and I’m sure will be awesome in WKO4 as well.

The best, for a sometimes-slacker like me, is the mFTP…modelled FTP…a CP30 without having to actually do it! super cool. And it mostly works which is even nicer🙂

If you train with power you might as well invest a little extra time and/or money to get the best analysis out of your expensive hardware. These products DO offer a bit more in-depth insight over and above what you would get from Garmin Connect and SportTracks (also awesome but in a different way: great analysis, planning and collaboration).

To answer the question in the title about “What are the products?” I would say they are analytical/monitoring tools; listed below in increasing complexity/sophistication. I use the ones highlighted and don’t really have an opinion on the others – but MANY people use them so they must be good.

  1. Garmin Connect
  2. SportTracks
  3. Training Peaks
  4. Golden cheetah
  5. WKO4

 

 

——————————————————————-

What’s the Difference Between TrainingPeaks Premium Edition and WKO4

  

What

Athletes and coaches often ask us which product, TrainingPeaks or WKO4, is right for them. Since everyone has different wants, needs, and goals, it is not an easy question to answer. Listed below is a breakdown of the features, capabilities, and usages of both products in order to help you decide which product is best for you.

TrainingPeaks Is For You If:

  • You want to use a web-based calendar to plan workouts, apply training plans, and work with a coach.
  • You want to create an Annual Training Plan for your entire season.
  • You want to view your workouts, both future and past, on a free mobile app.
  • You want to analyze your daily workout in an easy to understand manner.
  • You want to easily view long term fitness trends using over 30 customizable charts
  • You want to easily view weekly totals like distance, duration, and calories over a single workout, or a specific time frame.
  • You are a coach and want to communicate immediately with your athletes through instant notifications to your account or email.
  • You want to use one of over 5,000 plans developed by expert coaches fromour Training Plan Store.
  • You are an athlete that is looking for the right coach. The TrainingPeaks Coach Match Service will find the right coach for you.

WKO4 Is For You If:

  • You want to be able to analyze all of your data in amazing detail using the most powerful analytical engine available on either a PC or Mac.
  • You want the ability to gain faster insights and create fully custom charts to compare one data point to another.
  • You want your analysis to be based on unique physiology and not a bell curve.
  • You want to use the new Power Duration Curve for determining Functional Threshold Power (FTP) with less testing.
  • You want to quickly view if you or your athlete are a sprinter, pursuiter, all-arounder, or steady state rider through rider phenotyping.
  • You want to use Pmax, the maximum power that can be generated over a short period of time.
  • You want to view Functional Reserve Capacity (FRC), the amount of work that can be done above FTP before fatigue occurs.
  • You want to use Modelled FTP (mFTP), a model-derived highest power a rider can maintain in a steady state without fatiguing.
  • You want to use the new Coggan Individualized Power Levels to individualize your training.
  • Crunching every piece of data is important and you want to be able to make custom charts based on every available metric.
  • You want access to the WKO4 Chart Exchange, which offers free charts created by expert coaches.
  • You want to pay only a one time fee. Currently, WKO4 can be downloaded for $199.99.
  • You prefer to store all your files directly on your own computer and don’t want to share files.

5k: Some thoughts on the benefits of swimming to 5k

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Cycling, Duathlon, Physiology & Anatomy, Running, Swimming, Training & Interval Training, triathlon

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Swimming

Swimming (Photo credit: Luther College Photos)

Here’s my own personal take on whether or not swimming will help your efforts to a faster 5k. Or for that matter how much your swim training will better your other tri-related sports if instead you are training for more than just 5k. Or you might be injured and worried about getting worse at 5k when out of run-training due to injury.

I train for 3-4 hours a week in the pool. So. Less than some but maybe a bit more than many.

Swimming will help, for sure. It can’t ‘hurt’, surely?! It will help your CV system and also to some degree with specifically preparing your legs for running and cycling. However running and cycling are what you need to do to get good at running and cycling. They are FAR more focussed at what you want to get good at……running and cycling.

Swimming is a more upper bodily focussed activity. Because your weight is supported by the water it is also easier for your heart to do its job. So a 1 hour swim workout is MUCH easier than a one hour run workout.

Also the results of TSB or other measures of training load might be skewed because of the cross training effect of swimming. Eg your figures that include swimming might suggest you are more fatigued than you really are.

Then again the benefit of a swim might be that you won’t have much to recover from whereas running hard is quite hard on your body and requires recovery time/down time.

So don’t bother swimming to help your 5k or duathlon training

…but it WILL help….a bit.

The exceptions to ‘avoiding’ swimming might be

  1. You enjoy swimming
  2. You have lots of spare time (hmmm!)
  3. You are considering triathlon, one day
  4. You are injured – there are water based rehabilitative/maintenance exercises for running
  5. As an alternative for a recovery session – actually swimming is very good for getting the gunk out of your legs after a hard session, even the next day it helps. It can have a sports-massage type effect I guess.
  6. Core stabilisation – if you have a weak core then freestyle, done properly, will strengthen it.
  7. You have your own pool, etc. etc. If I’ve missed an important one please let me know.

Then again it depends on how much you can push yourself in the pool.

I swim for 3-4 hours a week…but I do triathlon. My run times have plateaud since taking swimming seriously as I can’t devote the time that I once did to running.

Personally, if you want more variety in your running and/or cycling, I would go for weights to build strength or spend more time on your technique.

I’d be particularly interested if anyone thinks they have got faster at running because they also swam. So, for example, you run 3 times a week and instead of doing 4 runs a week you did that 4th session in the pool. So in that example you would argue somehow that your pool session was better for your running than another run session would be. As I say the swimming WOULD help but you could spend the time better…running!

Discuss.

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A Good 5k session today and a sneaky 2.5k + ride last night.

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Duathlon, triathlon

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Yellow Tree Flowers

I needed a feel-good session today and for some bizarre reason my plan has 1 minute intervals with 2 min recovery. That’s a lot of speed and a lot of recovery, perhaps too much. Anyway I went faster than ever sneaking in quite a few minutes at 3 min/km pace… awesome. I just have to string together 15 of them in a row! (hmm, maybe not).

Anyway, it’s good for a change to be able to complete a fast session at a faster than expected speed.

Last night I also doubled up my bike session so rather than 2x 15 min I had 2x 30 which is also more like what I have to do in April, effort wise. Not a fast one as such but based on heart rate enough to get the sweat rolling of whilst half naked outside in the freezing winter night weather! (2x 15 minutes? blimey I’m going to have to look at that a bit).

Then for good measure, last night, I hosed the bike down and popped on my shoes and did a sneaky little 2k @ 4 min/km, sorted.

The only downside to last night was that, as I stretched down, the muscle cramps returned (EAMC) in places that have not previously experienced the delights of EAMC. I was just able to hold off getting full blown cramp so a big relief there. In a way it was good to get to that point as EAMC to me is a symptom that my body is doing something it’s not used to, and so by the act of doing it, training it, it becomes less likely to happen in the future. Good

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5k parkruns – how good are you?

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Courses, PB or Race Tactics, Physiology & Anatomy

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Andover ParkRun

Image by shandyboy2010 via Flickr

With 5k running (and especially at parkruns with a wide variation in ability) people seem to think they are either brilliant, rubbish or improving. Well the one thing for sure is that you are ALL better than those sitting at home watching Saturday morning TV.

But for those that think they are brilliant and those that want to improve but are not quite sure what they should be aiming for then the question pops up “What is good?” ie “What is a good 5k run time for a non professional athlete and perhaps also for a non-club athlete?”

If you delve about on the parkrun website you will see special mention is made of people (men) who go sub-17 minutes and ladies who go sub 20. So that is the first measure of what is good. I would disagree slightly with those figures and say that a more comparable sub-17 performance for a woman would be sub 19:30 (other things being equal) but that is probably being too fussy.

Looking through that list of fine athletes you will see that >90% are club runners. So if you can get below those times without joining a club then I think you can call yourself ‘excellent’. And even if you are a member of a club you are surely at least ‘very, very good’ and, well, in fact by any logic you must also be excellent as you have achieved the same thing!

I would say a VERY GOOD level for anyone to aim for is to achieve an 80% age graded time. That rule applies regardless of age and sex. No-one will be able to achieve that level of performance without LOTS OF run-specific training. Yet even with manifestly imperfect form it can still be achieved.

And I would say that sub-20 is a good performance. But as I have written about elsewhere on this blog how easily that is achieved depends on your age, sex, technique and training. So that is more of a “general level of goodness”.

And no, if you ask, I am not excellent! But I can see the difference between very, very good and excellent and the mammoth level of personal commitment required to do it. I can even run at that speed…just not for 5k ! – but I think we can all run at that speed for some distance😉

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5k: How much mileage do I need to do, how much do I need to train.

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Duathlon, Physiology & Anatomy, Training & Interval Training, triathlon

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English: Volvo highest mileage car approaching...

Image via Wikipedia

I come from the ‘do as little mileage as possible’ school. Before you say I’m wrong the key is ‘as possible’. Obviously you need to get those longer slower miles into your bags before doing the quality work.

So how little do you need to do (of the longer stuff!)

Former US Marathon record holder and performance coach Ken Young determined a ‘collapse point’. After this point you cannot compete effectively as your performance drops. It’s NOT THE “MARATHONER’s WALL” but is similar and related. This point is largely determined by your average weekly mileage. Brown & Graham agree with this, others do not. There’s more discussed (here).

So, he says, for 20 miles (32km) in total per week your collapse point is 9 miles (14.5km). Therefore you can race effectively over 10k (as 10km is less than 14.5km). Level 4 UK Athletics coaches will talk about this ‘collapse point’ so I’m not inventing it.

But of this mileage how much quality do you need:

The accepted norm for training for 5km is:  90% aerobic – 10% anaerobic.

My musings would then be based upon how that translates into a duathlon or triathlon. Yes aerobically your cycling/swimming will help your running to a degree but you won’t necessarily be training the right fast/slow twitch fibres in your muscles. So do you do less than collapse point mileage or collapse point mileage.

During my last proper 12 week race build up I did, inadvertently, somewhere near the collapse point mileage but definitely less. I did cycling as well of course. I could not have trained more intensively (in fact was unable to quite meet the plan). I did however go into the plan with a good endurance/distance base.

All that I could have added to my regime would have been one longer run and/or recovery run. But I didn’t have the time.

I think my performance was fairly close to my personal peak performance at the time and certainly I improved a lot over the plan’s duration.

So my tentative conclusion (for 5k) would be that you can’t ignore distance work in the long term. But for specific race build ups you probably can sacrifice some of the mileage that others might tell you you should be doing.

A: 5k race = 15k training collapse point but I reckon you should do more than that!

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Sub 20 minute 5k: how does it feel?

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in PB or Race Tactics, Training & Interval Training

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Stadion KS Przyszlosc1

you really won't care what the venue looks like when you hit 20 minutes.

We all want to get that PB down as low as we can. I guess there comes a point though where nature takes over and that PB will never be possible. But then you can just look at your age graded score instead! So there’s always room for improvement by some means.

Even some 60 year olds do sub 17 minute 5k’s. Not many admittedly. So it is QUITE possible.

Anyway how does it feel to go sub 20? That was the question that drew you here.

I will try to avoid reminiscing too much as it was a while ago for me. But you do remember because it is an achievement for those of us that are not great club athletes and never really aspire to be. For most of us as well we know that it is actually quite difficult whilst at the same time we know that we WILL be able to do it if sufficiently committed. It might take a while. But we CAN do it. The question really would be “will I do it?”

But, when you do it, it is a mixture of delight and relief. You’ll probably go up to total strangers and tell them how wonderful yo are for the next 30 minutes or so. Until you get home and then spend the next 30 minutes telling your family and friends how wonderful you are.

The delight and relief probably also come from the pre-20 minute psychology. you know, where you keep getting closer but don’t seem to be quite able to do it. always a few seconds away. Well boys and girls when you are that close it REALLY is all in the mind. We mere mortals can always run 5 seconds faster at our current level of fitness.

So I would say for me it was all of the above. But also there was certainty in there. I knew that it would come with training. So there is also a sense that inevitability also plays a part.

I’m looking at my current goals and I can see that I can certainly eventually achieve those. However I look at 17 minutes, slightly further away. And that is quite an achievement for a less young person. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to do that in my fit years that remain.

I would also add that after doing the magical 19:59 then half minute ‘barriers’ become meaningful as well.

You’ll often find it best to think about half minute levels of improvement as milestones in your progress (NOT barriers please! If we didn’t have minutes and just seconds then we wouldn’t even realise the specialness of 1200 seconds). Often once you achieve a milestone then you progress quite rapidly up the next 15 seconds or so. Then back to the training.

Good luck and don’t forget to sweat.

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5k improvement to under 20 minutes – how long will it take me?

19 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by in Training & Interval Training

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Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!

Thoughtful 5k training?

How long will it take me to do 5k in less than 20 minutes?

5k runners often have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they can improve. When you start out the improvement is dramatic. But the improvement slows quickly and the training effort required to improve increases. It’s really a statement of the fairly obvious but don’t forget it.

I reckon it will take you at least a year and probably 18 months to get from 23 minutes to sub 20 minutes with committed training. BUT you COULD do it in 9 months or less. Of course this depends on VERY many factors like your age, sex, starting fitness level, training regime and the like.

I’ve done some research for this post by using a mate’s data. He went from a flat out 23 minutes 5k to a 18:30 5k in just under 4 and a half years. I’ve tried to smooth out his improvements and extrapolate some results but as you can see it went in fits and starts – probably dependent on finding a suitable PB-day with the right motivation.

Group Personal Training at a Gym Category:Fitn...

This might not help your 5k training that much

I train with him a fair bit and I can assure you he trained at least 3 times and up to 5 or 6 times a week for the period in question. Usually in a fairly committed manner. You could probably do it faster.

He was in his late 30s when doing this.

Starting from being very averagely fit and with no specific running training other than the occasional jog here are the approximate dates and the time taken to achieve the next 30 second increment. It’s a bit all over the place until trying to go below 20 minutes, fatigue states are not recorded:

June/year 0 22:59 0 days (flat out)
June/year 0 22:29 2 weeks
August/year 0 21:59 2 months (6 weeks since start)
August/year 0 21:29 1 month (10 weeks since start)
October/year 0 20:59 1 month (14 weeks since start)
February/year 1 20:29 4 months (7 months since start)
April/year 1 19:59 2 months (9 months since start)
October/year 1 19:29 6 months (15 months since start)
March/year 3 18:59 18 months (2 years 9 months since start)
October/year 4 18:29 18 months (4+ years since start)

Having said all that I know the story of a 25 year old male who went from 23 minutes to 21 minutes in 4 months. But 3 months on and he has not hit 20 minutes.  I have this strange suspicion also that if you are ‘getting on a bit’ then your running efficiency/form AND how fit you were in ‘the good old days’ each can play a significant part in your improvement around 20 minutes. Then again that’s just a personal opinion based on no science whatsoever.

From my own performances as well I remember that 20-19 minutes is not a trivial thing for anyone other than a 20-something male…and even then trivial would be the wrong word to use!

Sorry if that has disheartened you. If you are younger and work harder you’ll get there quicker! Look at some of the posts below and search on this blog for more tips on how to do it.

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5k running: What if I come last? Should I enter?

24 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Other Links, PB or Race Tactics, Training & Interval Training

≈ 21 Comments

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A wheelbarrow race in Grant Park, Chicago

Image via Wikipedia

Yes. I would definately enter

I represented GB in Age Group Duathlon and genuinely was worried that I may well have come last.

As it turned out I wasn’t.

There’s always someone somewhere that will be slower than you. You just have to hope they are in the same race!!

But really who cares? Think about it more widely that just from a personal introspection.

So, by the same token, why enter a race if you can easily win it? There is ALWAYS someone somewhere faster in a different race.

Enter a race for geriatric, obese people. You’ll win that. But what’s the point?

What’s really important is you and your personal goals and development.

If you enter a race and come last then at least you beat the people who were afraid to enter.

Musing a little… 

I sometimes do volunteer work for the 5k people at parkrun.com. I run in them as well. But when volunteering you have a chance to step back and watch the runners. What strikes me is that some people doing the 5k in 35 minutes are trying harder than those doing it in 22 minutes. They are pushing their personal limits more. Maybe they’ve just started running, obviously they won’t be brilliant. Again who’s the best? I’d rather have someone who tries harder working for me than a brilliant slacker.

Also look at Age Group grading of your results. You will find that even if you are last you were not technically last. Why? Well, the 18 year old who beat you by 30 seconds was technically slower compared to what he should have done. The age graded results will PROVE THAT beyond doubt. So that way you can have a race and there is always a way for looking at it where no-one came last by one measure or another!

It’s kind of like with kids. We never have losers anymore. Well in the grown up running world we really don’t because really we are not all racing for glory; like in our wider lives we are running for LOTS of reasons, health, fitness, improvement. We’re not all RACING we’re just running. It’s just putting one foot in front of the other after all; just like football is kicking a round (spherical) bit of plastic/leather into a goal.

Anyway get out there and run. Get that time on the board. After a bit of training you will get a PB and another and another and another and another. And then you can bask in your own glory and laugh at the likes of me who put in so much effort agonising for a second or two of improvement once every few months or so. Sounds like I’m the mad one rather than you!!

As someone famous once said “Just do it”

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5k: The Training Effect – Some Thoughts

14 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by in Physiology & Anatomy, Training & Interval Training

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Icon from Nuvola icon theme for KDE 3.x.

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Something to bear in mind.

As you exercise you use the glycogen stored in your muscles (and liver to a lesser extent), with a bit of luck you might also burn some fat. After 30 minutes of doing whatever you do you will be WEAKER than when you started out.

In itself exercise is bad for you!

If you keep exercising your body will eventually deteriorate and/or you will get very ill.

HOWEVER, when you STOP exercising your body starts to replenish the glycogen, essentially from more carbs, and uses protein to repair and grow muscles.

So, what I wanted you think about is REST. Really make sure you properly build rest into your schedules. I was listening to an interview with Mark Cavendish today on the BBC, he sleeps about 12 hours a day during the Tour de France. That’s a lot of recovery.

Also of course you need to replenish the carbs and protein (for repair) and water and all the other dietary ‘bits’ you have lost during the exercise. If you are vegetarian like me also think closely about the protein and do some research.

And on that note I’m off to bed an hour earlier than normal AND I had a 1 hour nap this afternoon. Unfortunately all because of a  drunken night last night…oh an a hard hill-brick session!🙂

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