30s power data smoothing

TrainerRoad Software
1

This may be a dumb question, but is there a way in the TR software to do the 30s power smoothing Dr. Coggan talks about in this post: Training and Racing With a Power Meter Journal: Analyzing interval workouts using power data

2

I would say its largely irrelevant if you use TR with erg mode. There is practically no variability in the data since ERG mode works to put you working at a specific wattage. 30s power is useful for outdoor riding with huge second-by-second variable

3

Yes, if you go into settings you can change the smoothing from zero up to 30seconds.

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4

@Malcolm has it right. Here is the related support article:

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5

Thanks everyone! For some reason I don’t have a settings option in the desktop software but I do have one in the mobile app. I changed it there. I’m guessing this will only apply to rides going forward and not rides I’ve completed. Is that right?

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  • Please contact support@trainerroad.com for this issues. AFAIK, the setting you changed on mobile will only apply to that device, and won’t propagate to there apps/devices.
  • Correct, it will only apply to future use.
  • Also, to be clear, the setting change only affects the 4-digit display that is active and dynamic. It does not change the yellow power graph during or after completing the workout. That will still be an irregular line no matter the setting above.
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Shoot – I was hoping to change the graph.

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With the exception of Wahoo’s “Enable Power Smoothing in ERG Mode” setting and similar ones embedded in some other trainers, I am not aware of a way to smooth the power data in the output file, as set by the user.

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You can analyze power files using 30-sec averaging in WKO or Intervals.icu. Or 15-sec. Or whatever. My default view in WKO shows 30-sec power.

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10

Note that I wrote the article in question well before WKO4 (now WKO5) came into existence. The latter offers the option of exponentially-weighted smoothing as well, which if you use an appropriate time constant (25 s is the default I chose based on the literature) is a better option to use when analyzing intervals.

Of course, you can even carry it a step further, and estimate VO2 from power, then % of VO2max based on the estimated VO2max, and plot the data that way. Doing so doesn’t account for VO2 drift, but can still be helpful in, e.g., visualizing whether a particular combination of work and rest periods and intensities will/will not likely have you achieving VO2max.

(And you have a MOXY monitor and are willing to go even further out on a limb, you can estimate SV and a-vO2diff second-by-second during such a workout, which is at least entertaining.)

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Have you seen cases where gasping for air like fish out of water doesn’t achieve VO2 max?

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Yes. Also, the converse (although obviously ventilation is still extremely high).

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13

Thanks everyone! I’m using intervals.icu already so will figure out how to do this in there. I really appreciate the responses.

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add a custom chart:

  • the bottom row “W Power” is target power from your structured workout
  • the middle row is power
  • the top row is Moving Average power and you can set to 30s (this screenshot) or 20s or 15s or … For example Intervals is not good about detecting my 15s intervals so I could set to 15s and then you can see peak 15s power without working interval detection

I clicked the 3 vertical dots on the 30s power line (before Line 0.9) to add colored power levels/zones

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I also renamed the chart and a few other things, so that screenshot looks slightly different.

hope that helps.

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Thank you very much! For some reason the W Power field isn’t showing anything for me when I add it to the chart. But the 30s power is what I was after and that’s showing up great, so really appreciate all your help.

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Not sure the correct way, I got it to work by manually entering a value for W’ on a workout, or on Settings/Power Settings/W’

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