See, I don’t think power is the gold standard any more. (Not just because Tymewear claims on their website that ventilation is the good standard…) Sure 200w is 200w but that’s output. 200w after 5 hours will feel very different to 200w straight out the door (assuming you’re not a pro with a 400w FTP!). HR gives an indication of physiological demand, but can vary due to heat, caffeine, multiple other factors.
I think it’s pretty straight forward to train threshold/FTP with power and heart rate. It’s easy to do a 1 hour test or feel out what you think you can sustain for perhaps 40-80 mins just by doing it. VT1 or LT1 on a 3 zone sort of model however seems much more difficult to peg. Sure you might do 4 hours at what you think your VT1 power is, but how do you know if the “internal effects” (lactate) are not escalating? Or if you feel fresh and fine after 4 hours, could you have gone a little harder and still had no adverse escalation?? Seems a lot harder to feel out. I think for ultra distance, if you use it properly and ride to VE numbers, it could be quite a game changer so far as time efficient training.
I understand that Tymewear is trying to infer and estimate some of what a metabolic cart would measure directly. It measures rate and time but estimates volume. If accurate, or even just consistent enough, this could be a great addition to power.
I wonder how it would handle someone like me, who while trying to improve my breathing mechanics with deeper belly breathing often falls back into chest breathing. It seems like it would be hard to estimate volume with changing breathing mechanics.
Yeah, not exactly what you’re trying to practice but I have to say it does seem susceptible to whether you are nose breathing or mouth breathing. Nose breathing brings down the VE rate very noticeably. And both me and a mate are still trying to get to the bottom of why VE rate is lower for a given power outdoors, when compared to the same power on the turbo trainer.
Yes, that’s my colleague. We discussed it. He thinks I don’t understand that power measures something different than breathing. I definitely understand that but I’m of the opinion that it’s irrelevant what it does and it only matters if it can improve training outcomes enough to bother. After he posted I came here to discuss it people who’ve been using it for longer than me.
If it accurately measures vt1 and vt2 then great, it does what it says it does.
However you also need to decide if training right at/below vt1 or vt2 is going to measurably increase your fitness or performance more than other methods of training.
Right now the natural progression for people is HR then Power + HR. It’s a system that works for most people most of the time so what problem does a breathing sensor solve? It seems like there might actually be some niche value for me, and people like me, who lean towards huge Z2 but don’t have a lot of top end beyond that. I feel like TR consistently gets my FTP wrong for that reason and maybe the breathing sensor could provide me qwith some info that’s otherwise lacking?
How would you use it? I can see a use case for certain training philosophies but don’t personally see a reason to use it for testing something like ftp.
My thought is that if I can prove it shows something FTP doesn’t then that might be valuable to someone. That’s my question though. Is there actual value here beyond just using HR and Power?
Again for that I think it depends on your training philosophy.
If you think riding at lt1/vt1 is valuable for training and markedly better than riding a bit below then I would say it’s very valuable.
For someone like Jonas who does a large volume of his sessions targeting work right at lt1 this could, theoretically, remove the need for lactate testing and provide real time feedback during those sessions.
This was super helpful. I took what you said and did some research as applied to me. I tend to think that I’m not that unique so if I want to do something others probably do as well. I happen to want to ride long distances as fast as possible. It seems like there’s value in using the sensor to stay just below the line where z2 ends during a 500km (or whatever) ride.
Tyme sent me an automated threshold detection which isn’t available yet but in testing and it pegged 168 as threshold vs Trainingpeaks having selected 170 from my riding. Seems like Trainingpeaks is looking quite good in that. Actual Tyme threshold test will be this evening.
Threshold test is done and the results are that the FTP on Trainerroad AI was basically right on. 2-watts different than the test. What I learned though was that my VT1 is exceptionally high and my Vt2 is physiologically maxed out compared to my Vo2 Max. It gave me a reason why I despise certain workouts and it’s shifting my training.
hmm, basically my test result is the same, wonder if they suggest the same for everybody ( btw its 69% of Vo2max for endurance, vt1 80%, vt2 90% , vo2: 67@44yrs)
using it since september, i still keep an eye on power, but almost never on HR since i use Tymewear.
As everything it has its limitations: some very tight jersey with a gilet over it makes it crazy (way too low VE numbers)
Is that automatic ftp detection thing you mentioned, transferable?
I mean AI FTP is just the big push from TR over the last couple of years. It’s based on machine learning but the Tymewear test validated it for me. It’s not the full picture but I would say it is transferable.
So have you done Vo2 Max work and seen improvements? Because that’s what your numbers show.
sorry i meant for the Tyme automatic detection thing, as i don’t have access to trainer in the last 4 months and still one month to go, so it would be super useful.
Those numbers are my “base” numbers,so i had it when i started using the strap. And did not done any vo2max workouts since than as my season (mtb marathon) will start in july so i still have time, and currently still ramping up the volume.
So my TR FTP is currently about 40 watts higher than what Tymewear says is my VT2. I think TR is estimating high, and I think Tymewear is estimating low - based on the tempo and sweet spot efforts I have been doing in TR. The 3min interval ramp test makes me feel done in before I even get to TrainerRoad FTP. But then I do the still manage to get a decent VO2 number according to Tymewear.
For attritional events (say Audax, gravel or ultra) where it is beneficial to have high VT1, and be able to ride at a higher wattage for hours without decline, then I think the Tymewear is very beneficial for training VT1.
If I didn’t have the Tymewear strap, then I would also be none the wiser and would be completing TR recommended workouts based on their AI FTP prediction with no issue.
No doubt bumping up my FTP helps all the other zones, but when my FTP has been around the same number for years, it feels wiser to look for other specifics to train.
Why would you think the Tymewear is someone incorrect? Because it’s low?
If I’m understanding everything right, the Tyme estimate was a little low compared to the actual test. The estimate they gave me ahead of time said VT1 142hr, vt2 168, and endurance as 116. The actual numbers, after test, were 128, 155, and 173.
If anyone has heard of coach Steven Neal, they might want to search him out on podcasts. He’s always been big into ventilatory training*. He had some interesting comments on using various breath training devices and the Tyme vest to control the training.
*Training the diaphragm and ventilation rates is probably a last few percentage points of performance kind of thing and maybe not applicable for most amateurs.
Will search him up. Any specific podcasts in mind @ajs914 ? Is he talking about training your breathing and all the stuff about expanding your diaphragm, deep breaths etc and/or training to ventilation numbers.
I’m still looking for a longer term trends, but expecting that over time, for a given VE rate that my power hopefully goes up. So not really looking to improve my breathing, just train at specific effort levels (breathing rates) that will nudge the boundaries of the threshold turn points.
( btw its 69% of Vo2max for endurance, vt1 80%, vt2 90% , vo2: 67@44yrs)