Over the last couple of years I’ve been reading a lot of exercise physiology and learning about training. I picked up WKO5 a few months ago and have only scratched the surface. I bought Racing and Training with a Power Meter a few years ago and never did much with it. And in December I finally got a power meter on my bike so I have power both inside and outside now.
So what is the best way to go from A to Z on learning training analytics? Read the Allen/Coggins book again? Start watching Tim Cusick’s WKO videos on youtube. Something else?
I’d like to be able to use WKO to actually learn something from my rides and to inform training direction.
If you put the time in you can learn a lot; here is a rider returning to training that took a bit of time to convince to actually “rest”. A couple sets of failing and data to back up the claims and now they are taking rest as serious as training and the plan is coming back together. Stuff like this is the tip of the iceberg.
I’m willing to put in the time! I’m just trying to figure out the easiest and most logical way to get from 0 to 60.
It’s not like I’m a total noob. I’ve been racing a training for 40 something years. I’m very comfortable with training by HR. I decided to get more serious with training 5-6 years ago and went Strava - smart trainer - power meter on bike - and finally purchased WKO.
I’ve been playing around with WKO5 since I got it. I obviously recognize a lot of stuff like the PMC but I don’t have a good big picture view of how any of can inform training. I guess I’m going to start with the training videos. I wish they were 10-15 minutes on one aspect rather than 1hr+ but I guess I’ll just start with 20 minutes at a time and see what I learn. \
Excellent answer and no judging by me just reaffirming it will take time; Cusick’s videos are a good place to start. The biggest hurdle is if you only have N=1 data to look at that will slow you down. If you invest in the WKO5 expense then consider telling your ride buddies that don’t have the time or tools, to get a free training peaks accounts. From there you can link their individual accounts into WKO5, suck all that data in, and start to understand that when “X” happens to rider “B” then the graphs and reports show “Y”. I found that having 3-6 people worth of data and their questions was the catalyst to getting a better grasph. YMMV.
Good point if you have the power data going that far back and know yourself that’s not a bad time frame to get up to speed. I remember the fun of removing duplicate rides in wko4 and it’s habit of “pulsing” the workout list as your try and clean those up.
