I’m not convinced sitting in the sauna gives same performance benefits as exercising in the heat. But sure it has other benefits too.
As a Finnish person I’m very used to it and takes a long time for it to raise my hr.
But after 3 week heatwave last summer I was flying.
I’m an advocate of this feature request too.
I’d like to be able to log the ride as “impacted” which could cover heat training, altitude training, sickness etc so that the data and work done could be logged as normal - but it doesn’t effect fitness assessment.
At the moment the workaround is either to log is as normal and then go in and manually deselect it’s use for TR AI - or not log it at all.
EDIT: other option I just thought of would be to dual record it on a fitness watch as “cardio” and discard the TR ride on completion.
You are trying to raise your internal body temperature, not necessarily your heart rate. Your heart rate will rise as a side effect, but it is not the goal.
What this feature would be awesome for would be to see the AI track the fitness improvements from various “interventions” heat, altitude, etc. in theory some of these are boosting FTP and fitness but because it breaks the HR-Power relationship the system is used to it likely will read as a decline, and a steep one.
thanks for the tip on manually pulling them from the AI. Bummer of a workaround to not get the credit these deserve but at least it helps it not F with the FTP
I feel similarly on this. I think the sauna will definitely get some gains, but these studies on cyclists/runners seem to show significantly more actual performance improvement with active. Like said on the AACC pod lately - the proof of performance is performance. The body performing in heat vs sitting in it must make a difference then
The challenge is this - you have to be able to recover. If you’re already up against your volume / recovery limit, adding in active heat adds a lot more stress than passive. Basically - only add this in to the extent that it does not impact your other training. (Same argument as strength training - need to pick and choose)
For me, passive works best because it helps, and assuming I stay hydrated the extra stress hasn’t been a factor.
The active heat training workouts I’ve done, even at Z2 pace - they sucked badly. And RPE / Heart Rate rapidly went out of my Z2 Zone. So really these for me are during hot weather to prepare for hot weather events, and a more limited block. I think allocating the stress to training otherwise has made more sense from an improvement perspective.
I agree completely and don’t want to bash either form. Different strokes for different folks always. For me what’s been working is occasional “heat blocks” of 7-10 consecutive heat sessions and more regular “top up” 2 sessions a week to maintain the gains. I’d argue two things in return though
Most higher level cyclists (read 4+ w/kg) are likely at a time limit than a physiological limit. It’s not that you’re over stressing the system with training but the cup is just too full with life. Recovery from an hour heat session is also not that bad if you hydrate correctly. It’s actually pretty similar in feel to recovery from a long sauna and monitoring energy level closely to ensure it isn’t getting away from you.
stress is not inherently bad, and more stress isn’t also more bad. Active heat training is miserable and that’s the point, your giving your body a fever-RPE is not going to be chill Z2. Just like hard intervals, if it feels too easy it’s probably not driving the needle forward. For me sauna and hot tub no longer elicit a stimulus in the way I need.
It should count in TR though. Certainly count for more than a standard z2 ride of a similar length/power.
if anything the system is set where it would count less than a standard z2 ride not more than so it is really not great atm
Agreed but at the moment there’s no neat “cheatsheet” from which you could check how much tss X minutes at Y body temperature is equivalent of. At least in my experience, the heat element added quite a bit of extra stress (compared to 45-60 minutes at regular Z1) but it is quite hard to estimate.
For me the simplest way was to do a 2 week heat training block dedicated only for heat training and then maintain the adaptations doing 2 “maintenance” sessions per week after hard workouts. This way your hard days are hard and easy days remain easy. How would TR ai interpret this, I have no idea 
Maybe another point - at least the studies I’ve seen, what matters is core temperature. Basically - get your core temp to a certain point, and more isn’t necessarily better. It might be quicker to get there with an active approach, but you can get there sitting in the Sauna too.
Yup, it seems to mostly be core temp that matters but that is very hard to accurately measure without something actually inside of you.
Ime just riding to a pretty high level of discomfort seems to do the trick.
It’s pretty wild how quickly the body adapts to it if you keep the power identical across sessions.
I don’t know if this is necessarily true, especially for masters athletes.
Me personally - I’m 4.4w/Kg in season, and the issue for me is definitely ability to recover more than time, although that is a factor. And I’ll also disagree on recovery, at least from my experience. There’s a difference for me from an hour active heat session, or a sauna session, with the active session being harder on me. And, that workout has my heart rate running well higher than where it would be for a normal Z2 or recovery so it’s arguable if it’s meeting the workout intention too.
Not saying there isn’t a place, but again, from what I’ve seen core temperature (and time?) is what matters.
Yeah, that’s unpleasant, but you only need to do it a couple times and calibrate to RPE / Heart Rate from there on out 
I think the debate of active vs passive is too person dependent to have true answer. It’s great that passive works for so many! Intention here is to figure out how to best account for it in TRAI and discuss the proposed benefits of active heat along with advice for protocols, tips, experiences! Keep doing you! The sauna has you crushing it clearly!!
I looked into heat training a couple years ago to prepare for going from winter in MN to BWR CA at the end of April. Pretty sure that what I found then was that the gains from heat adaptation only last 1 to 2 weeks, so there is no point to doing it months before the event you care about. Do you guys have research or anything that would say it is useful six months out from something??
Heat training to adapt for racing in hot conditions is different to heat training to increase performance.
If you can add some performance now (and potentially a lot of performance if combined with certain blocks to enhance adaptations) you can come out of a base phase with more power than you would otherwise.