I am not disagreeing with you, but it’s hard to say that a training method is bad if you have
good results. It’s of course totally possible to use wrong model and still get good outcome.
I just did a new aerotune test. Will focus on lowering Vlamax training for now. Maybe will post here some info afterwards if it was usefull (or not).
In the past I also did some INSCYD testing but for me the cost is too high for doing it more regulary (if you want to check if your training worked, or not). Certainly if you choose the remote PPD test without lactate.
But I like the aerotune approach, much low cost. And yeah, let’s see if it works, or not. I also have WKO5 so maybe someone can give some hints how to check it in WKO5 if the numbers have changed. (aerobic/anaerobic contribution I guess?)
1 Like
What does one actually get from WKO5 that one cannot get from intervals.icu and/or golden cheetah?
Specifically, what does it give you in terms of changing your training plan or individual sessions?
Like do you use the iLevels and make your sessions at the suggested duration and intensity? Personally I like to vary it, 30/15 or 40/20, 8x3 high cadence, or 5x5 for zone 5. And zone 4 or 3 workouts imo are all about extending TTE anyway so I doubt the iLevels is useful to give you specific sessions.
For this type of training, you are primarily looking for increase in TTE.
If you don’t have a coach using it, nothing? Very little? Not sure. When I was coached, my coach used it (along with spreadsheets, his historical data, invervals.icu, lactate, breath, feedback, etc.)
Self-coached, for me, nothing.
Agree @ZHVelo iLevels not for Zone 3/4.
That’s the idea. iLevels were implemented (primarily? mainly?) to address so-called NP busters. Basing work above FTP upon a percentage of FTP is not going to properly address many riders (used to be very common practice). There is more variability among riders above FTP than below.
1 Like
Fair enough, I am glad I didn’t buy it then.
I bought WKO5 years ago on a black friday sale for like $125. I’ve found it to be well worth the money. I’ll be the first to admit that I barely use it. I only use the premade dashboards though you can make an infinite number of custom reports.
I have icu.intervals and I find it to be pretty basic in comparison. I’m not knocking ICU. It’s free.
I typically use WKO5 for:
power duration model
deficiencies in the model requiring seeding efforts
training load chart
Peaks and MMP Peaks trend charts
mFTP calculations (found they way more accurate than ICU)
season review
training review
ftp review
vo2max trends
Zones/iLevels
And I’m just scratching the surface.
I found a bug in Golden Cheetah when I started - I mean a bug that made the software unusable. I got on their Google group email list and got zero help in finding the bug. I’m an IT guy so I eventually figured it out after a lot of futzing and hair pulling.
Open source efforts are great but for $125, spread out over years, I’d rather use a way better supported product. Full price is $169 and I’d buy it again for that. Or, just catch them on the next sale.
Also, if one were interested the training resources from WKO are amazing. You can sit with Tim Cusick for 10 or 15 hours and learn how to coach yourself through a season.
WKO does not tell you what do do. It’s all analytics for coaches or for you the self-coached athlete.
1 Like
This is semantics, but I’d like to point out that intervals.icu CAN BE free. On the other hand, I really hope people who use it regularly at least pay for it once in a while.
3 Likes
Agree! Good call.
As for @AJS914 post, I agree with everything he posted. You can do all of that with WKO. So I don’t want to give impression that it is not powerful or that it won’t/can’t do more than invervals.icu. It absolutely can. No question about it.
It is more “do you think you need it” based on the type of riding or racing you do. I posted somewhere months ago that I think WKO missed the mark with the market. It is great for coaches and for non-coached riders who want to dig into the data; however, I think what most amateurs need (ie. most riders not discussing these things on cycling forums) is a sort of “WKO-lite”, which isn’t a thing.
If you are going to use a half dozen of the myriad features it offers, it is worth it. I just came to realization that I wasn’t using it to its full benefit. I need basic P-D curve modeling and a training log 
Agree. I wouldn’t mess with GC. You are dorking with open-source software more than doing cycling analytics. If I’m going to dork with open-source, I don’t want to cross my streams with my cycling. Coding is coding. Riding is riding. LOL
1 Like
Isn’t Training Peaks premium basically their “lite” product. Ironically, though it ends up costing more than WKO5 since it’s a monthly/yearly subscription that goes on forever.
(Just looked it up and I bought WKO5 for $118.30 in 2019. What a deal.)
Honestly, they should charge coaches more especially for what the software does - like $299. They could also tier it - $99 for five athletes and $299 for unlimited athletes.
But I guess they want to keep coaches happy since there are probably few them and have their clients all hooked into the TrainingPeaks ecosystem.
Vlamax in WKO5 (but that was not a good measure I read somewhere) much lower then for my aerotune test. Maybe because for INSCYD or Aerotune all tests are seated position and WKO5 just take your bests power numbers…But that would be higher power standing so higher vlamax?
Any WKO5-er know how you can use this chart? Or is it just a view of (an)aerobic contribution…
Yea, but do you actually do anything with any of that? At the end of the day, if you don’t change your training as a consequence of using it, it’s just a tool to geek out on data.
I am not saying by the way one cannot, I am sure coaches do things with it, but for me, I don’t ride enough to make use of it. For me staying consistent and riding more are by far the two biggest drivers of performance. But things like load, I’ve now hit above 70, if I am above 100, maybe WKO5 will help to optimize training there but not at 70. PDM is just a fancy way of saying power curve. mFTP → I regularly do Kolie’s protocol, so don’t care about it, similarly for vo2max trends, I regularly go full gas on a local climb that takes me about 5.5 minutes, I have a lot of data points to know where I am at, and know what training beforehand led to those good points (e.g. no surprise that biggest gains on that climb tend to come after a vo2 block, but also just riding more, i.e. long rides in the summer with SS on climbs, has great effects).
Very interesting, your curve is less steep between 8 minutes and what is that 30 minutes, than 30 minutes and 3 hours. You haven’t done many long efforts? Because one would expect that at some point the curve to flatten out, not get steeper again.
Unless you take the view that the body does not subscribe to the level of accuracy that these training models suggest; that by and large most training impacts most aspects of fitness, and so an imperfect training method pursued rigourously (with good recovery, nutrition, etc) will probably still result in excellent performance improvements.
In last 90days no real long efforts no…endurance riding and some testing but should do some longer tempo/SST/FTP/TTE efforts indeed.
Sure, and that’s exactly the problem with the reductionist approach we (or many) take.
And if you look at signalling pathways (or Roche map), there’s many different ways to get certain
adaptation.
For me the most interesting part about aerotune / inscyd is the training levels and recommended approaches to Vo2 max work based on your rider type (high or low vlamax).
But I think the knowledge on how best to plan based on this is still not very well understood.
1 Like
But one needs to ask, if VLaMax isn’t even valid or useful according some well respected exercise physiologists and coaches (Burnley, Cogan, Empirical, Erikson, and others) then are their zones/levels valid? Coggan would further say that zones are descriptive rather than prescriptive which means it doesn’t even matter that much. Zones are just a language to describe training and any zone description will work as long as coach and athlete are on the same page.
We don’t need to test for vlamax to tell if a rider is a sprinter, diesel, or all arounder. It’s kind of obvious from the power duration model.
Now, it’s up to the coach to plan training in order to move the rider in the desired direction.
I can see how lactate modeling might help swimmers since they don’t have power meters. You can have a swimmer do an effort, check lactate, and make some kind of physiological determination and decide on a training direction - high lactate producer, low lactate producer - Olbrecht uses ‘big engine’, ‘small engine’.
In cycling a power meter and WKO5 or whatever software is like an ex phys lab in a box. You still have to know how to use the data and prescribe training. TrainerRoad hides all the stuff under the hood and prescribes training.
1 Like
All good points and I’ve gone round and round with it. I’m a big fan of all the people you named and i wish Olbrect, Weber, Kafka also did more podcast.
Personally I struggle with doing too much or too hard or whatever, and it usually takes ends being too fatigued to preform.
I am a more glycolytic rider, high Vla max around 0.6. If I do a classic vo2 max or Like KM prescribes, my first one is good and then I’m in a hole. The aerotune 40/20 stuff is much better for me, I can get a higher HR, power is overall higher than constant, and I enjoy them more.
My point is I think the model can be used to help riders of different types with more suitable session. Providing you know what to do - and therein lies the problem.
1 Like
Doing too much or not well planned is also my problem I guess 
.
Therefore the recommended weekly training hours are a shock for me, certainly for SS, MLSS, TP, Vo2…That will be much less then I am used to. But maybe that is my problem. Not enough rest to get adaptations from harder work. But I have to be honest, my hard work is usually a zwift race. I guess structured TP, Vo2 would give me maybe better adapations. And that is why I wil try it different after my holiday. Even it all that vlamax modeling is not perfect, a switch in my training/riding could be a new step in overcoming my plateau…(volume is already 12.5h/ week).
1 Like