TSS for Crossfit

Training
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I am not particularly satisfied with the relative lack of objectivity in estimating TSS from CrossFit-style workouts. I wear a Garmin Fenix 3 HR watch during workouts and use the Garmin watch app called CrossFit Lite.
It estimates TSS using HR, which seems fundamentally flawed since much of the fatigue and work in that style of workout is not captured by HR alone. The notion of using RPE and time to gauge TSS seems, frankly, cheesy for training in 2018. Is that really the best that we have? Looking for a more quantitative approach, like we do in cycling.

Thanks, y’all

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Power in watts can be calculated from weight lifting exercises (energy / time), but this would require you to know not just the mass being moved but also the distance you moved the weight, how many times, and the elapsed time. Same for each exercise. This could get you to something like normalized power, but in order to get IF or TSS you’d need to have some equivalent to the exercise threshold (i.e. what could be maintained for a long duration).

For a box jump, you are moving your body weight from the ground to some height multiple times in a certain time window. You could calculate work & the power needed easily. If you could estimate how many jumps/minute you could maintain for an hour you could figure out a rough threshold power & calculate IF & TSS. The trouble is that other exercises are not as simple.

I don’t think there is a way to directly measure how much energy you are expending in a crossfit workout… there isn’t a ‘power meter’ equivalent. There is certainly something that could be done with accelerometers for simple body weight exercises like pull-ups or pushups, but anything with weight or equipment would need a way to measure the effect of the external resistance.

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I put all my strength training sessions in as “tempo” setting and let TR calculate my TSS. I’m sure it’s not accurate for a host of reasons (eg intense sessions that include cardio like the airdyne bike are likely higher), but I don’t really mind - main thing is I just want to capture something to reflect that I did a workout.

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