Thanks, Scott. So many questions. How does Whoop measure strain? And can you explain at what point it tells you to stop? I heard Coach Chad comment on the Oura and said it had lots of data but didn’t provide useful information. What volume of program are you doing to achieve that improvement? I measure HRV every morning and will not train hard if it indicates an issue.
Welcome Scott, Your story similar to mine, former racer, off for 9 years, significant drop in FTP. I’m not a fan of wearable electronics in general. I signed up for Whoop to do a 12 study of one whether my morning coffee affected my sleep. As a corollary, I watched the strain and readiness metrics. I found that what the metrics showed did not correlate with what I felt or how well the day’s workout went. I have not continued my prescription.
I think the Whoop measures strain by measuring your heartrate variability while you are sleeping.
Here the link to the Whoop site regarding strain. They can explain strain, measurement, and outcomes a lot better than I can. This gives an overview as I believe the calculation is proprietary. There are also videos of professional cyclist discussing their use of Whoop (YouTube). WHOOP Strain - Whoop
Specific to my training, I find the amount of recovery has a direct impact on performance for that day. For example, just today my recovery was 84%, which allowed maximum effort during training, taking my HR and FTP to new levels. Specifically, today I completed Baird +3 with a strong, but not 100% effort, getting my HR to the 168-169 range. Last week following a recovery score of 34%, I was not able to complete Baird +3 without reducing the intensity by 8% in set 2 and 10% in set 3. In addition, I was not able to get my HR above 160 without bonking. How did I achieve 84% recovery? The only activity I did yesterday was stretch and my strain level for the day was 10.8 (very low), which allowed for the recovery.
Now, of course, everyone’s body and every person is different and will achieve a different result. In my six month of using the Whoop, the combination of Strain and Recovery directly impacts my training output for the day. Therefore, if I have a very low recovery score, I generally do some type of low-level recovery ride or skip training altogether. Last week, I wanted to push it because I felt better than my score, but I achieved the historical “bonk” result.
Hope this helps answer the question.
Glad to have found this forum. I’m new to cycling (under three years) and to TR. I’m 71 and I’ve become enamoured of long distance touring. Two years ago did a couple of weeks in Patagonia. Last year did four months, trans-Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town. I began training on TR in January for a planned five-month trip across South America from top to bottom. Of course, cancelled. Hope to do it next year or year after depending on Covid. I used Plan Builder but there doesn’t seem to be a plan geared for long tours with average daily rides of about 130k (rest day every six days or so). I would appreciate advice on the kind of training for a long-tour event (with a lot of high altitude climbs) beginning a year from now.
I did the Kolie Moore test today and completed it all the way. Is your new FTP based upon the avg. power starting with the 94% FTP or at 100% FTP? My previous FTP is 210. If I start with 94%, my avg power and new FTP is . . . 210. If I start with 100%, avg. power is 213. I did not stop from exhaustion before the test was completed and still had some (but not a lot) of gas in the tank.
BTW, 100% FTP portion was 15 minutes, not 10, FWIW.
It was painful but not in the intense way the ramp test is. But being limited to less than 2% increase is a bummer. I wish there was a test like this which allowed you to continue to exhaustion but didn’t max out VO2 max like TR’s ramp test. In previous ramp tests this year, my FTP was down a few points but I didn’t change the FTP based on those test.
yes, if doing outside (or inside) hit the lap button when you start at 94% and when you finish. Average power for that lap.
Hmm, that avg power number is same as my current FTP, even though I completed test to end. Are there multiple Kolie Moore test on TR? Test I used ramped up to only 108%, not 120%, as you indicated.
The end of the test isn’t based on time. Did you load a workout with a defined end?
There are several variations on f the test. Did you read the article on TP?
If you mean Training Peaks, I didn’t read that. The version I found here times out, and as I said, ramps only to 108% and the 100% segment is 15 minutes, not 10. See the link to my workout above. I think it’s mathematically impossible to improve FTP on the version I used (which I found on the Over 60 Team Workout library here on TR.
here you go:
Give that a read, skip ahead to “New Methods of FTP Testing” section if you don’t care about the background and reasoning behind the test. From my point-of-view, if the workout ended before exhaustion that is a problem with the workout and not the protocol.
Thanks, I will drill down and figure it out… But the only version of of the test in the TR library is incorrect and cannot result in an FTP increase. I wrote customer support about it.
not a TR workout, it came from a member of the Over 60 Team. My recommendation is to go outside and do it, or turn off erg and use resistance/standard mode. Challenge yourself and do it old school. Read the article, you are suppose to self-pace and develop a feel for working at your threshold. Its not suppose to be an erg workout.
I will give it a go outside. It’s difficult to maintain consistent wattage (say, within 20 watts +/- of goal) outside, but on outside TR workouts, I have a screen with 20 min avg. that I monitor and adjust to get close to the goal.
Let us know how it goes. On my Garmin 530 my preference is to use 10-sec power, lap average power, and real-time color coded power graph (it shows ~90 seconds).
I am 65 going on 66 later this year. In great shape and been riding for 2+ years and training with TR for about 6 months now after doing 2 years of somewhat intense training with a privately coached riding program in the Chicago area. It was owned and operated by a former pro rider from the US Post Office team. Gave that up after too many crashes during the outdoor rides. Anyway, love TR but agree that designing workouts for “masters” riders would be beneficial. I think a combination of more frequent recovery weeks and more time in-between our intensity workouts would be great. I train 5 days per week TR and wish there was a 4 day per week plan in the Plan Builder also. I know, I can always delete on workout from the typical 5 day plan presented to us but hard to do for us type A athletes who always want to finish each week’s workouts. Those are. my thoughts and thanks for listening Nate, Chad, Amber and Jonathan.
I haven’t done the Kolie Moore test yet, but have more incentive. On today’s 45 mile group ride, with a fair amount of climbing (2.5 hours; 17.3 avg), my normalized power was 214, which is higher than my FTP, and the IF was 1.05. That’s a first for me.
Here’s the case I made back in March last year for a PUSH DAY. This functionality would relieve the rider from a strict 7-day program (or 8 or 9) by allowing the insertion of an additional recovery day without interrupting the rest of the program or having to skip workouts. At 62, I generally am good with a 7-day plan but when need an additional rest day I have to perform calendar backflips. I LOVE the push week–I always push (and thus clear) the following week to the one I’m on, allowing me to drag and drop things into that week to accomplish the push day or two. It’s a lot of fiddling which could be solved with a push day. Of course that push would only affect workouts and would retain my races and other manual insertions into the calendar. I still think this is a capital idea that would allow the athlete to follow the plan and the body more closely. I just went through a bout of gastroenteritis (four days of diarrhea) and would have simply pushed my workouts out one day at a time, then resumed when my body felt ready. The push week is already one of my favorite tools in the TR calendar. The Push Day would be a more finely tuned and more convenient feature for all riders, but especially for people whose lives don’t necessarily operate on the classic 7-day cycle.
So, I did the inside Kolie Moore test as revised in the over 60 group. The new version test portion is 39 minutes long and goes from 96% to 115% FTP. My average was 221 watts, which (as I understand) is my new FTP. My last TR Ramp test was in July was 207. This result supports my belief that the VO2 Max focus of ramp test may inaccurately measure FTP in senior cyclists. I completed the entire test without hitting exhaustion and could have gone longer, so I still plan to repeat outside when the weather cools a bit. https://www.trainerroad.com/app/career/davidwms/rides/88535284-kolie-moore-baseline-test
nice 35 minute effort! Did you like it? Yes, based on that test your estimated FTP is around 221W and possibly a little higher (could have gone longer). And your time-to-exhaustion is 35 minutes, and possibly a little higher (could have gone longer). Would be interesting to compare to a Ramp Test within the next week.
Thanks. The pain was longer than ramp test but more bearable. On balance, I prefer it to the intense pain of ramp, but I didn’t experience TTE here. I will try to do a ramp test to compare early next week. (I also use intervals.ico, and it showed an eFTP of 219 after the test.)