Right now I am thinking generically for HR intervals, nothing MAF specific. As much as I like doing things what I consider “the right way,” I realize that those ideas usually just confuse most people. It’s taken me a while but I have to focus on absolute simplicity at first. This is especially important when you want to be the lowest price while being open and flexible to the ever changing needs/desires of our users. Your answer helps never the less.
For MAF I think steady state like we have with some possible algorithm improvements is enough for most people. My belief is MAF intervals is just too small of interested group at this time. The mainstream cycling world has only barely started to embrace Z2 HR. Even my very smart performance cycling friends are still difficult to convince.
I’m working on some plans and workouts tailored to this project. I’m Going to start programming them over the next couple of weeks. At the same time I have 5 riders working executing them on other platforms which should give us some real ride data to review to better explain the goals.
Ok to keep this moving forward while I get some workouts built for Alex to review. Here’s an example of why I’m chasing this hard. Attached are some WKO5 analysis graphs for a Polarized workout. The tester, in this case, is me because I know the goal and I can answer your questions as both the coach and the athelete. We have some others doing threshold work.
With HR training you do hit a point where the long slow doesn’t work enough energy systems. In my case that’s 60 days of base training and now I need to shock the system.
So we introduce Polarize workouts; in this case just V02Max and Anerobic work; I’m not fit enough yet to do threshold; and I’ve still got 20lbs of covid weight to lose.
If you look at this workout, I did a great job but not a perfect job. My FTP is low set to 162w (Disclaimer I’m on a recumbent bike; my race-capable FTP maxes out around 260w) so it will look muted compared to a Diamond Frame bike FTP don’t let that throw you it’s all relative. By race capable, I mean 1 one-hour TT with no drafting average speed of 26mph on an oval track at age 48. With a full-time job and 5 kids that’s my top end.
If you look at this polarized workout, because I have my FTP in the training software scaled to my Aerobic threshold and I know my Vo2Max estimates, I can build my power zones for polarized training. (I have a spreadsheet that does the math, it needs a little work to make it do all the work for you, and then I’ll post it). With that dial in. I can now start targeting the anaerobic system, starting with 1-minute intervals and building to more repeats with less rest. For every burst interval, my HR just barely pops above 126bpm (180-age) for me. This was a great workout but it required a ton of my attention and focus to not go way over, and the work involved in scaling the power requires an active human coach to do all this; or a rider very well educated in regard to the protocol willing to use a 90-day mFTP estimate which can be ego-crushing.
If we can get the software to manage the HR; and do some of these calculations to adjust the ERG trainer on the fly; then we can build workouts that drive this anaerobic output; but cap the interval to keep HR in the endurance zone; This then allows us to insert Intensity into a build protocol yet maintain normally counter objectives; like weight lose, and base restoration; nutrition clean up, fuel strategy changes. Basically, make these protocols available to a wider audience. The net effect should be faster gains with fewer workouts per week.
I’ll post some more about the season protocols of these workouts in the coming days, but basically
Base season rider could do 4-6 workouts per week only 2 long ones per week (call that winter)
Greetings. Brand new user. I think this has answered my question that I cannot build a Zone 2 workout based on HR correct? I guess I will just keep using the quick start, which works fine for now.
We are working on this now. Creating structured HR workouts. I guess in the next week or two this should be done. For simplicity we we just allow direct BPM targets.
For now interval changes will with these slow power changes which is not great for HR intervals but is good for ERG warmups + Zone training. You could do some more complicated workouts combining ERG + HR that will allow for fast power transition changes. I can explain this later. Eventually we will do something like @Ratz suggested regarding predicting what the power target should be.
Great that you are working on adding the “hr” field to the wizard table.
Do I understand correctly that “Type” and “BPM or Slope%” are two values that can be entered simultaneously for a specific segment, or will it be possible to enter only one type for a segment?
Slope/Hr/Erg are specific modes that I can not see any reason a specific interval would have more than one. Also slope target and bpm target don’t make sense to Me in a single interval (maybe I am wrong). We do require setting power target for all modes as this makes these workouts visually make more sense and usable in other platforms as ERG workouts although we will plan to send HR targets to Garmin, TP and likely Intervals. Am I missing something?
For now HR mode in our app is focused on automatic HR control. I guess in the future we could have HR targets like RPM targets.
I appreciate the functionality of TrainerDay, particularly the HR and slope modes which are central to my training. When I design a slope mode workout, I currently insert a power value solely to generate a visual representation on the chart. Although having a visual indicator of the slope gradient would be a nice touch, it’s not essential for my purposes.
My primary interest lies in the ability to target specific slopes and then use heart rate data to dictate my recovery periods. For instance, after a strenuous segment where I tackle a 20% gradient and my heart rate spikes, I would like the platform to modulate the bike’s resistance to help me maintain a heart rate of 130 bpm for 30 seconds. This targeted recovery would prepare me for the next interval without the need for a pre-set recovery duration.
The current features of TrainerDay meet my basic requirements effectively. However, this enhancement would refine the experience, offering a more tailored training session that adapts to my physiological state in real-time. It’s an exciting prospect — definitely the ‘icing on the cake’ for an already impressive platform.
Yes so first a slope segment and then an hr segment, this will be launched soon. For now you probably will need to inject a 1 minute ERG or possibly slope recovery segment between which will allow hr mode to not have the slow ramp drop. Your use case is perfect!!! And makes total sense to me
Exactly, I use a lower slope segment. I set my granny gear at the beginning and then just work to the slope. Happy to do that to reduce my HR to a “reasonable” level when the HR mode can take over for fine tuning. Makes sense.
I would like you to explain how HR mode works at the end of my training. I have attached a printscreen.
After the warm-up, i.e. 10 minutes after the start, I switch to HR mode.
As you can see, the application corrects the power and everything works OK.
At the very end, the last 5 minutes, we have a block where the power is turned off (This is not visible on this chart, but in the wizard table the power in this segment is set from 106 to 80 W.) As you can see, there is a power peak at the very beginning of the block.
Quite an unpleasant feeling.
In the planned upgrade of the application, where it will be possible to set the HR mode in the table, will it work without this power peak?
Regards. I like your application.
I don’t exactly understand what your problem is/was, but I also don’t know how you did this down ramp (it looks like ERG mode). We don’t do anything special at the end. Also adding HR auto-switch in our editor should be next week.
Oh yes, that looks like some kind of bug, we will see if we can reproduce this. You could actually set the type to ERG on that last interval now and it should switch to ERG automatically. But as I said next week at the latest the week after we will also have HR mode.
This should all be done / fixed and everything working. Android version is available now, but Apple later today. Next it should be on to HR mode 2.0 which allows more rapid power increases on interval changes as right now it will be slow adjustments. It should work perfect for steady state Z2 including ERG warmup ramps for example and long intervals that a slow rise in power is acceptable.
