I didn't start using Strava until 2012 so for a complete overview; this is my calendar from Endomondo.



Today I will overtake my 2013 total making this year my biggest ever with 4.5 months left to ride! :happy:

Incidentally, did anyone else feel a little shortchanged when they first looked into this training calendar tab and found that it wasn't a training calendar at all, just a list of all the rides you'd done...

It was so hoping for.a proper training calendar, that allowed you to enter the events you were entering in the future and wished to peak for, and then plan workouts to allow for building and tapering in between them in an effort to maximise form.

For me the best bit on the training pull down is the 'fitness and freshness' section. of course it only really makes any sense when you're feeding it with proper power driven data, but it does actually give some valid information as to how you're body is performing and how it's recovering.

For me the best bit on the training pull down is the 'fitness and freshness' section. of course it only really makes any sense when you're feeding it with proper power driven data, but it does actually give some valid information as to how you're body is performing and how it's recovering.

There's nothing in my 'Fitness and Freshness' bit; dunno whether it's set up etc. :noway:

ah - I looked - it only appears when you feed it with powermeter data. :embarassed:

Looks a bit like this


The Grey area under the highlight is your overall fitness... the line with the pronounced dip around the first week of may (when I was laid up off the bike) is my Training Load and the one with the peak at the same time is my "freshness" for riding.

The Key thing is that fitness takes time to aquire, but isn't lost immediately


(see how the fatigue line drops WAY faster than the fitness curve in may)

- so a 3-4 day "rest" before an event won't lose you a great deal of fitness, but will make a massive improvement in how fresh you are for the event...


(see how the "form" line peaks accordingly)

According to this graph, physically, I was in the best form I've been in since I started keeping records at the start of the Giro Challenge - of course what it didn't show was the REASON why i'd been laid off the bike - but powermeters can't do everything for you...

well - the line you showed there is basically an calculated from the TSS (Training Stress Score) scores from each ride you logged with strava while using the powercal belt. If it's worked in the same way as the similar graph on TrainingPeaks and WKO+ software its actually referred to as the "Chronic Training Load" or CTL, but is easier to think of as Fitness Level.

...the exponentially-weighted moving average of the previous 42 days of TSS accumulation. This means that it takes
into account all of your workouts in the last six weeks, weighting the impact of the most recent ones more heavily.
The CTL is an approximation of your current fitness: the higher your CTL, in general, the higher your FTP.

The Fatigue line from the graph has again a "fancy name" of "Accute Training Load" - ATL - which is

...your exponentially-weighted moving 7-day average TSS. Similar to the way CTL is calculated, your most recent workouts
are more heavily weighted. This accurately reflects your current fatigue. For example, if you did some big rides last weekend, then you may still be sore from those workouts, and have a high ATL as a result.

So, CTL is what you've built up over the last 6 weeks, and ATL is how hard you've hammered yourself this week...

the Final Line from the Strava graph "Form" - is more accurately refered to as "Training Stress Balance" - TSB - and is pretty easy to calculate - its simply Fitness - Fatigue

How it all fits together:
If your ATL is greater than your CTL, your TSB will be negative. You’ll be well-trained and very “fit”, but because you are fatigued you will not be on peak form or performance.

If your ATL is less than CTL, your TSB will be positive. At a certain TSB, your fitness and your fatigue will be in balance so that you are in peak “form” for your event. You’re well-trained, fit, and rested - the recipe for going out and monstering it!

...of course, it kind of depends on the fact that you actually use power for all the workouts - if there's no power reading in the file, you'll get a gap in the graph - so (say) if you'd a powermeter that had to be sent back to base for recalibration and took a month to return, you'd have a bloody great gap in your figures, that'd take a minimum of a further 42 days to "get out of the system" as the moving averages are based on a 6 week historic cycle.

Very cool facts and figures, be interesting to see if that tails off now, can't keep going that kind of trend unless you pack in your job and do pro training hrs

YOU ARE DOING PRO TRAINING HOURS YA MUG! - follow the Downing Bro's on Strava and see the time/distance they do - if anything they're riding less, but more focussed...