Help with Performance Manager???
 

I'm still a good month and half away from doing any tapering, but I'm trying to get a handle on the Performance Manager in GC. I've be re-reading the chapter of Training with Power that describes it to try and get a better understanding.

The issue I'm having is with Stress Balance. In the book they talk about letting your TSB rise to somewhere in the -10 to +10 range. Strangely, as my LTS has been steadily rising, my SB has been too. My SB hit an all time low a few months ago when my training wasn't quite as intense as now... can't seem to figure that one out. First question, do any of you pay attention to SB and try to get it into the -10 to +10 range before a big race or monthly testing like the book recommends? If not, do you have another way of approaching it?

Also, what has everyones experience been with regard to Long Term Stress? Do you find a number or range where your body starts to say "take it easy"? I'm up to around 100 right now for first time since I got a PM and feel like I'm flirting with that ceiling (although I suspect I can still push higher).

Thanks.

I wrote GC's PM.

LTS and STS are very similar to Coggan's Chronic and Accute. BS is calculated slightly differently than TSS but it's close, and the equations that turn BS to LTS and STS are the same.
SB, just like TSB, is just LTS - STS. So its negative when STS is higher than LTS, meaning that you are adding stress. It's positive when STS is less than LTS, because you're loafing compared to what you were doing.

Say you're training hard and your SB is -30. If you want to taper for an important race you need to back off. But if you back off too soon or too much you will start to lose fitness. Hence the -10 - +10 recommendation.

Unfortunately people are different when it comes to the LTS they can handle. Looking back at my notes I found that four years ago I could hold 100 ok but not much more. The last few years I have been able to get to 120 as part of peaking. Other guys I know who are faster can't go over 100, or in the case of one former member whose handle I can't use here, 160 is just fine. But he's a mutant.

There's a video: http://bugs.goldencheetah.org/projec...nager_%28PM%29

cool. now i know who to go to with questions...


also, to the OP: i might be misinterpreting this but it seems like you're thinking of LTS (or CTL in the coggan/allen book) as stress that has a negative impact on your "freshness" or SB. don't think that's how it works. the way i understood it, even though it's called "stress," LTS is really a measure of your fitness. it reflects the impact of past workouts that have had enough time to cause your body to adapt and become more fit. STS (ATL) is the metric that tracks recent workouts and shows how fatigued you are as a result. that's why SB is LTS - STS; it's basically fitness - fatigue.

obviously there's some limit to LTS, but that's why LTS and SB rise together. the more fit you get, the less you suffer from any given workout, so SB doesn't fall as much. if you're really out of shape, your LTS is basically 0, so even a relatively light workout will cause a relatively large drop in SB.

No kidding.

Your last point about SB not falling as much makes sense. I'm sure as the season progresses and I rack up more miles and workouts the Performance Manager will makes more sense.

Now that I know this I might be bugging you with more questions!!!

Thanks for replying and for writing this part of the program. It's awesome that you and the other writers created such a great program and put it out there for free.

If you've just started using GC, try filling in a guess for your starting LTS (options->athlete->Performance Manager). If you start from zero it takes a few months to reach what you're really at.

What is wrong with PM in 3.x? I had to switch back to 2.1 to get the right graphs.

The one I have (last linux developers build from the server, so not current) looks ok to me.

i have the latest release (from 1/22/12, i think) and mine's working fine. what's the problem?

Do you have the build number? I am running Windows 7. Should I leave 2.x installed and install 3.x in parallel?

Thanks!

Build date: Nov 21 2011 08:27:56
Version: (developer build)


I haven't noticed a problem from using 2.1 and 3.0 on the same data set, other than having GC to rebuild the metrics db when I switch. But I import my data using 2.1 only.

The problem is when I add the Performance Manager graph to the window, it's like a copy of the Ride Plot. It doesn't have the power metrics (ATL, CTL, TSB equivalents).

I'll try the 1/22 build and the release suggested by ericm. Thank you both.

I think the PM is great, but I have one problem. Not every ride file has power data, and it throws everything off. Because the batteries died, or I was waiting to get the hub built into a new wheel, or whatever. I would really like to fill in the blanks by estimating the bikescore for these rides. Because I do a lot of the same rides over again, I have a pretty good idea what that should be. Now, I know you can create a manual ride entry, but then it seems I would have to delete the ride file for that day (which otherwise has good data) or live with the redundancy of having both a manual entry and a 'real' ride file for that ride. Shouldn't there be some way of estimating a bikescore from non-power data when it's necessary? Or is there already, and I'm missing it?

-for steady state efforts (Z4 or below), the trimp100 is very close to TSS. You need to provide max HR, resting HR, and LTHR


you can manually go to any ride file, go to "information" tab. In the "information" pane, there's a tab that reads "metric." Here you can manually change bike score. Save the activity to make the change.

alternatively, TSS has been incorporated, but not fully, and you can't see it under the metric tab of the "information" window. To manually enter TSS, go to options-->settings-->Ride Data. Under the "fields" tab, hit insert. A new line will pop out at the top, and you'll need to edit it.

To edit, hit the rename button, and change property for "Screen Tab" to Metric. Under field, change the property to TSS. Voila, and it's done.

Now go back to a particular ride, manually assign TSS, and save activity. TSS will be updated.

FWIW, i no longer use the PM in GC. a spreadsheet is set up to tally everything. CTL & ATL are nothing but exponential moving averages.

would you be willing to share said spreadsheet? is it located somewhere online?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...b19NVGc#gid=16

don't change the original. Just save it as a copy

I installed the 1/22 build and no change. When I click on the add chart icon on the upper right next to Train, and add Performance, I get a copy of the Ride window. No metrics. What am I doing wrong?

i don't like the newest version and prefer the older one (from September)

oh, there's your problem. that's what "performance" is - it's the ride chart, not the performance manager.

on the top right of the screen, click on the "home" tab (instead of "analysis"). once you're in that screen, click add chart and choose performance manager.

That's it! Thank you.

Yea, I prefer the 2.x UI as well. 3.0's is confusing. Oh well.

What I do it to use the manual entry to estimate BS for that ride, then add it to the ride using the metrics tab.

How would I arrive at a reasonable estimate? An average bikescore/day for the past month?

Yea, that'd be pretty good.

ericm- I'm having a problem I'm hoping you (or maybe someone else) can help me with. Last weekend my Garmin recorded a power spike of 20,000 watts for a few seconds. As much as I'd like to believe that my training has been so successful that I now have a 1 sec high of 20,000 I think there's an issue with my powertap. What's the best way to erase those few seconds from the ride so my CP curve doesn't get completely effed? The only way I could figure it out was to split the workout and erase the section I didn't want, only downside is my ride is now broken into two different workouts. Any advice?