Everett- Trainingpeaks is the calendar based platform that houses both the training plan schedule and the data from completed workouts. It is free at its basic level and the premium level upgrade is fee based but is included for the paid mountain training group members. As for CTL and TSS – exactly what Edgar said. We’ll dig into these metrics a bit more in the next zoom call as many folks are not familiar with them
MarkPostle
Forum Replies Created
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ModeratorMarkPostle on November 6, 2021 at 9:21 am · in reply to: Questions about Training Peaks Metrics #58883Moderator
Brian, The passwords needed for any of the workouts are included in each days workout program. The password for the Chamfit is: strength
ModeratorRC, Here are some reference times from Scott with coached athletes
2hrs up the old trail (almost fall line) with 40lbs fasted Z1-2 is a decent time. This at 20%BW.
Under 1:50 with 20% is excellent, fast.
Very fit Everest summiter a few years ago ran it in 1:35 no weight.
It is 4300ft avg grade 26%. I usually have them come down the new trail (switchbacks)
A word of caution as you probably well understand one the absolute best ways to NOT improve is to focus on someone else’s pacing or HR when trying to develop aerobic capacity. Hope this helps.
ModeratorEdgar- Given your training history, approach and timeline I don’t see any issue with your plan. If your CTL is in the 85-90 range and you recover well from the race you should be able to do a nice sport specific build cycle Feb-May and be right where you need to be for Denali.
Moderator@bwhipple- Youre moving some serious weight up the stairs! Yes commonly we have folks increase the weight to give more of a muscular stress than an aerobic one but I would probably not do that in your case at the moment. 83# is a pretty meaty pack even for someone who is #225. HR is very individual and you can’t compare one person to another with regards to some of these workouts. I can tell for sure from the data how “hard” you are descending but you might try taking it a bit easier on the down. As you mention you likely have some more work to do in the sub AeT aerobic capacity department but you’re working on that and your goal climbs are now 4-5 weeks away it sounds like. As long as you’re able to recover OK from the weighed ME carries and get in a decent weekly volume of sub AeT work I would keep running them as is for a few more sessions. We see good “return on investment” from this type of work. One thing I would mention is you don’t need to run these right up until you leave, a little taper off of them won’t hurt you, we see the benefits of these commonly to be fairly far reaching in the weeks following.
ModeratorThis is an old explanation but I think it still holds water
There were some questions with respect to how to add an image to your user avatar on the UA website. Here’s a quick explanation.
The UA website is built on WordPress. All WordPress websites use an avatar service called Gravatar to source avatar images.
Once you sign up for a Gravatar account, you can add as many email addresses as you want and associate a photo with each one. Once associated, that email-and-photo combination will show up on all websites that use WordPress.
More and more non-WordPress sites are also using Gravatar, so it’s a pretty handy way to manage all of your email-and-photo combinations across the entire evil interwebs.
ModeratorWelcome to the group Anna, Indeed they’ll be recorded and the google drive links will be posted here on the forum by Steve. It will generally take about 24 hours to be uploaded and be posted. We’ll also be putting up posts regarding what topics will be covered in future meetings so you can post questions even if you’re not attending live.
ModeratorMatt, Steve will start a thread here that will have a google drive link where everyone can watch the recording from last night meeting once its been converted and loaded to the cloud. This will generally be about 24 hours after the meeting.
ModeratorKrish, As long as your recovering from the training it is OK to add some running to the strength days. I always have folks keep it low intensity and start with fairly short sessions like 20-30 minutes then build from there.
ModeratorThis is question we deal with a fair amount. It depends on a few factors, primarily, How hard is the activity aerobically, how far from your goal climb are you and what is your recovery capacity? Things like hard tennis playing, ski touring, and skate skiing for most folks have a pretty high aerobic demand and should be counted as “training” and incorporated into the program for the most part. I wear a HR monitor while doing them and log them into TP. Things like technical climbing (gym or outdoors) I do not log as aerobic training but I do think about if they conflict with strength training workouts. Usually its not a big issue. One of the main principles to think about with regards to a lot of these activities is how sport specific are they. You want the training to evolve to be more sport specific as the goal nears. Spending a bunch of time and energy lift skiing 8 months out from a goal is probably not an issue, if you’re 8 weeks out then you’ll likely want to spend some of that time hiking uphill with a pack on.
ModeratorMarkPostle on November 3, 2021 at 1:52 pm · in reply to: Questions about Training Peaks Metrics #58757Great topic and we’ll spend some time on it next week for sure. I would say CTL is the metric in TrainingPeaks I look at the most but it is still just one metric. We do indeed talk about a CTL of 80-120 for various big mountain objectives. Of course those are very individual and only taking into account the last 42 days of training. Honestly I mostly use the CTL to hold athletes back more than push them. If they’re making big jumps in CTL every week then overtraining is a strong possibility. I like to try and paint a big picture using CTL, TSB (form), total training time, and vertical gain/loss to keep track of where we are and how were progressing. The overarching question in my mind regardless of the metrics is the athlete recovering from the workload in an acceptable way. I would way rather send someone off on a big objective with a CTL of 90 healthy and rested than with a CTL of 101 overtrained. Its a fine line sometimes.
ModeratorMarkPostle on November 2, 2021 at 12:41 pm · in reply to: What size plyo box makes the most sense for me? #58689Of those 2 choices of sizing I would lean towards the 12/14/16. As Reed mentions might be better for heel touch and stability work. I have also had folks get a lot of use out of a stackable box system of 12, 8 and 4″ boxes giving many combination possibilities. If you look for “Yes4All Stackable Wood Plyo Box” on amazon you’ll see them. This would be a fair bit more $$ than the 12/14/16 though.
ModeratorThe great thing about the TGU is it works a lot of major muscle groups and joints in one exercise so its hard to substitute another similar exercise and get the same benefits. I do work with an athlete who has a problematic shoulder and he does the TGUs with a sand bag on the shoulder eliminating the need to hold weight overhead then does another movement to work on shoulder strength and stability. (i.e. seated military press, TRX IYT etc)
ModeratorJonathan,
I think of it a bit more as the latter of the 2 scenarios you describe here. It is a gradual shift where you go from primarily fat burning to primarily carbs burning as you cross your AeT. If your HR exceeds your AeT by a few beats on a section of uphill it doesn’t magically flip a switch and undo months of careful training. What I like to think of is what is the goal at hand at the moment or for that particular session, if its to build aerobic capacity and that’s best accomplished in Zones 1 or 2 for you at the moment then try and keep your HR at the appropriate level and work towards that goal.
The otherside which you mention here is that while certainly it’s important to have a good handle on your HR zones, maybe agonizing over 1-2 beats one way or the other is unwarranted. One might be better off spending that energy getting out the door and putting in the work!ModeratorNeal–As advised above I would check your AeT assumptions by doing a HR drift test. Choose a dead flat course, indeed a local running track makes a good option. Once you’ve done that and have a better handle on your AeT go out and see what that effort feels like. It very well could be that you cant really use a running gait and keep your HR below AeT, youre not alone in that. For sure the absolute number one comment we get from athletes we’re coaching is “It feels like I’m going so slow!” This will improve with some volume and dedication. Your days in the mountains will then be more enjoyable as your “all day” pace will be faster and easy to maintain.
Hope this helps