At Uphill Athlete we rely heavily on a platform called TrainingPeaks. TrainingPeaks was originally developed by and for professional cyclists and their coaches who were faxing workouts and results between Europe and the US. Today it provides complete web, mobile, and desktop solutions to enable smart and effective endurance training. By introducing scientific tools and methods that have become the industry standard, TrainingPeaks has revolutionized the way that coaches and athletes track, analyze, and plan endurance training.
Why TrainingPeaks for Uphill Athlete
At Uphill Athlete we do all of our coaching on the TrainingPeaks platform. We also design, build, update, and sell all of our training plans via the TrainingPeaks platform. Here’s why:
It’s free.
The free Basic version of TrainingPeaks is an effective tool. However, we do recommend that you upgrade to a Premium TrainingPeaks account for about $10/month ($119/year) for access the full suite of metrics and analyses they offer.
It’s powerful.
TrainingPeaks has developed a number of very powerful tools and metrics for analyzing endurance training, among them PMC, TSS, and CTL. The Performance Management Chart (PMC) creates a good proxy for your fitness. It does this by assigning a Training Stress Score (TSS) to each workout and weighting the TSS of each of the last 42 days. Other metrics, such as Chronic Training Load (CTL) and Acute Training Load (ATL), are also derived from TSS. With these tools not only can you ramp up your training at the correct rate (3–5 CTL points per week), but you can also use it to predict when you are fit enough to attempt a given objective.
It records your workouts.
It is important for you to record your workouts. Training without planning and recording isn’t very effective. Furthermore, the record you create during each training cycle will become crucial to informing effective training in the future.
It auto-updates.
When we edit an existing training plan, every copy of that plan that has ever been purchased gets updated. This is a great thing for you as a consumer. Many people want to cycle their plans each year as a new season unfolds. TrainingPeaks automatically serves you each update no matter how big or small the refinement.
You can synch with any number of devices.
Endurance workouts synch easily via any number of devices, making recording easy. Check the TrainingPeaks website to see if your device is compatible. We encourage you to take the time to synch your GPS/heart rate device with the platform. Set your device to upload your completed workout automatically via the device-company’s app and your workouts will be uploaded, recorded, and analyzed automatically on TrainingPeaks.
There’s intellectual property protection.
Delivering training plans through TrainingPeaks does offer significant protection of our intellectual property. It makes it difficult (though not impossible) to copy/paste our training plans and repost them online for others to use at no cost.
The training plan is yours forever.
Each training plan you purchase is yours forever. While you must access our training plans through the TrainingPeaks platform, each plan you purchase will always remain accessible to you. You can apply—and reapply—your plan as many times as you like. Review how to apply a training plan here.
Disclosure
We are customers of TrainingPeaks, not compensated ambassadors. We pay TrainingPeaks a publishing fee for every training plan sold and delivered on their platform and a subscription fee for our coaching use.