What is TSS = http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/what-is-

TSS Explained = http://help.trainingpeaks.com/...ess-Scores-Explained

How TSS is Calculated = http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...ctor-training-stress

That is a good start :)

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

Thanks for the articles. I read them, and my question is not how the number is determined - as much as - how do i use the number. If a 90 minute run - gives me a value of 110 - does that 110 - correlate to anything concrete? a specific rest interval? or is this a historical value i can use to compare my training over time (i.e. 90 min run @ 6:45 pace -110 rTSS, 6 months later same run only gives value of 102)?

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Cheers,
Matt
(Columbus, OH)

It's not really meant to compare one workout to another. An hour a 6:45 today will net you the same number as an hour at 6:45 6 months from now (unless your threshold pace has changed)


TSS is about quantifying load over time which is tracked in the Performance Management Chart - http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...nce-management-chart

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

Thanks!! Really appreciate your help.

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Cheers,
Matt
(Columbus, OH)

100 TSS points is mathematically the same lactate dose in terms of concentration x time as a 1 hour max workout. A case can be made that lactate dose is what causes training effect, or if it isn't exactly lactate dose it is something that tracks relatively closely to it.

So this way you can kinda of equilibrate long hard workouts with shorter hard workouts. I say kinda because it isn't totally the same. You don't get the same training effect from a 60 minute workout at 1005 as you get from a 2 hour workout at 71% even though the TSS would be the same. But over the course of an entire season, they are similar enough to work with.

As stated it goes hand in hand with performance modeling or the PMC chart. The idea there is that your fitness correlates with your long term moving average of training, IIRC the default weighting of the PMC approximates a 84 day moving average. Your fatigue detracts from your performance on the other hand and it is a function of your short term average training load, the default PMC weighting approximates your 13 day moving average of training load.

save your TSS in a bank, then bring it to your race and spend it.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

read the thread title, and this is exactly what I thought... so far the thread is not very ST-like. I expected more funny/smart ass responses.

Coach Cox has some good posts

http://www.coachcox.co.uk/...training-by-numbers/

Also this was a good post on TP Recently

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...igue-over-the-season

Now that's more like it.
Hey anyone, what's the difference between 68 TSS and 74 TSS? 8 ml of hope or suffering? I can't remember what it means, help me out here. I want to drink something that replaces the TSS I'm leaking.

I just scored 93 TSS, did I make the playoffs?

My score for a race was 301, would I have won if I scored 305? How come I'm not dead after 299?

Eric got it about right in the general sense anyway. Just understand, and this is important, if you show up on race day with a pile-o-Pesos when the specific physiological demands laid on by course and competitor is for Kroner and/or good ole USD, you're a bit screwed. The exchange rate can make all the difference.

It doesn't work like a bank account. You can't assume that because you have paid in $5000 that you can withdraw $5000 with interest.

It's a bit like a Ponzi scheme, some early investors might get some reasonable return, but when you try to get all your money out you end up calling in the FBI.

Remember the advise given when you invest in stocks and shares,

'past performance is no guarantee of future results".

Beware mathematical models and algorithms - they didn't stop the banking crash but they may well have caused it.

http://www.theguardian.com/...uation-credit-crunch

Dare I ask, but can you write this in plain English. Thanks :)

I've been using the TSS concept for about 3 months now and I would describe it as a barometer for your training.

YOu should go back 2-3 months and look at your training and enter it in training peaks to get a feel for what you have been doing up to this point.

Once you have established a base level for your training it becomes a balancing act to adjust training load based on your freshness and fatigue level. Use it to build and taper depending on your schedule or season.

Like I said it is a barometer and you need to monitor it regularly and adjust your training accordingly.

It's a way to quantify training stress and you can use it to monitor your overall training load. I find it most useful for making sure the training load is increasing, but not too rapidly. After you use it a while, you start to learn what type of load you handle well, what is a big training load for you, how quickly you can ramp up the training load before a lot of fatigue sets in, etc.

It's not a perfect system, but it is useful. Use it as a guide, but don't get too hung up on it. It's not the be all end all of training and racing.

Thanks - about 80% of the comments have been helpful. I've had some break out races this past season, and want to focus my training to see how much i can improve. I think moving to training peaks, and monitoring my workout load over the course of the season - could be very beneficial.

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Cheers,
Matt
(Columbus, OH)

A 405 TSS for a marathon seems kinda high, btw.

You might want to start by figuring out your threshold pace and updating TrainingPeaks. That way you'll get more accurate scores to help plan the rest of your training and recovery.

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Cheers,
Sam

good call. I just started uploading workouts to TP this week. I haven't adjusted much.

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Cheers,
Matt
(Columbus, OH)

I was going to comment the same, zones seem off. Here's a quick guide to setting zones in TP - http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...ide-to-setting-zones As a comparison I ran a 50K a few weeks ago and TSS was under 300.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca