trail wrote:
Andrew Coggan wrote:
In this context, the purposes of modeling are 1) to extract accurate and precise parameter estimates reflective of different underlying physiological determinants of performance (without necessarily performing any formal tests)
But not nearly as "accurate and precise" (whatever that means) as when performing formal tests (ideally performance itself). Calling something "accurate and precise" is only meaningful when you have some reference truth to measure precision and accuracy against. And that's performance. So if it's easy to go out and perform to acquire data for those 3-4 key parameters (e.g. sprint power, pursuit power, FTP, et al), might as well do that.
I teach undergrad and graduate-level classes in mathematical modeling. As the statistician Sam Karlin used to say, "the purpose of models is not to fit the data but to sharpen the questions." Models help us to test (and reject) hypotheses, so we can figure out better questions to ask.