Have those metrics been validated in peer-reviewed studies?


Don't forget session RPE (PPP: "If it feels hard, it is hard.")

I guess independent unbiased peer-review is impossible those days, those that would qualify do not give a F#$$ , and those that would like to be in in at all cost are biased.

Here is group of people using/reviewing it: http://www.triscore.se/


I hope people realize we have many options:


physiological:
TRIMP HR based, RPE - user perception based.



PMC - A.Coggan - power meter based


None of them is perfect, non of them is better or worse, preferred or less preferred , comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges.


example:


Last night I did 40 min workout at 120W (my FTP 310W) in my Power Zone 1, and my HR zone 1, it felt like 110% effort, I could not fall a sleep, same as after racing first season Criterium, my HR was racing 2 hours later, I had headache, I can still feel my HR and slight headache today.


Apparently the "least precise" RPE method would be the most precise to define the physiological load my body took. I would not be able to repeat that workout today.


I guess if people would stop fighting and got their brilliant minds together (no doubt we have best in the world on this thread - literally) we could create joined method that could be even better than existing ones.

Not the Triscore that Mark meant. What he was describing was adding Phil Skiba's GOVSS, BikeScore, and SwimScore (the first of which was inspired by TSS, with the latter two being created subsequently).

"guess independent unbiased peer-review is impossible those days"

how would you set up this study? let's say somebody offered all the money you needed to set up a study. just very roughly, what does your protocol for this study look like? what is the output that proves the efficacy of one model over another?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Nobody has claimed there is science behind that points system. The point of the thread is to illustrate Golden Cheetah's capabilities to integrate custom metrics. In particular one metric defined by the owner of this forum.

What really puzzles me is the choice you have made as to how the athletic community sees you. You could have chosen to behave smartly in social media and be perceived as an exercise physiology God, as certainly some of your work deserves. Yet you behave like an arsehole and are perceived as an idiot by most.

Dumb choice, I guess intelligence is compartmentalized and you can have it all. But life is long and there is always time to change.

I would not accept any money from anyone at any point, once money is involved it is biased, or semi biased, I'm full of admiration of your model, since you are making money and still offering fairly unbiased service.


I know it sounds hard/impossible, but with power of the internet I think it would be possible, especially if people with open minds would be involved.

Study would have to combine multiple people with different backgrounds that are ready to dedicate some free time for this project. just example:

Central website would be needed to coordinate communication, some type of governing body would need to be established.

Have few physicians, respiratory experts, cardiac experts, mathematicians, programmers, linguists, to get some testing material we would need: teachers, trainers, instructors from fitness clubs, people attending to fitness clubs that are ready to participate, having some regular students at schools, cycling clubs, swimming clubs, running clubs.

Define the goal: eg: develop:

Workload scoring system taking different disciplines and adaptation under consideration.
Physiological stress point system taking different disciplines and adaptations under consideration.

Brainstorm how to do it, and do it :)

Then ask trainers, cycling club members, teachers. students to use it and see how well it works.

let's don't forget People are Awesome and I'm sure they would come up with free open framework system that is closer to define workload or stress that what we have now.

"see how well it works."

right. what i'm saying is if you did not have any impediments, financial or otherwise, how would you go about determining what the right system is for calculating work, for the purposes of finding equivalency across endurance platforms (swim, bike, run, xc ski).

i think you're right, that crowdsourcing would be the best way. this phrase you use, tho, "see how well it works." how do you quantify that? here are a few possible metrics:

1. perform a formal study, you know, "we took 28 competing triathletes and split them into 2 cohorts." and then you do what? test oxygen consumption or some other metric after 6 months?

2. crowdsource race results of people using different methodologies.

3. see who is actually able to use each system. you might find out that a particular system is best, but is so laborius to use that few people use it.

4. like #3 above, how many people are still USING various systems after one year?

i don't think you and i are at odds here. i have no sense of ownership over this points system i'm trying to defend or protect. i welcome any input. you might say that this very forum is the crowdsourcing method by which my aerobic points system gets perfected. i would just note the following:

A) i believe that what we see in high level athletes is a misunderstanding of what is important; of what works. i don't think that joel filliol, brett sutton, jamie hunt, siri lindley, paulo souza are successful because they use better training methodology. i think they're successful MOSTLY because each is very good at managing a training enclave. what's most important is not whether the coach has you swimming with banded ankles, but that in the lane on either side of you is somebody who's as good or better than you. every day. all day long. so i think we ought to recognize what it is that makes athletes really good.

B) whether it's any of these coaches above, or andy coggan's (correct) emphasis on stress, once you get an athlete to produce the work, now the job is to make sure he doesn't produce too much work. this is, in my opinion, more important even than the nature of the work.

C) over the years i've considered all kinds of ways to turn this into an algorithm. you multiply the points by so much for vertical feet climbed, or by intensity of work. but then you inherit two problems: 1) the more complicated you make it the fewer the people who can or are willing to use it; 2) you start to game the system, by hitting your points through doing harder work. then it's not aerobic points. it's anaerobic points.

D) for as simple, and clunky, and old-fashioned as it is, this points system is kind of a truth teller. if i say to you, "we're going to have a swim-intensive week" this week, but we're going to keep to (say) our average of 300 points per week during each standard-work week. if we give over 120 points to bike and run just to remain in the game (2 x 30-mile rides; 3 x 5mi runs) that means you must swim 20,000 yards to keep to those 300 points. you can whine. you can obfuscate. you can reason your way out of it. but that's what it is. this points system, while imprecise, is a truth teller.

this is an AEROBIC points system. it's not a work system. it doesn't factor in other stressers. you can do a 600-mile bike week. you probably can't do a 150-mile run week, because while each earns the same aerobic points, there is simply the structural problem with running 150 miles in a week.

this points system is also not a measure of YOUR aerobic expenditure. it's a measure of what your expenditure would be if you were a balanced athlete. but i believe in training your weakness, so, no, you don't get a pass if you are a poor swimmer. this points system exposes the fact that you're a poor swimmer.

so, again, this isn't to defend this points system. i rarely refer to it nowadays. however, these are the goals of this system:

1. to tell you the truth about how much work you're producing.
2. for you to understand the relative value of each bit of swimming, cycling, running you're doing.
3. to be simple enough for anyone to understand, anyone to use, whether or not the user has a coach, uses a fancy training log, etc.

what we hear a lot in triathlon is that it's too complicated. the cost of entry is too high. the learning curve is too steep. that's not true. but it feels that way to beginners unless we present them pathways that meet them where they are, rather than that place to which they'll eventually evolve.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

No, but Mark has repeatedly bragged about how GoldenCheetah is "steeped in science" and dissed things that have arisen/reside outside that ivory tower, while at the same frequently implementing things (like "Daniel's points", virtual elevation, etc.) that don't meet his standard. I therefore think it is perfectly fair to make fun of his hypocrisy.


Please remind me - why should I care whether total strangers think that I am "an exercise physiology God" or an "idiot"? I am not a politician running for office, or competing in any other sort of popularity contest.

(BTW, people are saying that you make yourself look small when you blame others for your insults. Not me, mind you, but others are saying it.)

We take great pride in the fact we implement proven science from the literature and it is our primary focus. We also implement all sorts of other metrics too, over 300 of them, including stuff like Daniels Points, Aerobic Decoupling, TriScore, TSS^tm etc

A few years ago I'm betting that you would have labeled the 3 min test as "proven science" - now look where we are:

http://journals.humankinetics.com/...1123/ijspp.2016-0376

The scientific method rocks, doesn't it?

The 3-min test has generated a flurry of studies, there are at least 3 I can think of that drew the same conclusions as this latest one. The gold standard for estimating CP is still to perform multiple trials to exhaustion.

To paraphrase Churchill, science is the worst way of acquiring new knowledge, except for all others.


Just like I called it almost 10 y ago:

https://groups.google.com/...nv9i8_w/h6g5fnEx7roJ

W'bal was introduced in August 2012, its been around for coming up to 5 years. There have been at least 4 studies looking at its validity and seeking to refine it. I personally know of 3 national cycling teams that have used the W'bal model for different purposes.

...and it is still too easily broken to meet my standards.

Just sayin'...

I've noticed that theme. Hugely important work from Morton, Hill, Banister, Monod and Scherrer and now Jones and Skiba et al is not up to your standards.

It's all about application and context.

Take Banister's model, for example: although relatively robust, it requires too much data to reliably solve in actual practice. Ergo, something simpler was needed to move things from the laboratory to the field, which led me to develop the PMC. A decade or so later, Tim Gabbett and others in the team sport world are belatedly realizing the same thing, and adopting the same solution (i.e., exponentially-weighted moving averages instead of convolution functions).

On the flip side, consider the Monod model: not nearly as much data are needed to fit it (even two points is enough), but the domain of validity is limited to ~100 to ~1000 s, so if you want to model the entire power-duration relationship, you need something more complex. Fortunately, unlike with Banister's model overparameterization isn't as much of an issue, allowing development of the WKO4 model.

So, what about W' bal? Although appealing to those who haven't really thought things through, in practice the number of useful applications are actually somewhat limited, and the model that has been proposed is easily broken. Thus, IMO it really isn't ready for "prime time" (and in fact may never be).

As George Box said, all models are wrong, but some are useful. The corollary, of course, is that some models are not. Which category a model falls into depends upon a number of factors, including but not limited to its theoretical basis, statistical validity, importance and range of possible applications, possible alternative solutions, etc.

Absolutely. Which is why the scientific literature is such an important resource. Claims are verified by peers. Validity is independently tested. Theories are applied, improved and generalised.

You are failing to understand the point of this thread, it's to show a feature within Golden Cheetah using this points system as an example.

And like Slowman already articulated, it's 25 years old - what metrics would you have used instead?

Sorry, I stand corrected. Your stealth signature shouts "I don't care what people think about me". I should have noticed. I should have also noticed the respect with which you always treat others. I guess it's these details that explain why I am small and you are big.

The .sig exists at the suggestion of others here, who have previously expressed confusion about for whom I work/don't work/what I do/don't do/have done.

As for respect, I'm not the one calling people "arseholes", limey.

You are right, and hence my apologies. I never understood why being so polite you would have to be moderated or called to attention so often in different Internet forums.

This thread's title is somewhat misleading then.

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http://www.cyclecoach.com
http://www.aerocoach.com.au

Now you're just making things up.

Not really, the wattage forum is replete with moderator comments, moderator pleadings, and user frustrations at your arguments with Mark L. Your comments can be negative and aggressive in tone. Taking the high road, with online commentary, is not one of your strengths.

I, for one, am glad you have listed your current and previous affiliations. It is a great reverse sponsorship with regards to whom I wish to do business with or not. I was on the fence about purchasing WKO4 and/ or getting Training peaks premium. Your online persona on multiple forums has lead me to avoid either.

It may be to my own detriment, as far as analysing my workout data, but I could not be happier with the decision each time I see a thread head down this path.