Yes, Xert uses MMP as I remember

But to dprocket that questioned the when I said "direct attack"

I respectfully say that it is more than an attention grabbing headline, it's a sensational claim to draw people to their product by denouncing their competition.

That's my opinion and why I'm not surprised at the response.

I am in neither camp on this, but you must (or at least should) know that what you're advocating is an easy route to undermining nearly any work in human health, short of a vast scientific study. This isn't a case of riding on your home trainer to establish CRRs, human studies are expensive, time consuming processes. Low risk, small commercial ventures should not be expected to meet that standard. They're not treating cancer patients.

And when is hyperbole not apart of marketing?

A couple of R charts showing correlation based off a dataset the won't share will put them equal to A.C's work on the WKO4 method.

If you compare any training app to any analysis app, you will come up short. Comparing apples to oranges has that tendency. And you still need a trainer app.

Sufferfest is the best one out there right now. There’s nothing that says you have to stop using an analysis tool. But both together, suffering and results!

A note for anyone seeking to join the wattage group:

Keep in mind that join requests that don't answer the basic joining questions are automatically rejected outright as potential spambots. The questions are to prove your relevance as a member and that you are human.

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

Over the past 24 hours I have received a lot of messages and emails about this thread and finally read it over coffee this morning. I have not been keeping up with my forums lately and was pretty surprised by the depth of this so decided to reply. My name it Tim Cusick and I am the TrainingPeaks WKO4 product leader. I guided the project of developing WKO4 as a commercial project and worked with Dr. Coggan, Hunter Allen and Kevin Williams to bring it to life. At the core of WKO4 is a powerful model of human performance known as the Power Duration Curve Model (PDC). The PDC allows for the estimation of select physiological metrics (among other things) that give individual insights into changes in an athlete's physiology while tracking the response to exercise stimuli. To me this has been a game changer. The PDC was developed by Dr. Andy Coggan along with the idea of such metrics (in our language Pmax, FRC,mFTP, TTE and Stamina) to create a full 360 degree view of the individual athlete and expand beyond just the tracking of FTP. The team further developed the idea into more applied uses for coaches of which iLevels and Optimized Intervals were born (think sometimes Andy forgets my personal influence on the development of those two). That is my background, just clearly stating who I am and what our product does.
First off a fair amount of the messages accused Sufferfest / Apex of ripping off our ideas as moving beyond FTP has been preached time and time again in our webinar series. I want to answer that first. No, I do not believe they ripped off those ideas. This “premise” has been well known and utilized by good coaches for a while. As a matter of fact, in WKO4 one of the core “ideals” was based off just that; the utilization of the PDC science to go beyond just FTP to individualize training. Do I think Sufferfest and Apex applied some of the learning from TRWPM and WKO4 to develop their product? Probably, but to me this is the way things advance. We all learn from those that have gone before us and look to improve the usage knowledge in various ways. This is the way the “community” which is cycling coaching and training grows. That doesn’t mean every product “nails” the next step and gets it right but it does mean that people are pushing the boundaries, learning from others and trying to advance the ball. I do think that Sufferfest / Apex would should have cited or mentioned some of it influences though. Often this is the issue, new products and systems launch, using some ideas / intellectually property basis from the past but not giving credit unless forced to do so by a copyright. I think it is important in cycling we honor the community even when things like a copyright do not exist. Dr. Coggan and Hunter Allen invented the idea of power profile testing and published a book on it, if that influenced Sufferfest / Apex, would have been nice to mention. If the learning of PDC, iLevels and other items in WKO4 helped and were utilized, again, nice to mention. Why do I make that point? Cycling is a community, the more we recognize and respectfully build off learning the better we are. We can do so in a positive way that enhances our knowledge. Maybe it is the idealist in me, but that is simple the way I see the world.
Second, a lot of people asked me to stop Dr. Coggan and his replies. To be clear, Andy is not part of TrainingPeaks and I have no control. Even if I did, I would personally not look to sensor him in any way even though I disagree with both the vehemence and argumentative nature of his reply. I personally “wish” he would stop the level of aggressiveness as I hate this type of negativity in the cycling community. That being said, there is a part of me that is empathic and understands his massive frustration. I have worked on the WKO4 project with Andy and can honestly say he is brilliant and his intellectual capacity to solve problems is unrivaled. His commitment to accuracy and doing things right is unparalleled and his contribution to the world of cycling is massive. For so many years people have been using his ideas without even a nod of credit which I could image builds up over time. Those positive words stated, his online persona is aggressive and attacking and often whereas he is correct or right, his approach, in my opinion, demeans him and quality of his intellect. Personally, I do not condone his replies even though I believe in his right to reply as he sees fit and can only state he does not represent my opinion.
To lump in the final questions (that are more off topic of the thread) and comments into a few statements. Let me start with Sufferfest, like many online training programs it is a fine program and the people behind it should be proud. Apex coaching is a quality group and their palmares are top notch and think Sufferfest chose a great partner. For those that know me, I tend to have a common theme in things like this. Try it and formulate your own opinion. (I know the thread is about the IP in the product, but many asked me what I thought about the product.) Some asked me about the competition from Sufferfest with WKO4. My answer, there is none. We don't compete and the products do different things. As a matter of fact, they are complementary in my opinion. The funny thing is you can use the Sufferfest product to train and track the physiological response in WKO4 to BETTER help you determine if it is effective. Look at the promotion video, Neal has WKO4 on his computer screen in the video as he is a user I might bet he used it to test the validity of what he was building.

Here is a list of free recorded webinars that might help explain how they are complimentary: https://www.youtube.com/...H_fz5oO9UwwVm_KXsLQ3 (they are free, not selling anything)
Finally, this is my opinion. When it comes to forums I typically only post once and do not reply to other responses. Why? I simply respect your ability and right to develop your own opinion and do not need mine to dominate. If you agree, great...if you disagree, great. My only advice is stated above, try the product and make your own opinion. Further replies tend to result in me just trying to reinforce my opinion based on a response that disagrees. I fight that habit by not replying.

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Tim Cusick
TrainingPeaks WKO4 Product Development Leader

Actually...all I'm asking for is for them to compare a random group of athletes who's training plan prescriptions are based on % of FTP vs. a group using the same training plans, but with the values based on their method. Which group on average improves the most? Is the difference statistically significant, and to what level? For a group that claims to have so many athletes under their purview, that shouldn't be hard, right?

Of course, that only gives an insight into which method is more effective, or not, as compared to the other...but it still doesn't say which method is "right". There may be another method that's even better ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

My 2c. I've been using Sufferfest for just about 7 years now on and off. I've witnessed their evolution from a handful of videos to much much more now. And I think they are doing great work. The videos are top quality, witty and keep me engaged (usually laughing or crying) whilst on my trainer (which is way less engaging than being outside). And their price is positioned well.

Good for you David and the rest of your team!

I just did FF yesterday and can't wait to begin working on my areas of need. And on November 1st I plan to attempt (read CRUSH) the KoS challenge. I recommend you to everyone I ride with and take your videos with me on all of my business trips.

Keep it up and Thanks!

J

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My other car is a Felt. DFL>DNF>DNS.

"There will come a day you won't be able to do this, today is not that day."

@Tim, thank very much for clearing some things up and representing yourself and your platform well -- as opposed to some other representation I've seen here. You've cleared up a lot of things brought up here with class.

Dave @ SF, you mentioned revamping the training plans in q1 2018. It seems like the individual workouts are tuned for the cyclist's 4DP, but how about the training plans as they stand today? For example, if my 4DP says I need to work on my sprinting, but I'm in a base/winter mode (still time-crunched) without a goal event in site (just want to stay somewhat fit), does the 4DP prescription (sorry to use that word...) clash in some way with my own winter goals? Not saying that I can't work on NM power in the winter, but it may not be my main goal...

Thanks, and looking forward to hooking up with SF again!

i'm planning on giving it a go shortly. need a few days to recover before and get myself in the mental state i need. thanks for the pain David! as much as it hurts, your videos definitely entertain while beating me up. Glad that sufferfest is a part of my training regimen

Tim, Thanks for taking the "high road". It is a shame the others, one in particular, could not. Hopefully, we will evolve the the point where the "high road" is not the "road less traveled". [Footnote: I can't tell you who first came up with the term "high road", but it was not me. The "road less traveled" is a reference to "the one less traveled by" in the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. :) ]

For the rest - DC Rainmaker just posted a hands on review the 4DP workout. At the bottom of his review he added a nice "preemptive unique warning" about proper etiquette in posting any comments (without naming names or the reason he added it). Not a proud moment for the Slowtwitch community.

- Brian

How dare you bring rationality and maturity here? I wasn't done with my bag of schadenfreude popcorn yet!

to those who've been private messaging me about this thread: i've read every post. i decided to leave everything up and published because i felt it was a distillation of a lot of the crosstalk by a lot of the regulars who've been habitues of a half-dozen forums over the past decade and a half. to delete this record would be to obliterate what could be a teaching moment, if there are any teachable people left on the internet.

i think this is, or will be, or could be, a specifically proud moment for the slowtwitch community, if we can once and for all find a way forward by which elements of the cycling and tri community can talk to each other civilly. otherwise, whether on slowtwitch or elsewhere, this sort of dynamic will continue.

tim and i think alike. those inside this ecosystem ought not to eat each other. i do understand what it feels like to invent or conceive of something, and have others riff off of what i developed or introduced (not rip off, riff off, and there's a big difference between the two). i remember a bike company engineer calling me in 1990, saying, "we're going to be copying your bike." my reply was, "fine, but don't f**k it up. if you're going to do it, do it right or it will reflect badly on me." and we spoke about every 3 weeks for 6 months on the development of what would become my biggest competitor.

people routinely make new bike fit systems that riff of of mine, they appropriate the terms stack and reach which are terms i identified and coined. good! it just validates ideas that it turns out may have been good after all! tim is right. we move forward and we're all in this together.

sufferfest is a first rate, rock solid product that is riding the biggest wave in cycling today, which is the move to stationary. beginning pretty much now you'll all be seeing a huge emphasis on this site on what we're calling "stationary season" that will formally begin oct 22. sufferfest is a much loved part of that paradigm.

carry on...

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Excellent post! That should have ended the thread. Thanks.

Dan, As the nobody/lurker that orginally asked the question, I had no idea what was about to unfold. I am in the camp of amatuer triathlete who hasn't had the time or money to hire coaches or dig super deep into power based training. As a result, I've let TrainerRoad do that for me over the last 4 years. But I’ve oftentimes done the Sufferfest workouts with the purchased videos through Trainerroad. And I've had amazing results!

So I originally asked this question (with some apparent naivety, I'm now realizing) in order to get the opinion of those who were much more educated on power based training. My eyes have now been opened to a whole new world that I was never aware of. I really appreciate the perspective of Dr. Coggan. But I also see what Sufferfest is doing to try to bring smarter training at a reduced cost to athletes. Plug and play. It’s not perfect. It may not even be as innovative as it’s being marketed to be. (That part, I cannot speak intelligently on…)

Thanks Tim from Training Peaks for the soothing words on community. This is the kind of balanced response I was looking for. In the end, I don’t feel like my question was fully answered. But I guess what I’ve discovered is that time will tell on whether or not this system is more effective than an FTP-based system; my question can’t be answered yet.

But I do know this: across the last four years, I have ALWAYS been at my fastest when using Sufferfest videos in TrainerRoad. So I concur with Dan when he says that it’s a rock-solid product, just like TrainerRoad, taking advantage of indoor training needs… and I might just give this new product a go and see what happens!

Thanks so much for that Dan. The Slowtwitch community is an exceptional one. We're proud to be even a small part of it and look forward to positive and constructive conversations with you all. Thank you, David McQuillen, Chief Suffering Officer, The Sufferfest.

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David McQuillen
Founder & CEO of The Sufferfest

I sort of traipsed into your thread with a degree of enthusiasm about 4DP, and initially I was just little surprised by the vitriol that popped up. I responded sincerely early on. Then when it started to get weird, I amped it up a little. Not much, but a little. Even now, I believe my trolling about the tone that came up was pretty inocuous. Granted, my sense of humor isn’t for everyone and doesn’t carry into print all the time, but when the response got really ugly and there was no progress toward toning it down, I should have realized that there are probably some more profound isses at work. I am not proud of taunting someone—even in what I considered a cleary, obviously glib manner—�who is effectively defenseless not to respond with rage.

The one advantage I had at the time was my relative anonymity. I found myself questioning whether that anonymity made me less thoughtful about my responses. I’m ready to give that up in the interests of furthering just moving past this.

Thanks, Tim for taking the time to read this thread, digest it and offer such a considered response. We're proud to be a TrainingPeaks partner. We will continue to do our best to be ever better as a company and to deliver ever greater benefits to cyclists and triathletes. We can look to you and the TrainingPeaks family as great role models on how to do so. Thank you. - David McQuillen, Chief Suffering Officer.

PS. That must have been one big cup of coffee. :)

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David McQuillen
Founder & CEO of The Sufferfest

When is the half distance tri plan scheduled to be ready?

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"see the world as it is not as you want it to be"

I was going to reply something to that effect, but then I realize not many people know the scientific method and even less understand why it it is important.
Either that or when it comes to this matter as well as aerodynamics, (rotational, lol) weight, people choose to put emotion over rationality.

i think most people here understand the scientific method very well, and they understand why it is important. they also understand when it is important.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Repeated measures anova as a mixed model would allow you to compare intraclass and interclass. But indeed, there might be something even better. Maybe using 2s, 3min27, and 18min31 would work better :-)

How does the approach differ to Skiba's CP and his W' concept? I haven't read yet about 4DP, just got some of its gist from this thread, so it may be a stupid question that was already addressed elsewhere.

That's just silly. What does TSF have to gain?

So, they do "something", then what? ST would NEVER be satisfied. Say that they put up some "study" as you suggest. Then ST rips it apart for its methods, sample size, sample selection, statistical analysis, and the conclusions drawn, the inherent bias in having conducted their own "study", and the fact that they haven't published enough of the "raw" data, and the fact that they never submitted it to the "right" peer reviewed journal.

Other than that, I'm sure it would be hugely useful!


To be clear, I'm not a customer, and have no intention to be. I hate indoor training, and would rather ride my 30x30/5x5/2x20/3x30/1x60 on black ice, in driving freezing rain, and 30mph wind.