Well okay, I understand the principle. I don’t understand how I get an accurate estimate in Golden Cheetah. Today I rode for 1 hr 5 minutes and my W’ was 116% - what numbers would be off to produce that? Pretty sure W’ should never go over 100% unless there’s an error somewhere.
Ooh, I understand it.
It is very breakable. If you go close to a W’ balance of 0 several times during the ride, your W’ expended can easily go north of 100%
But I still think it is useful. And the W’ balance tool might be REALLY useful once it can be viewed in real time (I hear there is a garmin app that does it, but haven’t tried it).
I have have Phil Skiba’s powerpoint slide deck from AMSSM this year. Goes through a lot of those details. I don’t think I can just straight post it here. But If you email me, I can email it to you.
Andy
I have a crazy theory that the reason chris froome likes to stare at his stem so much is they have some sort of W’Bal display. That would be a very useful thing on a tour stage–if you’ve put a lot of effort into measuring your W’ capacity and your recovery rate, then that would be a serious advantage.
Either your CP or your W’ (or both) is set too low in the athlete settings.
I’m a bit confused as to how to accurately set W’bal tau (s) in the options (golden cheetah) but I don’t see a tool that I can use to calculate this figure. I can calculate CP & W’Bal using the estimator but I’m not sure how the estimators figures for W’Bal & W’Bal tau(s) correlate with each other.
I’m a bit confused as to how to accurately set W’bal tau (s) in the options (golden cheetah) but I don’t see a tool that I can use to calculate this figure. I can calculate CP & W’Bal using the estimator but I’m not sure how the estimators figures for W’Bal & W’Bal tau(s) correlate with each other.
What version are you using?
See these for an overview of W’bal in GoldenCheetah: https://vimeo.com/100599100
and this describes the CP Chart incl. Estimated CP, W’, FTP etc: https://vimeo.com/100244204
Mark
I have a crazy theory that the reason chris froome likes to stare at his stem so much is they have some sort of W’Bal display. That would be a very useful thing on a tour stage–if you’ve put a lot of effort into measuring your W’ capacity and your recovery rate, then that would be a serious advantage.
There is a Garmin add on that does this. I hear it is not quite ready for prime time yet. Agree completely that once it is polished it could be VERY useful. And maybe Sky has been able to put some resources into making those types of plug ins work for them.
Either your CP or your W’ (or both) is set too low in the athlete settings.
Not necessarily. Tau calculation assumes that you recover equally well from all types of work and is not really a measure of recovery, but how much time you spend below CP during the ride. For example, I can drive my W’Bal to 0 by doing either 1 hour at 305W or 1 minute at 620W. As long as I spend the same amount of time recovering at the same intensity, the model assumes that I recover from both efforts equally well. For me, I don’t think that’s true.
That isn’t a bug. That’s how it is built and there is some empirical data to support that it is true across group of athletes. But for an individual, it might not be true.
I’m a bit confused as to how to accurately set W’bal tau (s) in the options (golden cheetah) but I don’t see a tool that I can use to calculate this figure. I can calculate CP & W’Bal using the estimator but I’m not sure how the estimators figures for W’Bal & W’Bal tau(s) correlate with each other.
I’m still using GC 3.1.0, so this might have been updated. But tau is calculated for the ride. It is a marker of how much time you spend below threshold. tau is used to calculate W’Bal, so they are very tightly correlated.
Mark Liversedge has a pretty good description of it on his blog:
http://markliversedge.blogspot.com/2014/07/wbal-its-implementation-and-optimisation.html
and there is a shit-tonne of info about it on the Wattage forum if you want to sped a long weekend trying to figure out whose math is right and whose is wrong.
Andy
I’d like to know how people are modifying their training with this number.
I’m a bit confused as to how to accurately set W’bal tau (s) in the options (golden cheetah) but I don’t see a tool that I can use to calculate this figure. I can calculate CP & W’Bal using the estimator but I’m not sure how the estimators figures for W’Bal & W’Bal tau(s) correlate with each other.
What version are you using?
See these for an overview of W’bal in GoldenCheetah: https://vimeo.com/100599100
and this describes the CP Chart incl. Estimated CP, W’, FTP etc: https://vimeo.com/100244204
Mark
Good timing. I was just linking your blog while we were both posting.
Team - listen to Mark.
Andy
I’d like to know how people are modifying their training with this number.
Best question yet. This is still quite debatable. So take this as what it is – anecdote.
For me, the W’Bal chart made me realize that I was doing too short of high VO2 intervals. I was doing 120%CP for 1:30 and wasn’t getting that much better at them. The W’Bal chart made me realize that I was only digging a very shallow hole with those efforts. So I started doing longer high VO2 intervals with a lot more recovery in between. It made me nervous because the total amount of work in the workout went town (both in time at threshold and TSS). But I quickly noticed improvements and got a lot better at sustaining that power, when previously had had been a bit stagnant in that range.
Again, your mileage may vary.
Andy
Well okay, I understand the principle. I don’t understand how I get an accurate estimate in Golden Cheetah. Today I rode for 1 hr 5 minutes and my W’ was 116% - what numbers would be off to produce that? Pretty sure W’ should never go over 100% unless there’s an error somewhere.
Or unless your anaerobic capacity is increasing.
I’d like to know how people are modifying their training with this number.
Interval design and assessment is totally different now.
If you didn’t complete interval 4 of 5, perhaps you should have waited longer to recover.
If you had recovered and still failed then either you had a bad day or other fatigue impacted you.
Did that tactic of leading the group bridging the gap ultimately cost you as you hadn’t recovered enough for the sprint.
When designing interval sessions (and reviewing as designed) you will spot “impossible” sessions. For example, the Sufferfest videos are all largely doable, but revolver is a monster that is almost (but not quite) impossible to complete. I checked some interval sessions used in recent studies and found for some athletes (ok, for me) they would be impossible 
The workout designer in GC plots W’bal so you can see this (but its not out yet, just in the development builds).
Mark
I’ve been using Golden Cheetah for about 6 months and I have to say W’ is one of the most intriguing data points. It seems, at least for me, to be an extremely accurate measure of when I am going to crack during hard efforts or repeated hard efforts. Down to within 30-60 seconds in many cases.
If one had real time access to it, it would be a great training tool. Basically, it would show you if you really had maxed yourself out or you are just being a wimp. But after workout/race analysis is helpful tool. I do look at hard over threshold interval sets or races after the fact to see if I really did bury myself or, (more often unfortunately) I got to my mental limit before I really got to my physical limit. You can learn something from it.
But at least from my limited knowledge, it would be of little use if you are not going over your threshold since it appears not to start dropping until you get over your FTP. But if you do bike races or do hard interval training, it appears to me that real time access to it could be a game changer.
That would be a very useful thing on a tour stage–if you’ve put a lot of effort into measuring your W’ capacity and your recovery rate, then that would be a serious advantage.
I don’t think it’d be an advantage. Success in the ProTour is more about estimating everyone else’s W’, and hiding yours from everyone else. You tend to know your own, by feel.
E.g. Contadors little mini-attacks on big climbs are a W’ prime check for everyone around him. Forces everyone to show their hand.
Froome just mostly looks like he flat out out-FTPs everyone rather than using his W’ to create gaps.
I’ve seen it go north of 200% for short TTs with efforts above FTP.
Real time data probably would not be a game changer for a pro. But way down in the lower ranks were idiots (e.g.me) reside, it could really be helpful and speed up the learning process! I have confirmed that I have a bad habit of misjudging when I can go again or how much I really need to be sheltering at times. I’m also realizing after looking at race data that I have a tendency to either give up on myself too soon or, worse, overestimate how quickly I can recover from previous hard efforts.
Most insidious is there is this dangerous point after a particularly hard stretch and the pace slows a bit where I feel better then I really am. I’ve had a couple instances lately where I look the chart afterwards and its is 100% clear I had no business pressing things at that particular moment . . . . .
The workout designer in GC plots W’bal so you can see this (but its not out yet, just in the development builds).
I thought that was what the little red line is in the trainer mode when I load an .erg file. The plot that shows the preview of the workout shows the requested power and the expected W’. then during the workout it shows the actual workout and the actual W’.
Real time data probably would not be a game changer for a pro. But way down in the lower ranks were idiots (e.g.me) reside, it could really be helpful and speed up the learning process! I have confirmed that I have a bad habit of misjudging when I can go again or how much I really need to be sheltering at times. I’m also realizing after looking at race data that I have a tendency to either give up on myself too soon or, worse, overestimate how quickly I can recover from previous hard efforts.
Most insidious is there is this dangerous point after a particularly hard stretch and the pace slows a bit where I feel better then I really am. I’ve had a couple instances lately where I look the chart afterwards and its is 100% clear I had no business pressing things at that particular moment . . . . .
That is *exactly *the point at which you *should *attack.
As the saying goes, if you’re hurtin’, they’re hurtin’ too.
The workout designer in GC plots W’bal so you can see this (but its not out yet, just in the development builds).
I thought that was what the little red line is in the trainer mode when I load an .erg file. The plot that shows the preview of the workout shows the requested power and the expected W’. then during the workout it shows the actual workout and the actual W’.
Sure – that is plotting an ERG. In v4 there is an editor to create ERGs see: https://vimeo.com/152278941
Mark
I’m using 3.3.0
.