I understand I think that its a measure of fitness gained? How accurate is it and why should I care
As the name implies, it’s a numerical way to capture stress from training. This accounts for the fatigue you feel from training, but TSS is also able to be used as a proxy for fitness “in the bank” so to speak. It’s used to calculate Chronic Training Load (long term, think “fitness”) and Acute Training Load (short term, think “fatigue” primarily) in the dashboard/Performance Management Chart.
There are wildly differing opinions as to its validity, whether that’s the original TSS calculated from a power file, or the derivations thereof based on pace and/or HR for swimming, running, or those without PMs. I think you’d find very few people who put all faith in it, as no single training metric should be so important, but TSS just tends to be the most popular, as it’s pretty comprehensive, and at least from my experience, calibrates reasonably well with the “do I feel like crap today” question.
ETA: Explanation of Performance Management Chart, with small explanations of Chronic and Acute Training Load, as well as links out to TSS explanation: http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/what-is-the-performance-management-chart
I like to think of it as a representation of the work I have done.
jaretj
TSS attempts to quantify total training load for a given workout or set of workouts.
TSS per day (or some time increment) over a long time period attempts to quantify fitness.
I care about it as it’s a way to compare week to week training load regardless of the types of workouts I do and it helps me manage my efforts against my so-called training plan.
How accurate is it? I’m pretty much the last guy in a position to answer that. But it’s definitely better for me, than any previous attempts I had at trying to quantify training load. (Time, distance, HR, RPE)
How accurate is it? I’m pretty much the last guy in a position to answer that. But it’s definitely better for me, than any previous attempts I had at trying to quantify training load. (Time, distance, HR, RPE)
This is my take as well. Some people try to poke holes, and perhaps rightfully so, but’s its the best I got!
As others mentioned, I feel it does a pretty good job of telling me where I am with my training and recovery. I know at first, it didn’t mean much to me, but as I gathered more data (close to a year’s worth) I was able to look back on when I had really good rides and really poor rides. Usually it was pretty easy to see the trends for when my fitness was high or low, and when my need for recovery was high or low based on TSS/CTL/ATL.