Cycling Dynamics and Physiological Measurements

Training Status

Training status gives you an overview of your longer-term training habits. This provides you with powerful insight into how your training is really going.

Provided by Firstbeat, the calculation utilizes several dimensions of your personal physiology. It considers changes in fitness level (your VO2 max), your current acute (7-day) training load and any change in training load, giving you guidance to help you improve your training decisions.

To explain in simple terms, when you stop training, your fitness level will decrease, but depending on your previous training load, a break from normal training routines may result in an increase in fitness level. Similarly, it’s expected that regular hard training will improve our fitness levels, but watch out — push too hard too often, and your fitness level will start to decrease due to the overtraining phenomenon.

As an example of how this works, imagine you’ve been training consistently for a number of weeks, and your fitness with normal, small day-to-day ups and downs is nevertheless increasing. This trend is automatically identified, and your current training will be classified as “productive.” Similarly, you could find yourself training very hard but notice your fitness starting a pattern of decline. In this situation, your training would be identified as “overreaching,” and additional recovery will be recommended.

The recognized training states are below.

Peaking – You are in ideal race condition. Your recently reduced training load is allowing your body to recover and fully compensate for earlier training. This peak state can only be maintained for a short time.

Productive – Keep up the good work. Your training load is moving your fitness in the right direction. Be sure to plan recovery periods into your training to maintain your fitness level.

Maintaining – Your current training load is enough to maintain your fitness level. To see improvement, try adding more variety to your workouts or increasing your training volume.

Recovery – Your lighter training load is allowing your body to recover, which is essential during extended periods of hard training. You can return to a higher training load when you feel ready.

Unproductive – Your training load is at a good level, but your fitness is decreasing. Your body may be struggling to recover, so pay close attention to your overall health, including stress, nutrition and rest.

Detraining – You’ve been training much less than usual for a week or more, and it’s affecting your fitness. Try increasing your training load to see improvement.

Overreaching – Your training load is very high and has become counterproductive. Your body needs a rest. Give yourself time to recover by adding lighter training to your schedule.

No Status – You typically need a week or 2 of training history — including recent activities with VO2 max results — before we can determine your training status.

VO2 Max

Your VO2 max score is the key to seeing, understanding and, more importantly, managing your personal fitness level. On a technical level, it describes the maximum rate at which you can bring oxygen into your body, transport it to your muscles and use it for efficient aerobic energy production. On a personal level, it is a remarkable and versatile tool with a variety of health and performance implications.

When it comes to understanding your VO2 max score, it’s easy to remember that low VO2 max scores represent poor fitness levels, and higher VO2 max scores indicate greater performance capacity. Like most aspects relating to physical performance, there is a genetic dimension to how efficiently your body uses oxygen and, by extension, your VO2 max range. That said, your VO2 max score is dynamic, and it reacts to how you live and train. With the right approach, practically everyone can improve their VO2 max score.

The people least likely to be able to improve their VO2 max are elite athletes, because they are already in excellent shape. This is great news for everyone else.

Studies have shown that being more active can make you happier and live longer. VO2 max is a key metric used to study and verify this from a scientific perspective. If you’re looking to improve, your device also offers the tools you need to get things headed in the right direction.

For those interested in performance, VO2 max can be used in a slightly different way. The more oxygen your body can use during exercise, the more power you can generate and, therefore, the faster you can ride.

Power and heart rate data is needed to record cycling VO2 max.

Tips for Cycling VO2 Estimates

The success and accuracy of the VO2 max calculation improves when your ride is a sustained and moderately hard effort and where heart rate and power are not highly variable. During your 20 minute ride:

• Try to maintain your heart rate at greater than 70% of your maximum heart rate
• Try to maintain a fairly constant power output
• Avoid rolling terrain
• Avoid riding in groups where there is a lot of drafting

Training Load

Training load is a measure of the total volume of your training for the last 7 days. Your Edge^® 1030 cycling computer compares this weekly training load to your longer-term training load — also taking into account your fitness level — and shows you if this load is in the optimal range.

Your training load is an indicator of whether you’re doing too much, too little or just the right amount.

The available training load ranges include the following:

High – Based on your current fitness level and recent training habits, your training load may be too high to produce positive results.

Optimal – This range is ideal for maintaining and improving your fitness level. Keep up the good work.

Low – Your training load is low for your current fitness level and training habits. If you stay in this range, you are unlikely to see further improvement.

Recovery Time

Recovery is a critical, but often overlooked, portion of the training process. The recovery period is marked by adaptation of your body in response to training and the replenishment of vital resources. In fact, insufficient recovery can lead to entirely missing out on gains in fitness and performance. Keeping track of your recovery levels will reveal when training hard will be beneficial and ensure your work is rewarded with the results you expect. You gain the ability to update and optimize your training programs with confidence.

After each ride, your device reveals the number of hours before you will be back near 100% and capable of performing a hard ride. Provided by Firstbeat, the calculation is produced and personalized using a unique digital model of your physiology. It utilizes a combination of the session’s training effect score, performance and fitness level assessments performed during the session and the number of hours of recovery time remaining on your clock at the start of your ride.

Recovery time ranges up to 4 days.

For best results, it’s beneficial to first go for several rides with your device in order for it to accurately learn your overall fitness level. Once this is established, subsequent recovery time results may be more accurate.

Functional Threshold Power (FTP)

Your functional threshold represents the maximum power output you can sustain for 1 hour. Your FTP estimate will form the basis for your personalized power zones and for most power-based training plans.

Your Edge 1030 can detect your Functional Threshold either through a guided workout or automatically during a normal ride. Either way, by gathering heart rate data across a range of power outputs, the device will estimate your threshold in terms of power output. You will find your FTP estimate improves over time as your device learns your overall fitness level. Your Edge 1030 also shows your FTP as a watts/kg value in relation to your weight and displays it on a rainbow gauge. This allows you to very quickly compare your own power-to-weight ratio against riders of different sizes.

Edge 1030 can calculate your FTP with the following 2 ways:

Guided Test:

• Using heart rate and power data, Edge takes you through a warmup followed by a gradual increase of targeted effort in 3–4 minute increments over a period of 15–20 minutes.
• Based on your heart rate response to the increasing power effort, Edge calculates your FTP value.
• You have the option to accept or reject this value. If you accept, your power zones will automatically recalculate based on the new value.
• It is recommended this test is performed on a road with constant gradient or on an indoor trainer.

Auto FTP Detection:

• If you set a personal 20-minute average power record, and if 95% of this value exceeds your current FTP estimate, we will prompt you to accept a new FTP value.
• Again, you have the option to accept or reject this value.

Training Effect

Because of how our bodies work, the type of training you do determines the type of results you can expect and the types of performances you’ll be well prepared for in the future.

Training effect is the metric that gives you a sneak peek at how each training session is expected to impact your future fitness levels. One of the most common uses of training effect is to coordinate and balance workouts that maintain and improve your current fitness level. Edge 1030 displays the following 2 types of training effect measures:

Aerobic Training Effect

This measures the aerobic benefit of exercise, which should correlate with the fitness improvement you expect to get from it.

Aerobic training:

• Develops aerobic energy production
• Utilization of fat for energy
• Endurance and stamina
• Prolonged performance capacity

Anaerobic Training Effect

Your body’s most efficient method of transforming fuel into energy requires oxygen, but sometimes your demand for energy exceeds the rate at which enough oxygen is immediately available. Luckily, your body has a backup process ready and waiting. While not nearly as efficient, the anaerobic energy process can jump into action and keep you going. The downside is that it becomes depleted quickly.

Anaerobic training:

• Develops anaerobic energy production
• Improved sprinting abilities
• Fatigue resistance
• Maximal performance capacity

Both aerobic and anaerobic training effects are mapped on a 0–5 scale that accounts for your fitness level and training habits.

0 – None, 1 – Minor, 2 – Maintaining, 3 – Improving, 4 – Highly Improving, 5 – Overreaching.

Performance Condition

For a real-time assessment of your current ability to perform, look at your performance condition. During the first 6 to 20 minutes of your ride, this metric analyzes power, heart rate and heart rate variability. The resulting number is a real-time assessment of the deviation from your baseline VO2 max, with each point on the scale representing about 1% of your VO2 max. The higher the number, the better you can expect to perform. Keep in mind that your results may vary a bit during your first few rides with a new device since it’s still learning your fitness level. This will stabilize, and checking your performance condition will become a reliable day-to-day indicator of your capability.

In addition to the alert during the first part of your ride, you can add performance condition as a data field to your training screens, and keep an eye on it as your ride unfolds. The value may move around slightly as you encounter hills or strong winds, but it will trend down once you have been going hard for a while and the ride starts to take a toll on you. This is an objective way to keep an eye on how your ability to perform is or isn’t declining as you go, because it’s telling you if your body is working harder than normal to ride at your current power output. So, performance condition can give you a bit of an early warning before you “bonk.”

HRV Stress Test

If you’re wondering whether your body is ready for a hard ride or in need of a lighter effort, it might be time to check your stress score. When you’re fresh and rested inside and out, you’re better able to absorb the training effect from a tough ride. However, the same hard ride can be counterproductive if you’re tired or on the verge of overtraining. Your stress score is calculated during a 3-minute test during which your heart rate variability (HRV) is analyzed. The resulting stress score is displayed as a number from 0 to 100, with a lower number indicating a lower stress state. This measurement helps you assess what level of activity your body is ready for. More accurate results are gathered by taking the test at the same time and under the same conditions every day (recommended prior to the ride, not after). This also helps you get a feel for your own day-to-day and week-to-week variations.

You are required to stand to take the HRV stress test, because that makes the test more sensitive to low and medium levels of stress. When you are lying down, moderate levels of stress may not be revealed, but standing puts a slight load on your cardiovascular system. That load causes a meaningful drop in HRV when you have a moderate amount of stress compared to very low stress.