Intervals.icu interval detection and training tool

[davidtinker]

Don't know if it is just isolated to myself, but I cannot change the universal setting for Power spikes %. It is stuck on 8%

 

Fixed. Tx for the report. You might have to reload the app.

[JohanDiv]

Hi David, just a question:

 

My estimated FTP has slowly been decreasing over the last few months from 254 to 241, although I feel stronger on the bike. I haven't taken a FTP test in a while, but yesterday I put out a 85-90% effort outdoors(just heart rate, no power meter) getting PR's on my local climbs. Strava has my estimated average power for the 50min ride at 286 Watts, but on intervals.icu my estimated FTP still dropped from 242 to 241. Does the estimated FTP on intervals.icu only recalculate for rides done with a powermeter, in my case only on the Wahoo Kickr since I don't have a power meter on bike, or is Strava's estimated average power just that far off? I thought with enough workout history with power meter and HR data intervals.icu would be able to make a estimated FTP guesstimate for rides done outdoors with just HR data? 

 

Thanks!

[RossW]

Hi David, just a question:

 

My estimated FTP has slowly been decreasing over the last few months from 254 to 241, although I feel stronger on the bike. I haven't taken a FTP test in a while, but yesterday I put out a 85-90% effort outdoors(just heart rate, no power meter) getting PR's on my local climbs. Strava has my estimated average power for the 50min ride at 286 Watts, but on intervals.icu my estimated FTP still dropped from 242 to 241. Does the estimated FTP on intervals.icu only recalculate for rides done with a powermeter, in my case only on the Wahoo Kickr since I don't have a power meter on bike, or is Strava's estimated average power just that far off? I thought with enough workout history with power meter and HR data intervals.icu would be able to make a estimated FTP guesstimate for rides done outdoors with just HR data?

 

Thanks!

Without waiting for David’s reply, my answer is that you will need a power meter in order to recalculate the estimated FTP.

Don’t worry about it going down though. You can’t have it increase all the time. And you’ll have read above that the calculation method used has changed from a 60s effort to a 180s effort. That will also reshuffle things a bit.

 

I would also largely ignore estimated power values from Strava. I have no science to support my statement but the estimated values seem to be generous when I do have a look at friends rides.

[davidtinker]

Tx Ross thats correct, Intervals.icu will only estimate FTP from real power data. You need to do a 3 minute (or longer) max effort on good legs on your trainer with power to get a new estimate (assuming it has gone up).

 

Intervals.icu will keep your estimated FTP the same if you maintain the same training load. If you slack off a bit it decays slowly and you need to do a new max effort to get it to go up again. So thats the decay you are seeing JohanDiv.

[davidtinker]

I see my weight doesn't update on each activity - I changed it in settings as well on STRAVA but it still reflects the old weight on new activities.

 

I have just implemented "Keep weight in sync with Strava" (see /settings). If you enable this Intervals.icu will pickup changes to your Strava weight. Useful if you can get your smart scale to update Strava automatically.

 

As part of this work I tested weight updates on new activities quite carefully and it seems to be working.

 

You can also add weight to the /fitness chart. Choose "Options" and tick the "Show Weight" checkbox.

[madmarc]

Just a suggestion, maybe something to add to that to-do list

 

Add future plans to the fitness PMC - So if I add a plan in TR i can take the TSS for each session and add it to my calendar on Intervals.icu - then i can have a graphic representation of how the plan will look on the PMC, which will help with planning etc 

[davidtinker]

Add future plans to the fitness PMC - So if I add a plan in TR i can take the TSS for each session and add it to my calendar on Intervals.icu - then i can have a graphic representation of how the plan will look on the PMC, which will help with planning etc 

 

Yes thats already on the list. I see that TR has calendar export. That would be a nice way to do it.

 

https://forum.trainerroad.com/t/calendar-update-calendar-export/10778

 

It looks like they just generate links for the external calendar to pull data from. If you could mail me those links (for Google, Outlook and Apple) for your a/c that would be helpful. I don't have a TR account (or even a trainer, do all my riding outdoors).

[Seamonster]

As a multisport athlete it would be awesome if there were some way to filter the training load chart by activity type (seeing the effect of just runs or just rides)

[davidtinker]

As a multisport athlete it would be awesome if there were some way to filter the training load chart by activity type (seeing the effect of just runs or just rides)

 

Cool idea but unfortunately its quite tricky to do. The training load stuff is all pre-calculated and stored with each activity. So I would need to add a separate set of values for swim, run and ride. So its on the TODO list but I won't be able to do it "soon".

[davidtinker]

The athletes page lists everyone you are following on Intervals.icu and now includes their current fitness, fatigue and form. You can click on the athlete tile to go to their activities or the form and fitness charts to go to their fitness.

 

 

Get your Coronation DC team to join up and make sure everyone is training hard!

Edited August 25, 2019 by davidtinker

[davidtinker]

The /fitness chart can now show FTP/kg. Click "Options" and tick the "Show FTP/kg" box. The chart shows lines with your estimated and captured FTP / kg with the current estimated FTP / kg on the right. Its somewhat depressing to see how much difference a kg or two of fat makes compared to a lot of training!

 

[JohanDiv]

The /fitness chart can now show FTP/kg. Click "Options" and tick the "Show FTP/kg" box. The chart shows lines with your estimated and captured FTP / kg with the current estimated FTP / kg on the right. Its somewhat depressing to see how much difference a kg or two of fat makes compared to a lot of training!

 

Screen Shot 2019-08-26 at 21.54.53.png

But can also be motivating if you know you easily have another 10kg to drop and you can see the huge difference just a few kgs make. Time to push on and get to race weight before Karoo 2 Coast!!

[Vetplant]

David, quick question:

 

How much actual development time went into this tool?

 

I am just curious.

 

There are obviously a whole bunch of things that need to be sorted out and researched before the coding can start. Do you have like a rough ballpark idea of how much total time went into this?

[davidtinker]

How much actual development time went into this tool?

I am just curious.

There are obviously a whole bunch of things that need to be sorted out and researched before the coding can start. Do you have like a rough ballpark idea of how much total time went into this?

 

Hmm. Its hard to say as I haven't been keeping logs. For the last 4 months (since the FastFitnessTips video and the 10x bump in users) I have been putting in as much time as possible probably 16-20h/week + approx 6 leave days (8h each) + some pub hols. Before then maybe 8h/week with extra 80h over dec holidays (mostly spent getting FTP modelling figured out).

 

Total elapsed project time so far approx 14 months.

 

I didn't do much research before jumping in to try sort out interval detection, just got coding. I have spent a fair amount of time learning the front-end framework (vue.js), that was one of the reasons for starting the project. Things would have gone a lot quicker if I had chosen something I already knew but now I know a better framework and things will be faster!

 

Lately I have been doing a lot of re-factoring which isn't visible to users for the most part. Now feature development can accelerate again.

[davidtinker]

As a multisport athlete it would be awesome if there were some way to filter the training load chart by activity type (seeing the effect of just runs or just rides)

 

The calendar view now breaks out weekly totals (including TSS) by activity type for multisport athletes. I still need to do it for the narrow iPad view but its there on desktop.

 

[davidtinker]

Totals by activity type now works on tablets as well.