Training peaks allows you to rate a workout based on perceived effort and how you felt during the session. This subjective rating helps dial in your training and overall fatigue levels. Beyond the data this weighs in very heavily for us as coaches. Giving this level of insight to your coaches will help you training load and make sure you are training in the sweet spot!
Training technology is advancing faster than ever, and with it the availability of ever-more-granular information on training, recovery, and performance. With the wealth of quantitative data we have access to, it can be easy to forget that some of the most important performance information can’t be measured by any device. This data comes from two simple questions: “How did it go?” and “How did you feel?”
We’ve all asked or answered these questions and, when combined with other quantitative data collected about training and recovery, they can provide valuable insight into how any athlete is responding to training stress. Now when you view a workout in TrainingPeaks you will now have two options to leave subject feedback.
“How did you feel?” gives you a choice of five face icons representing a range from “strong” to “weak”.
“Perceived effort” allows you to indicate how hard a workout seemed on a scale of 1-10 (this option is similar to asking how the workout went).
How to use Subjective Feedback
While these two new additions may seem similar, each provides different information, and when interpreted together can give valuable insight.
For example, after completing the first easy workout after a high volume block of training you may rate the Perceived Effort of the workout as a “3”, indicating that the intensity of the workout did seem easy. However you may have also felt fatigued, inefficient, or generally “flat” so you rate How you feel as “weak”, indicating that you may need more recovery.
Likewise, you may complete an especially difficult workout or training race and rate the effort as a “9”, but that you felt “strong”, which means you are tolerating your current training load well.
A NOTE ON PERCEIVED EFFORT VS INTENSITY
It is tempting to associate Perceived Effort (PE) and Intensity Factor (IF). It might seem like a workout with a 0.60 IF should be perceived as a “6” on the PE scale, for example. However, this isn’t always the case; a 6-hour, 300 TSS hilly bike ride may have an IF of 0.60, but if you aren’t used to workouts that long it might feel like a 9 or 10 PE.
Faster, Simpler Communication
The new subjective feedback ratings can be useful for coached or self-coached athletes. No matter how data-driven you or your coach may be, subjective feedback can place your quantitative data in context and help guide future training. The new subjective feedback scores can also quickly indicate how your everyday training is going. You can save comments for important workouts that may require more detail or communication.
Learn more about updating your coach and plan with health related metrics
