Measuring Success: Navigating Your Path to Athletic Progress

Hello and welcome to episode nine of the Athletes Compass where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. This week we're talking about measuring progress in general. We have an athlete compass listener question from Kristen from Norway where we might feel better on some given day, like there's more snap on our legs or we feel worse or trash as in Marjaana's language. But how do I know for sure?

progress really matters. So the question we have from Kristen from Norway is how can I monitor my progress if I am not doing any racing? You know, there's that adage about what gets measured gets managed and so there's that if we measure something we're going to pay attention to it. So there's some valuing measure your progress and knowing if what you're doing is working.

If I'm in the weight room, I know that I'm getting stronger simply by the amount of weight that I'm lifting. Are there specific tools that we use as a coach in Athletica or as an athlete in Training Peaks or something that can give Kristen the kind of data and information about how she is responding? What do you use Marjaana as a coach to measure progress?

I use different kinds of methods depending on the athlete who is in front of me. So in Kristen's case, I would recommend, because she doesn't like racing, so she doesn't get that progress measurement from doing a race. So, and some athletes don't want to do tests, for example.

Some might feel like doing FTP test is too nerve-wracking. They put a little bit too much value and maybe even like value on their identity on the numbers. So for those athletes I wouldn't push doing the tests. But overall, let's say I like to...

Mmm.

measure so that we know that we've improved and what we've been doing is working. So for strength I like to use strength and movement assessments with my athletes but in general athletes can monitor themselves they'll know if they are doing a program when they lift more or they can do more sets. Endurance depending on sports we do

Sure.

initial test week like we do in Atletica. So we'll do MAF tests, Maximum Aerobic Function tests, 5K time trial in running, FTP tests on the bike, or similar in cross-country skiing. And then we repeat them after a while. So we know how we're doing. But often the progress is, you know, assessed with their racing.

Are they racing better? How are they progressing in that way? Did they hit their goal? And athletes who don't race, that are using training program, they'll know if they are capable of doing more 30-30s for example. A lot of people like high intensity interval training, like 30 seconds really hard, 30 seconds easy.

How many sets can they do? That's an easy way to assess how they are progressing in their training. And overall, athletes can expect training to feel easier. They might be running faster at the same heart rate. If they have the same 5K loop or 10K loop, they'll run it faster.

Those are all okay ways to monitor their progress.

Hmm

Paul, what did you make sure got into Athletica to help people like Kristen monitor or measure their progress?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a great question. Marjaana covered a lot of the things that we already do, but let's just go over them. So We do, you know, we do do some sort of a time trial threshold now Upper threshold. So remember there's two thresholds. The first when we say threshold, it's like, you know, how Sustainable, what's the sustainable endurance that you can kind of hold?

And the very first one might be, you know, Marjaana mentioned it. It's your, you know, your, uh, an FTP test, a functional threshold power test. This is, uh, you know, similar to, or, um, it's related to what we also call as your maximal lactate steady state marker. It's not the same, but it's like, uh, it's a functional, that's why it's called a functional, um, threshold power, right? Like it's.

you're actually looking at an external, how much power you can produce for 20 minutes. And we infer this is what you could do for about an hour. And it's similar to, but not exactly the same as your maximal lactate steady state. And obviously you want a greater one than a lower one because it highly relates to your endurance performance. And that test is certainly in there at the moment.

And then that's in the cycling context, but the equivalent in the running context is your Jack Daniels 5k maximal effort, which you can determine a V dot from. And that just really kind of comes back and I think once again relates to across the board all these other various different performances. So you want to, it's probably not surprising that

five kilometers really fast, you can probably do a lot of other endurance events quite fast as well. It's not a perfect correlation. There's other factors. And again, that we monitor too. The next one I think about is this marker of durability. And durability is really a marker of how, if they're calling it the fourth dimension of physical parameters other than VO2 max.

threshold and economy, it's also durability. And this is, we're really looking at sustainability. So an individual winning Ironman, say for example, has the ultimate durability, they're durable right to the very end. And we see this in terms of their pace or power relative to their heart rate. So they would have a low heart rate relative to a high pace. And this comes back to also one of the,

factors that Marjaana mentioned. She mentioned the MAF tests, maximal aerobic function. You know, Dr. Phil Maffetone, our colleague, was really the first to coin this. And this relates to your ability to oxidize fat in your mitochondria as opposed to carbohydrates, really to gain access to that unlimited fat stores that is within us and to do so at a very high rate.

So if we do a MAF test, and to be clear, the MAF test is usually a, you know, it's an eight kilometer or five mile test done at the heart rate that's associated with your zone two heart rate. Specifically, Dr. Maffetone got a predictor of that of 180 minus your age. We all know that this can be off a little bit, and you know, we get a lot of user.

user questions and comments, the fact that it is indeed off, right? And you're right. So, you know, that's certainly another one there as well. But yeah, I think those are the main, oh, maybe the last one, and Paul would probably be, you know, keen on this one being a cycling expert. And that's the power profile test. Because of course, cyclists...

Hmm.

they often have these real punchy moments in their events where they really got to, even though it might be in an overall endurance, they might be out there for five hours or more, but there's still moments in that event that matter and make a big difference in terms of getting off the front and breaking away, and you have to have that ability to punch. And we do a power profile test for our cyclists to monitor that. Where they're doing periods of...

you know, very short duration all out efforts to longer duration all out efforts. So that's in most of the cycling programs and plans that we have. And last but not least, the one I'll mention also is we have a critical swim test as well and a critical swim speed test where you can just again, you're getting a critical power or critical speed curve on your swimming. And typically we use 400 meters all out and followed by a rest with 50 meters all out.

and we can draw a curve on that one too. Again, get the, you know, are you a punchy swimmer or are you a duration kind of swimmer? Endurance type of swimmer. So I think those are the majority ones.

So it sounds like the easiest thing to do for Kristen or for any other athlete is to have a test that they can repeat, whether it's a MAF test for the running, whether it's a 5K or a time trial for cycling and repeat those tests if they're looking to see progress. Is there something within those tests that...

Kristen or another athlete can look at to see, yes, I'm making progress besides simply the time or increased wattage or whatever it might be.

I think probably what goes with that is, is it feeling easier to right? So you, you know, um, so it's certainly the heart rate that's associated with those. Right. So, um, we talked about it, durability, and that's often seen as your power or pace relative to your heart rate. So you want to have a higher pace or higher power output, um, faster pace or higher power relative to, to that heart rate, whatever that level is. And, um,

Okay.

Yeah, and then likewise, you want to have that same feel, right? Like so, so it should, you want exercise to be feeling easier and you're moving faster in a very real simple, real, real simple market. You should, you should almost, if you, if you're improving, you should kind of know a bit, right? Like you should, you should almost be aware. I mean, I mean, in coaching Marjaana, I see her nodding. She's like,

She knows when she's all of a sudden, she's made a shift in something. Maybe it's her diet, maybe it's her rest, maybe it's moving from Dubai to Texas. But all of a sudden, she's out there and she just knows that she's going stronger. She almost doesn't even have to look at her watch because she's, you know, and again, to Kristen's point, she'll feel like she's moving faster relative to...

to before, when she's got things right.

Yeah, and I kind of want to add into this, one of the reasons that we do these tests is so that we can establish training intensity zones. So that kind of feeds into the whole learning process of using all the devices that we have and make sure that you have a device that is showing you the right heart rate because otherwise...

garbage in, garbage out. But what was I getting at with this was to establish your training zones and as you get fitter and faster, you'll also see that your heart rate zones shift a little bit or pace zones or power zone shift a little bit. So that's also feeding into, okay, what is my RPE3 feel like today and how does that relate to the pace that I...

today.

You brought up the devices. Let's talk about those, unless, Paul, there was something else you wanted to add to that.

No, just well, Marianne is spot on with that. The only thing I was going to add is the cool thing that the team at the back end of the athletic I've done in terms of automating those changes as they occur. It's very, as you as coaches will know, it's difficult to keep tabs on every athlete changing with these zones. It's really fiddly, right? To go and think, what should I do there?

the guys have done a really good job at automating that process, where if you're going faster, then it's time to... you'll get a little notification that if you've done an effort that looks like it could be superior to where your threshold is set, then it will ask you, would you like to update those thresholds?

So, and there's even, there's more refining work that's actually occurring as we speak right now. And yeah, so I'm really proud of that because I think that's, again, as a coach, that's something I often miss.

Yeah, I have an athlete who did the full testing this weekend and wasn't feeling great and was all worried about his threshold and his training zones are going to change. And I said, well, we are going to start with what you did and the program is going to be adjusting for what you are able to do. And it's going to be okay. And just to, you know, to respond to him.

But with the devices that Marjaana talked about, we all have our Garmin devices or we have our Wahoos, whatever we're using, we talked about how sometimes the recovery scores can be a little bit wonky. But I also noticed that some devices get the training stress scores of a certain activity pretty close to what you expect. Can we use these devices to monitor our progress and to monitor our training load?

Well, I'm sure it's possible. Our system at Athletica, we use our own training load system, and everyone can see what that is, because it sits right on your performance profile. This is the first chart. If you go to Athletica, it's the very first chart, and it looks at really your predicted stress that you'll get from all those workouts, the predicted recovery that you'll get, and then...

the journey that you'll be on in terms of the fitness that you will gain prior to your taper to become fresh and then to perform and have that big stress. So, and remember when we're, we've gone into this before, but remember that when we're measuring those, that stress, we, the term is load. So that's where the stress load. It's an arbitrary unit, doesn't really have a unit.

but it's an arbitrary unit and number, and it's a product of both the time of exercise and the intensity. It looks at both. So you can have a similar load but achieved with a higher intensity. And likewise, you can have just a similar load achieved with a long duration kind of thing. So you can kind of, there's lots of different ways to skin the cat with training as we.

as we say, but those devices that you use, they're being used to monitor your training load. And again, that's whatever you're using, that's what's being measured. That should be what, that is definitely what Athletica is trying to manage for you. And yeah, this is why we quantify what it is that we're doing, is why we press start and stop.

before we do all of our activities.

and make sure we hit their right K marker and not go 100 meters under. This is running in circles. No, I think the devices, watches are really helpful, especially for beginning athlete to understand themselves and learn if they want to learn. But I don't think you should blindly look at them.

That's right. Exactly.

You know Garmin watch has the function like if you've been sitting too long it sends you messages time to move. Like you've just sat down half an hour after two hour run. Like don't blindly look at them and you know remember like what the quality of the data is going in. If it's off then you know the response is off.

Oh

And can I just add, I think the big laugh that so many people have is with the Garmin device. I love, like, no disrespect to Garmin. I love the Garmin device, right? We all got them, exactly. But how often do we laugh when we do an activity and it says, you know, you've got 72 hours to recover kind of thing. I'm like, I'm training tomorrow. I'm not recovering for 72 hours, you know? Get lost.

We all have them.

Hahaha!

Yeah, exactly. So be mindful and critical. You can pay attention to them, but I find like the best racing experiences are when you're going by feel and not, you know, staring at your watches. When I started Ironman training, I had to turn off everything off when I went for a run, because I was constantly looking at my heart rate or my pace.

And I find like I'm not enjoying my runs. And especially racing, I have to turn the heart rate off because when you're in a race situation, it's not like when you're training, your heart rate is gonna be higher, typically higher, right? Because of stress and you know. But I also made a huge mistake during my first Ironman race. And after that, I haven't used

bike computer because you know when you pack your bag, you travel away, you have to take your pedals. I had a Garmin Vector pedals and you have to tighten them to a certain Newton meter and they were off. So they were showing me totally wrong power, but I was blindly going through the race plan. I was just like

Just trust it, trust it, it's fine. I felt like I'm biking way too easy. Like this is way too easy. Everybody was passing me and I'm like, okay, no, just trust it. Ironman race starts at the run. You'll run really good. And I did run really good after that, but I spent an hour more on the bike than my race plan was, because I was blindly looking at the power meter. So after that, I don't even have a computer now.

You're...

because I don't want to trust their output, the external measure. And I always just go by feel and I think that's been really valuable for me.

So you've learned to trust yourself based on the years of experience. And you also talked about how often you were checking your watch and checking what you were doing. How often should Kristen and other everyday athletes monitor their progress? Should they be looking at their...

power profiles every day, should they be looking at their TSS every day and their training and the numbers on Athletica or wherever they're using weekly. I like to look at trends, like with the HRV data we talked about in episode six and seven, we talked about the recovery process and looking at using HRV for training for that.

picture of how my athletes are responding to the training is same thing with the cycling power profile in Athletica. So how often do you to look at how often do you encourage your athletes to look to monitor their progress?

You know, I think it's, I don't know if I really have an answer to that. Um, but maybe, you know, maybe it's bi-weekly. Like I don't, I don't want to always be looking at progress, or, you know, um, I'd say bi-weekly, but I also say daily too, right? Like you're always kind of looking at what you did relative to the past. But if it's down for one week, that's okay too, right? Like there's always going to be these, these fluctuations.

Right.

hopefully over a bi-weekly period that we start to see some adaptations, or it might take monthly and whatnot. But at the same time also, these changes can also happen quite quickly as well. There's this, you know, the nervous system is just an amazing tool, amazing machine, and the adaptations can be quite quick. Context always, right? So it really depends on the person, depends on...

from their history and what they've done. But yeah, often we can see some quite rapid changes, but yeah, from daily to bi-weekly to monthly, to annually as well, right? There's always the ability to compare, but only if you measure something. It's very difficult when you have an athlete, and this does happen, where they come to you and they...

they want to work with you. But unfortunately, you're really blind because they've never monitored anything before. And then you're really left with their race results, which is fine and a great place to start too. But what is even more powerful and is when they're actually able to.

monitor using a device as well. And to Marjaana's point, you don't always have to be out there looking at it. In fact, it's, I'd recommend often not. It's just, you know, have a random look from time to time and you can test yourself. It's like, you know, M, all right, let's play a little game with yourself. Okay, I'm out there and I'm on a run or I'm on a bike. Let's guess what my power or running speed is.

at this feel, I think it's good, I feel like I'm running 4:30 Ks right now, whatever it may be, right? And see if you're right and see how close you are to that marker. And then you're testing your ability to feel how good is your feel really getting for these sorts of things and compare it to how you're breathing, right? Here's another thing that is just occurring. Listen to your breath. Am I able to nose breathe or not?

and really try to get the feel in tune with what the actual occurrence is. To Marjaana's point, assuming that you've got a accurate and calibrated, valid, reliable tool, right? So, yeah, all these things are important.

Yeah, if I can add to how often one should monitor progress. I'm guilty of this and I know a lot of triathletes are guilty of this, which is green box chasing and TSS daily monitoring and trying to get it higher and higher, which can of course then lead to some...

down the road, like overtraining. But as a coach I kind of see when an athlete has progressed and then usually, depending on what sport it is, but let's say for a marathon one of my athletes has ran a 45 minute PR.

Yeah.

And during her, I think it was six months training block towards this race, I could see when, when she was progressing and she actually likes racing. So she, she threw in some five Ks here and there. Uh, but I also liked the MAF test. Um, so we saw huge improvements in the MAF test and then we did that. Uh,

in the beginning of the block and then in the middle when I felt like I want to see if we're doing the right thing. And I have to say she is amazing at controlling her desire to drift into that zone three and go a little bit hard. So she's really good at going slow enough. It's unbelievable because most of the time you have to pull the athletes back a little and get them to slow down to get.

Thanks for watching!

benefits of that zone too, but she's excellent and she took so much time off from her four hour marathon to 3, was it 3.16 or 3.17? Yeah, it was really good, but even like when I started working with the prof, one of the first tests was a MAF test and then we repeated it after three

Thanks for watching!

Fantastic.

That's impressive.

one minute per K off and I was just mind blown. I'm like, oh my gosh. So I really liked the MAF test because it can really show if you have been a good girl or boy and stayed off the, you know, zone three and stuck to your lower intensity because that's good for you.

Thanks for watching!

Yeah, can I just, this is perfect food for a question that's asked by Helen, who's on our forum. The title of the post is L2 run heart rate versus pace. And basically, to paraphrase, Helen is usually doing her L2 runs at heart rate rather than pace. And what she's finding is that she's going sort of a little bit slower based on our heart rate.

She's liking that because she's keeping the stress low, which I think is great, but she's not covering as much distance as might be a trend in Athletica. So the question is, should I just increase the workout duration to get to that weekly distance, or should I just do the duration and will Athletica catch up? And Jessie's come in there and said that

you know, Athletica will catch up and I agree with that, but I actually don't mind the other option as well where just go with, you know, just go with the L2 pace at that lower because that's a lower stress ultimately for that duration. And even if it is a little bit lower on the distance relative to what's planned, I think that's okay too. I think it was Frank Shorter who's a famous American runner and he was notorious for doing

um, these really slow runs, uh, I believe hanging out in Boulder and people would, you know, he, people would be running around passing Frank Shorter on, on these really low and easy, easy runs. And, um, you know, and maybe like, oh, what's, what's up with this guy, right? He's a, he's a lead athlete and stuff. I'm like, he's almost walking kind of thing. And of course he ripped the legs off him when, when he went and did his, uh, his high intensity stuff on the, uh,

on the track, right? So I just don't think it's, don't stress too much. An L2 session is there for a specific purpose. It's to keep the wheels ticking over, the legs ticking over under low stress. And remember back to the physiology too, right? We can get at these aerobic adaptations both with HIIT, both with high intensity level training, but also with low intensity exercise training.

we can look at the molecular signals. They're kind of similar, but the key thing you want, again, this is to Stephen Seiler's polarized model, L2 sessions have their purpose, and it's get that signal from a low central nervous system stress. So yeah, just add that in there.

So I'm not sure I understood. Her heart rate zone 2 or L2 is...

She's going by pace. She's going by.

She's going by heart rate as we recommend on her L2 runs.

So if she goes by pace she'll go slower with lower heart rate. Okay, okay.

That's right. Well, yeah, she's again, she's she's following the smart coach recommendations that we do to push the push to Garmin, which again, I love that feature. And and yeah, so it's kind of when she's following the guidelines, which is following that heart rate, it's she's not moving quite as fast at the lower ones. She can she can rip out the fast stuff, right? Like this is her she she's a super fast five K speedy runner.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

but when she's more like a Frank Shorter, right? And I would just say, Helen, don't worry about it. Just be patient with that. And yeah, and Athletica will catch up. And I believe also you'll get the adaptations that you're after that way as well. Make the high intensity stuff high intensity.

You know, go ahead.

If we want to go into the details now, if you're going slower and your load in Athletica doesn't come up to the plan, would you then add in a few minutes?

You said don't.

Okay.

Yeah.

of exercise below L2 or zone 2, they weren't eliciting a larger central nervous system response, in terms of a negative response, when measured with heart rate variability. In other words, even though when his group of runners did one hour versus two hours, there was no difference actually in these elite runners in terms of their heart rate variability following that. But when they drifted into zone 3...

Mm-hmm.

That's what Helen does not want to do. Like she shouldn't go, if she was running by pace, she would drift into her L3 and she would get a lot larger of a central nervous systems stress that would act. Again, according to Stephen's data, there's no different than doing a high intensity interval training. And then you're almost repeatedly getting into high intensity interval training stimulus day in and day out. And this is the whole problem.

Yeah.

for coaches that prescribe only with power in the cycling context or only with pace in the running context. You've gotta have, you definitely need to have a look at something like heart rate because you're getting, with heart rate, you get not only an aerobic cardiovascular look, you're also getting a look at the central nervous system response too.

So Helen's question's excellent. And I would just say, develop that feel and listen. And you could, or you might wanna just hold on there for now. I would let things just kind of settle and yeah, consider increasing them in the future, but get a few more runs under your belt first and see how it feels.

Mm-hmm.

This is how I like to teach my athletes. Anything low intensity goes by heart rate. If you're doing high intensity, then heart rate because of the lag, it's not always the best measure. If you're not using pace or if you're not using power, then I like to, like I always tell them, this is how it should feel, like RP zero to 10. And I give them like a sheet of.

Mm-hmm.

Tell me.

Like how should it feel like when you're going 30 30s, it's all out. It's hard. Like it's hard. Yeah, exactly. So this is how I like to teach my athletes to kind of use the data, but always the feel, go by feel is the, like the way to do things.

Yeah, balls to the wall. Yeah, come on, let's go. Hey.

right. You just need to learn how to use the reveal.

on it.

Absolutely, context, right? So yeah, there's a different formula and preparation and mindset for a different session. And that's why every session on Athletica has a purpose. So recognize that when you're coming into a session on Athletica, what's the purpose of the session? That looks at session aim, right? So what's my session aim? Okay, I've got to do the tempo. Okay, that's a little bit more high intensity. I need to be paying attention a little bit more.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Tempo, I probably need to be looking more at pace or power because it's above L2. Conversely, recovery or aerobic, it's, you know, you're looking at heart rate. Today, the purpose is to recover. The purpose is just an aerobic, easy stimulus to prepare for the next session, right? Remember, the most important session's the next session.

Yeah.

I'd like to pull in mindset here, because we all love that zone three. But our egos often stand in our way. Like Frank Sorter, he ran really slow and I'm sure a lot of people went by and like what is he doing? We don't want to be that guy that everybody's looking at.

or the guy who is trying to pass everybody because then you're not going L2 or Zone 2 anymore. So oftentimes what I find, like especially someone who is new, new to coaching or new to like they've signed up for a half marathon or marathon, it's so hard to get them to do the L2 because their Zone 3 is pulling them and...

Yeah.

I tell them like, okay, when you park your car at the parking lot, when you're going for a run, park your ego there too. Just leave it. Leave your ego behind because you're going for a slow run and sometimes they need to walk, right? They need to walk to keep the heart rate down and they're just going to have to let all those older women go faster past them. And it is hard.

All right, so our takeaways that I'm getting is number one, it's a good thing to measure. It's a good thing to measure our progress while my dog barks in the background. Number two, there are a lot of different time trial tests, like a MAF test or a time trial test that help us monitor what kind of progress we're making. And number three, the context matters and that if we can learn to trust our own,

sense of what's working, what is how things are feeling, that will help us understand whether we're making progress or not. Is there anything else you two want to add? We kind of had a wide-ranging conversation this time.

I don't think so. I think you pretty much nailed them. Yeah, the context was key on all those. We have different tools for different durations or intensities, different bandwidths that matter to us. And it is good to measure. And I think you nailed the majority of them. Paul?

That's all for this week. Thanks for listening and join us next week when we dig into thresholds and zones. A topic that has become a little controversial for Marjaana Rakai, Dr. Paul Laursen. I am Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thanks for listening.