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TrainingPeaks Structured Workout Overlay

BY Dave Schell

Introducing the structured workout overlay—a fast and easy way to compare what you did to what was planned.

Here at TrainingPeaks, our goal has always been to help you reach yours. With our new structured workout overlay, you (and your coach) can look back at your planned workout and see just how close you came to hitting all your marks. This way, you can gauge your fitness (and possibly your fatigue level as well) closer than ever before.

A large part of achieving your goal, whatever it may be, is performing specific work based on the demands of the event. With the TrainingPeaks Workout Builder, we made it easy for you or your coach to create workouts complete with specific intervals to ensure you were doing the work required. However, after you completed the workout you probably still had some questions such as, “How close was I to the plan?” and “Am I on target for my fitness goals?” With the new workout overlay feature we have removed much of the guess work. Each time you complete a structured workout built with the Workout Builder, you and your coach will have the option of viewing the overlay to see exactly how close—or far—from the target you stayed throughout its duration.

Getting Started

To use this new feature, simply create a workout with the Workout Builder (exporting it to your compatible device or through the TrainingPeaks Garmin IQ App if possible), then go workout. Once completed, upload the file to your TrainingPeaks account and log in, click on the workout to open it, and then click the “analyze” button. If you have the graph added to your Athlete Home Dashboard, the overlay will already be applied and all of the other channels will initially be hidden.

Click the left/right arrows to move the overlay in order to line it up more closely with the completed data. If you would like to view other channels in addition to the primary channel, hover over the corresponding channel and click “show.” If you, or your athlete, did not record the laps during the workout you can easily create laps based on the plan by hovering over the icon image (circled below) and selecting “create lap.” When you are done looking at the overlay hover over the icon image again and click “hide.”

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Feedback

Getting feedback from your coach, and knowing what was done in comparison to your training plan is an important part of improving in any endeavor. The new overlay feature will provide coaches with a quick overview of their athletes’ performances, and athletes can quickly and easily see how they did. Knowing whether or not the workout was on target or off pace will provide valuable insight in the pursuit of your athletic and coaching goals.

Create a structured workout now and take the new overlay for a spin today!

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About Dave Schell

Dave Schell is the Director of Education at TrainingPeaks University. He coaches triathletes and cyclists of all levels from beginner to pro to achieve their highest potential. When Dave isn’t traveling the world teaching others how to better use TrainingPeaks, he’s trying hard not to fall off of his mountain bike.

Visit Dave Schell's Coach Profile