TrainingPeaks Project Manager Matt Allen breaks down the question that arose with the introduction of future PMC this spring, and explains how our latest release resolves the issue for our users.
The Performance Management Chart on TrainingPeaks (also known as the PMC) had until this spring only been a tool for analyzing past data. The PMC is a TrainingPeaks.com Dashboard Chart, available via a Premium subscription. With the introduction of Planned Training Stress Score (TSS) in April, we improved the PMC so that it could also model Chronic Training Load (CTL), Acute Training Load (ATL), and Training Stress Balance (TSB) into the future. This new feature has proven to be exceptionally powerful (no pun intended), especially for scenarios like micromanaging a taper before a big race, or planning a very intense training block. However, with the introduction of future modeling to the PMC, we were faced with some new challenges regarding the behavior of CTL and ATL for the current day.
Since introducing Planned TSS and future modeling into the PMC, we have tried treating Today as a past date (just as we always have), and we have tried treating Today as a future date (just for the last few weeks). Both scenarios had their own host of complications and usability issues, which we heard about from our users. As always, we listened to all the great feedback, and as a result took the treatment of “Today” back to the drawing board. We’ve now released an even better way to implement a solution for treating Today as the present, while honoring both Planned and Actual TSS on today.
“Today” is now handled in the following ways for each of the three profiles of PMC users. The scenarios below behave the same for both an athlete looking at their own PMC, as well as a coach looking at an athlete’s PMC:
1) Athletes that log a single or multiple workouts per day and do not have any values entered for Planned TSS:
- With no Planned TSS for a workout, TSS on Today is zero until the workout is logged. Once the workout is logged, Actual TSS instantly updates CTL/ATL on PMC.
- If multiple workouts are logged on Today, the Actual TSS is combined from all the workouts to create the TSS per day value that is used for calculating CTL/ATL.
2) Athletes that have a single workout planned per day, and have a value for Planned TSS entered on that workout:
- CTL/ATL will be based on Planned TSS for Today until there is Actual TSS for that workout. Once Actual TSS is logged for the workout, CTL/ATL on Today will be based on the Actual TSS.
3) Athletes that have multiple workouts planned per day and have Planned TSS values entered for those workouts:
- CTL/ATL for Today will be based on combining Planned TSS for non-completed workouts and Actual TSS for completed workouts.
Please note that we have not changed the behavior of TSB for Today on the PMC. TSB for Today continues to be calculated, just as it always has, by taking the difference between CTL and ATL from the previous day. As always, we welcome and thank our users for your feedback and the opportunity to adapt our product to even better serve your needs.
For more information on the Performance Manager Chart, CTL, ATL, and TSB, please visit our support pages. As mentioned above, the PMC is a Premium feature that allows users to manage their training so that they can track their fitness and training load over time and be at peak form for their “A” event.
