So I went for a run to the local gym yesterday, and added the one hour workout to my calendar. I added it as a 3 on the intensity scale which gave me a figure of 43 tss.
The workout was a pretty standard 3x10 style upper body type with one 3x10 in the squat rack (very light) to help with a dodgy knee. I didn’t track the activity on my watch so got no data to go by.
How would one usuallly go about adding something like this? It’s the first time the gym in a while so I’m already feeling the DOMS, so 43 might be about right, but although it’s physical stress it’s not the same as a bike workout is it.
I personally do not count TSS for non-bike related training (weights, running etc) as I just want to see the progress of TSS for my sport I am mainly training for.
Ok cool, so the way I was looking at it was if I was to stop the gym training, by MTB fitness would take a dive. But if I don’t record the gym TSS I don’t have anything to reference
Ok, I do note the hours for weight training, so its documented in another way.
If you are aiming for the big picture, so all impacts on your MTB Fitness, there are some more aspects like nutrition, sleep, life stress etc., I think. I have not thought about these to document but I am sure the really ambitious cyclists do (and I am not one of them).
For instance, the offline software I use (Golden Cheetah) has options to enter such information: hours of sleept etc, but I have to draw a line here, as I am not that kind of data analyst
Good points, I didn’t really think of it’s relevance to cycling. However, maybe if I incorporated leg work more often then I’m sure it would be relevant.
I’m dipping my toes into triathlon this year so figured the strength would help, as it would also overall joint health.
Using RPE is likely the best bet?
I lift once a week minimum. I would like to create a cycle of lifting every 5 days, some weeks it works out some it doesnt.
I do about 3-5 working sets of squats
3 sets of pistol squats (unweighted cause they hard as fuck)
3-6 sets of deadlifts
All depending on how the legs feel and my mood I change up styles of lifting. Sometimes throwing in front squats to the mix vs bar on the shoulder. Sometimes I lift slow, slow on the lowering phase too.
This reminds me to throw back in walking lunges.
Anyway. I think a 30 minute to 45 minute lifting session is a minimum of 30TSS. I bet though on my solid, hard lifting days I get a 60TSS.
Shouldnt it all be a score of how long its going to take to recover form said workout?! Like If if lift Monday, usually my legs are tired or weakened until Thursday.
If you have never tried it, do a lift then go for an SST ride, I bet your power numbers are higher at the same HR!
I’ve never seen any value in adding in strength training TSS. I’ve churned over it, tracked it, maintained it… and it’s never delivered anything actionable or worthwhile, so I’ve stopped worrying about it.
I track cycling, running, and swimming, all as separate entities, and maintain a total TSS based off of that, but strength training has never been a significant contributor to weekly TSS anyway, so it’s not worth the attention in my opinion. For example, I’d have a 600 TSS week, and strength might account for 30TSS. So 5% of total TSS, yes, but what am I doing with that information? Is it just a “glory” number?
Anyway. I think a 30 minute to 45 minute lifting session is a minimum of 30TSS. I bet though on my solid, hard lifting days I get a 60TSS.
Shouldnt it all be a score of how long its going to take to recover form said workout?! Like If if lift Monday, usually my legs are tired or weakened until Thursday.
If you have never tried it, do a lift then go for an SST ride, I bet your power numbers are higher at the same HR!
This is why I don’t find value in tracking strength training TSS. It’s essentially made up and not tied to a trackable metric (i.e. I squatted 300 10 times today, so TSS = 6, but if I do 320 next week, TSS = 7). It just adds a meaningless value to an otherwise meaningful number tied to power/pace or other trackable metrics. As you mentioned, the fatigue mechanism is different than it is for cycling and running, so while I know how I’ll feel after a 200TSS bike ride, a 30TSS squat workout might bury me.
The only justification for tracking strength training TSS I’ve come to is that I wanted to see a higher TSS => higher CTL/ATL, so essentially it was just a vanity metric.
For what it’s worth, the only activity I don’t put onto my TR calendar with an assigned TSS is when I walk my dog.
I have inside/outside rides, runs, core, and weight sessions all on there. For me, the calendar is where I track my schedule irrespective of TSS. I suppose I could just leave the activity in place without a TSS estimate, but I like to see the entire picture.
FWIW I do use my HR monitor when I do my weight lifting.
I would think that either you’re more fresh or making gains if your HR doesnt spike as high on the same weight/effort as previously… Right?!
No. HR will be impacted by the pace of the lift, what you do in between sets, how fast you walk between machines, many other variables as it is on the bike, etc.
HR is also relatively meaningless in transients as it lags effort and the lag changes with a bunch of factors as above. You won’t get to a steady state effort when lifting such that the HR you see has much meaning at all.
You certainly cannot track lifting with HR… But looking back at it you could see how high your HR goes on a certain 10 rep weighted set. For instance mine goes to about 150 usually. Some days it wont go as high, I think on those days I am fatigued, or do I have that backwards?
