As I’m learning how to look at more than TSS to quantify the work I’m doing in training, I think it would be useful to see kj in a couple of different places. First, I think it would be a great to have another line added to the weekly summary on the calendar, similar to how TSS is noted. Secondly, it would be great to have a separate kj chart like the TSS chart at the top of the calendar page to track the work in kj that we’ve done & the projected workload we intend to achieve. Obviously, the projections would need to be recalculated as FTP changes.
I think having this info would be a useful metric to see how our workload is progressing & might help take a bit of focus off of TSS.
To help me understand the reasoning behind your request, may I ask why you want to take the focus off of TSS? What does weekly kj help you to understand that is an improvement over TSS?
TSS is a great metric because it scales to your FTP over the course of the season, while your kj will rise with your FTP so that your numbers appear higher at the same perceived effort. Further, 6-week average TSS is a well-established metric that helps us to understand your current training load. There are far fewer metrics associated with kj.
Let me know, I’d love to understand a little better .
@Bryce -thanks for the quick reply! Hopefully, this example will make some sense. Maybe it’s not a great example but I was thinking it might help seeing season to season, year to year or something long term. Say for instance I start out on TR & do a mid volume plan -base 1, base2, build & specialty. As I work through the plans, my FTP will be improving (hopefully!) & TSS will do it’s build to a recovery week pattern over & over through the season. So over that first season I get stronger & faster. I manage to more or less maintain FTP in my off season & start the whole process over again. In my head, I know I’m starting off at a higher FTP but looking at the TSS through my new season, it’s the same as the year/season before. Kind of a bummer. But if I could click to a kj chart, I can see a steady increase in projected kj building throughout the new season.
There is another recent thread about a dip in TSS during the specialty phase of TR plans. I haven’t looked at the numbers (I’m actually allergic to math) but despite the reduction in TSS to get race ready, I’m willing to bet kj numbers aren’t seeing a relative percentage decrease due to having FTP assessments at the beginning & middle of the specialty phase.
Hope this makes a bit of sense, I really don’t have all that great a grasp on this stuff. I really just want to ride my bike & get faster which is why I’m here!
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