If you want to improve something, measure it. This applies in life and on the bike. Whether you're talking blood pressure, finances, or FTP, how can you know something is improving if you are not accurately measuring it?

The same principle applies to training stress, a key summative metric that quantifies the total load of your training. As coaches and as athletes, we can measure how much work you are doing each day, each week, each month and each year. We balance this with measurements of your recovery metrics, and make prescriptions from there based on your goals.

Training Stress Score has long been used to measure training load, and it's a great metric. There are two problems, though: TSS gives you credit for coasting, and it gives you the same amount of credit for a certain amount of wattage in hour one as the same amount of wattage in hour four.

As you have probably noticed doing a two-hour ride on Zwift vs a two-hour ride outside, not coasting at all for two hours makes a big difference in how much work you are doing! Similarly, you know how much harder - how much more stressful - a 250w effort feels late in a long ride compared to when you first start.

Now, Zwift is a great tool, but don't misunderstand - we aren't advocating that you do all your rides inside! We are simply advocating that you accurately measure your training wherever you do it, so together we can precisely apply the right training load to make you better!

At FasCat, we address these issues and other improvements with Optimized Training Stress, which is found exclusively in the CoachCat app.

Learn more inside this podcast with Coach Andrew Giniat and FasCat Founder Frank Overton.

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Take your training to the next level by hiring Coach Andrew: https://fascatcoaching.com/collections/coaches/products/andrew-giniat

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