NP viewable when riding...



Originally Posted by An old Guy .


The section of my post that you quoted began with the pronoun - you. A reference to acoggan.

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But the section of my post that you quoted was about IF. I made no comments about intensity.

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This thread is about TSS and the ability to do 300TSS/day for 90 days. It has nothing to do with riding hard and riding easy manifesting the same adaptive changes.

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You seem to be operating under misconceptions about how people with time train.
Mea culpa. One which could have been quickly clarified with a grown up response. Keep up the good work.
 
Originally Posted by An old Guy .


The discussion has nothing to do with training with power. The discussion has to do with the concepts of NP, TSS, and others that are related.

You say there has been no contrary evidence. How is this:

acoggan has posted that NP is not valid for times under 20 minutes. NP gets overestimated until one gets rid of a lot of glycogen.

I think the point of this disclaimer is to take into account that during the initial 20 minutes of of a ride, you are essentially warming up. This statement applies to the first 20 minutes, not ANY 20 minute period. During this time, your energy is produced from fat stores and lactate accumulation would not accurately follow the 4th order relationship on which the NP algorithm is based.

Now, acoggan is saying that TSS achieved below 75% IF is not the same as TSS achieved above 75% IF. (It is really hard to know what his objection is. He seems to be unwilling to share what TSS is modeling except that it is "some process" that is not glycogen depletion.

Unless TSS is accumulated under conditions at least similar to the conditions on which the algorithms are based, the TSS calculation is not correct. AC apparently determined that an IF of approximately 0.75 was the threshold for the accurate application of his model. Since the r2 value for the regression analysis of the blood lactate values was something like 0.88, the 4th order calculation (the exponent is actually 3.9xx) will in fact over estimate at one end of the curve and under estimate at the other because the relationship is not precisely a 4th or 3.9xx order relationship. This is not an indictment that the model is wrong, but rather a recognition that the model has a range in which it operates most accurately.

(A current anecdote: There is a current thread I read earlier today on this site. It seems some people think you need to be doing L4 for at least 8 minutes before it becomes L4. If so, NP of the first 8 minutes of any L4 interval is over estimated. And nothing special about L4 so every interval is overestimated. And that is why you are all above average.)

It doesn't matter what some people think about how long an L4 interval should or should not be. If someone hops on their bike and pounds out 20min L4 intervals with no warm up, yes, the first 20 minutes will indicate a TSS that is biased on the high side. I don't know anyone that does not warm up prior to their interval workout - do you?

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You seem to think that anecdotes are bad. But both acoggan and Andy Coggan offer less than anecotes. Just a story that was concocted in a couple hours. acoggan says his theory cannot be disproven. It would be easy to disprove any of his claims if he wouild say what is necessary for him to accept a proof.

A PhD thesis is hardly a conversation concocted in a couple of hours. Actually, it would be quite easy to disprove AC's theories. Do the work and show that the blood lactate curve is wrong and does not follow the relationship presumed in the NP algorithm.

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I find it amazing that people tell anecdotes about their training and make claims that they cannot maintain 300TSS for many rides. Going from 15-20 hours a week to 35 hours a week is a big step, but 7% (more riding time) a month gets you there in a year. Not too many people set high TSS as a goal. They simply want high FTP. But ...

Joe Friel has a new commentary out. He thinks that more riding time produces higher FTP. (You can find his site.) Post a link - his blog site does not seem to have this information as this would seem to be a significant departure from his recent trend towards the time crunched training approach.

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So what proof do you want.
Post your files supporting your claims
 
Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .

Actually I was just getting ready to post a while back when bgoetz, swampy, felt, and quenya launched an attack and I was off the back....I've been chasing for the past six months and finally caught the tail end of the group. That last post to felt nearly wiped me out, I'd better sit in and rest for a bit :)

-Dave
Can't have been me - I don't recall there being a beer or fatman descending thread... :p
 
An old Guy said:
acoggan has said there are no peer reviewed papers on NP or the related issues. That makes it a religion. Not science. When he brings NP and related issues into the realm of science I will provide proof that they are wrong.
AOG.. you make some good points...but how do you go from no peer reviewed papers to acoggan preaching a religion?? I would have thought there was lots of valid science out there without peer reviewed papers. Don't get me wrong...I want to believe what you are saying about science and religion...would be easier if you had some evidence to support your view. But if not...that's OK...I can just follow. Sam
 
The only "proof" AOG has is the bottle of 80 proof whisky that he uses to wash down the funny pills...
 
How is it possible that no one has pointed out that AOG basically said "I was talking about intensity factor, I said nothing about intensity"!  Nevermind. Here is the real issue, AOG has displayed an impressively poor understanding of exactly what NP, and metrics derived from it, are.  He cannot compute them.  He cannot define them.  He simply doesn't understand them.  And, because he can't understand them believes they are false and attacks them and their originator.  It is suspiciously similar to Clarke's 3rd law.  Not to get to age-ist here, but AOG perhaps you should either read TaRWaPM or have your grandchild who set up your cycling forums profile show you how to use WKO+ or golden cheetah. On a side note... hey Swampy, how much beer will it take for me to descend like a man? :oops:
 
Evidently AOG subscribes to Clarke's 1st. However,AC never said anything was impossible,just that he had never seen anyone capable of the feats AOG claims are easy.
 
Can you help me explain this workout?

I've taken a contiguous 60 minute section in the middle of a 1.5 hour hill workout consisting of 20-30 second on/3 minutes tempo. The xpower for that section is 305 Watts while the NP is 355 Watts.

Firstly, why is NP so much higher than xpower? For other workouts they've been very similar.

Secondly, I think my FTP is about 320 Watts, so this would give me an IF of 1.11 for an hour. This is unlikely isn't it?

I had already expended some anaerobic power with the first two intervals, (rode to my car from work and dropped off bag, so there's a small pause there) so if fresh this would have been even higher.



 
quenya said:
How is it possible that no one has pointed out that AOG basically said "I was talking about intensity factor, I said nothing about intensity"!  Nevermind. Here is the real issue, AOG has displayed an impressively poor understanding of exactly what NP, and metrics derived from it, are.  He cannot compute them.  He cannot define them.  He simply doesn't understand them.  And, because he can't understand them believes they are false and attacks them and their originator.  It is suspiciously similar to Clarke's 3rd law.  Not to get to age-ist here, but AOG perhaps you should either read TaRWaPM or have your grandchild who set up your cycling forums profile show you how to use WKO+ or golden cheetah. On a side note... hey Swampy, how much beer will it take for me to descend like a man? :oops:
Well you gotta start drinking beer rather than wine :p ... But somewhere in the region of about 3.23x10^56 gallons of strong ale. That or suitable chastisement from other riders during specific descending/cornering sessions. The latter worked for me - the former was done during the time berween my Cycling v1.0 and Cycling v2.0 and really didn't do any good for cycling at all. LOL.
 
Cmon AOG...post up...dont be a "little boy"

How do you go from no peer reviewed papers to acoggan preaching a religion??

Seems to me that this is the basis of your whole argument...should be fairly easy to explain.

Sam
 
Swampy, good point about the wine. If they start bottling Moose Drool in 750 ml bottles I'll be all over that! I guess I'll have to force my teammates who can corner and descend to chastise the **** out of me in drills for the rest of the summer and fall.

Sam, good luck AOG is an interesting character, I think he's a comic genius.

DAL, I love that AC makes an observation and AOG takes it as some kind of challenge. Also that AOG doesn't know what IF is but knows it's false.
 
Originally Posted by quenya .


Here is the real issue, AOG has displayed an impressively poor understanding of exactly what NP, and metrics derived from it, are. He cannot compute them. He cannot define them. He simply doesn't understand them. And, because he can't understand them believes they are false and attacks them and their originator.
If you look closely on this site, you will find that acoggan made the claim that the software that is used with PowerTaps could not compute NP. Because I don't have a use for IF or NP, I don't care to compute IF or NP accurately. I am sure that the software everyone uses computes TSS accurately enough for our purposes.

As far as understanding what NP is derived from. Andy Coggan has a piece on the TrainingPeaks site. It says that NP is best thought of as a measure of glucose depletion (I use the word depletion, acoggan uses utilization. For our discussion both have the same meaning.) accogan says that is not correct. Andy Coggan has always been vague about what NP, TSS or his other terms mean. They seem to be attached to undisclosed processes that have half lives. It is hard to say more about NP or TSS.

Toward the beginning of this thread acoggan made the statement that some physical processes made my claim of doing well over 100% IF (NP) for an hour impossible. He has not identified the specific process or the science behind his statement. His claim of the impossibility of 200TSS days for the long term being impossible seem to be based on similar undisclosed processes.

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Andy Coggan's theories in this area are religion because as acoggan has said the is no scientific test that will test them.
 
Originally Posted by DAL1955 .
You seem to think that anecdotes are bad. But both acoggan and Andy Coggan offer less than anecdotes. Just a story that was concocted in a couple hours. acoggan says his theory cannot be disproven. It would be easy to disprove any of his claims if he would say what is necessary for him to accept a proof.

A PhD thesis is hardly a conversation concocted in a couple of hours. Actually, it would be quite easy to disprove AC's theories. Do the work and show that the blood lactate curve is wrong and does not follow the relationship presumed in the NP algorithm.

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So what proof do you want.
Post your files supporting your claims
What PhD thesis? Andy Coggan tells the tale of concocting NP and the related concepts in a couple hours. He also says there is no scientific testing of the concepts. That means no PhD thesis.

He says NP models glucose utilization not blood lactate. But he also says it does not. Somehow TSS which is a function of NP is not based on glucose utilization. It is extremely hard to apply science to claims that change as the test approaches.

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My files are extra ordinary not extraordinary (as acoggan requires). But if you want my files, they are available for $1000/day.

As a sample today's file shows:

5:15 riding time at 78% IF (at least that is what the software claims). You can figure out the TSS from that.

The day was an easy day as I was sore from a dog bite a couple days ago. Tetanus shot made for a sore shoulder. Bite made for a sore calf.
 
Originally Posted by An old Guy .


What PhD thesis? Andy Coggan tells the tale of concocting NP and the related concepts in a couple hours. He also says there is no scientific testing of the concepts. That means no PhD thesis.

He says NP models glucose utilization not blood lactate. But he also says it does not. Somehow TSS which is a function of NP is not based on glucose utilization. It is extremely hard to apply science to claims that change as the test approaches.

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My files are extra ordinary not extraordinary (as acoggan requires). But if you want my files, they are available for $1000/day.

As a sample today's file shows:

5:15 riding time at 78% IF (at least that is what the software claims). You can figure out the TSS from that.

The day was an easy day as I was sore from a dog bite a couple days ago. Tetanus shot made for a sore shoulder. Bite made for a sore calf.
My mistake, it was Allen Lim's PhD thesis.....http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/04/brief-history-of-training-and-racing_1025.html

See Also http://pvcycling.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/the-early-years-the-secret-training-life-of-andy-coggan-ph-d/

Surely, you understand that blood lactate is a measure of glycogen utilization; lactate, being a product of glycogen and all..... and that glycogen utilization is a function of intensity - I don't get why you have such a hard time with the concept that you should weight average the time spent at various intensities using the functional relationship of blood lactate to intensity. Perhaps you can explain, in terms of what YOU think instead of some AC said this or AC said that baloney. From what I can tell, your primary beef is with the NP concept, as all the other stuff is based on the NP concept. IF and TSS are just numbers that result from some math. CTL, ATL and TSB and the 42 day cycle PM concepts are really irrelevant if you can't understand or accept the validity or the logic of NP.

[COLOR= rgb(51, 51, 51)]5:15 riding time at 78% IF[/COLOR]

Good - day 1 is done - Now post the file and let us know how tomorrow goes...
 
An old Guy said:
If you look closely on this site, you will find that acoggan made the claim that the software that is used with PowerTaps could not compute NP. Because I don't have a use for IF or NP, I don't care to compute IF or NP accurately. I am sure that the software everyone uses computes TSS accurately enough for our purposes. As far as understanding what NP is derived from. Andy Coggan has a piece on the TrainingPeaks site. It says that NP is best thought of as a measure of glucose depletion (I use the word depletion, acoggan uses utilization. For our discussion both have the same meaning.) accogan says that is not correct. Andy Coggan has always been vague about what NP,  TSS or his other terms mean. They seem to be attached to undisclosed processes that have half lives. It is hard to say more about NP or TSS. Toward the beginning of this thread acoggan made the statement that some physical processes made my claim of doing well over 100% IF (NP) for an hour impossible.
Hmmm, that is odd, my powertap computes NP and IF just fine. I guess maybe the one you have in your little made up world may not. Also Andy indicated that many rides of over 100% IF (not sure why you put NP in parenthesis like 100% IF is NP) would be a strong indication that your FTP is set too low. What I really want to know is are you even a guy and are you even really old?
 
Originally Posted by An old Guy .


If you look closely on this site, you will find that acoggan made the claim that the software that is used with PowerTaps could not compute NP. Because I don't have a use for IF or NP, I don't care to compute IF or NP accurately. I am sure that the software everyone uses computes TSS accurately enough for our purposes.

As far as understanding what NP is derived from. Andy Coggan has a piece on the TrainingPeaks site. It says that NP is best thought of as a measure of glucose depletion (I use the word depletion, acoggan uses utilization. For our discussion both have the same meaning.) accogan says that is not correct. Andy Coggan has always been vague about what NP, TSS or his other terms mean. They seem to be attached to undisclosed processes that have half lives. It is hard to say more about NP or TSS.

Toward the beginning of this thread acoggan made the statement that some physical processes made my claim of doing well over 100% IF (NP) for an hour impossible. He has not identified the specific process or the science behind his statement. His claim of the impossibility of 200TSS days for the long term being impossible seem to be based on similar undisclosed processes.

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Andy Coggan's theories in this area are religion because as acoggan has said the is no scientific test that will test them.
I recall acoggan mentioning that powertap computers and/or software used NP and IF and calculated them wrong at some time in the past, whether that is still the case he didn't say.

I didn't say anything about what NP is derived from; the curvilinear relationship between exercise intensity and the body's physiological responses, but rather metrics that are derived from NP, such as IF, TSS, CTL, ATL. Again displaying your feeble understanding of these concepts, and perhaps the English language. Doing well over 1.0 IF (FTP) for an hour is impossible based on the definition of FTP, and one's definition of 'well over'. ***If you believe you can go much harder for 1 hour than you can go for 1 hour then I think you need to reevaluate how hard you can really go for one hour.*** I apologize for the doublespeak there but that is very literally the argument you are making, and it is simply ridiculous.

AOG, since you are intent on calling a well respected member of the cycling community a fraud, since you put words in his mouth, and make up lies about what he has said, please know just about everyone here knows you are a tool and a liar. You claim NP is flawed in some way and don't even understand the concept; perhaps that is the flaw, your limited comprehension? To most people who use Coggan's metrics they are defined very well, Andy is not vague about them in the least. Perhaps you should take more time to read and really internalize what is written. I've noticed you often read something and twist it in various ways when you try to restate it such that no one could have guessed what was really written if they hadn't read it themselves. a couple of examples of this are in the quoted post above. Again, you were referring to IF not even knowing that that is 'Intensity Factor' and then claimed you hadn't said anything about intensity. Perhaps you should know exactly what the words you are using mean before you type them.
 
Originally Posted by quenya .

Swampy, good point about the wine. If they start bottling Moose Drool in 750 ml bottles I'll be all over that! I guess I'll have to force my teammates who can corner and descend to chastise the **** out of me in drills for the rest of the summer and fall.
Real pints work fine - 568ml - aka Imperial pints.

Moose poose... Mammoth Brewing Co's 395 ale. Named after highway 395 - the highway at the bottom of the last climb on the Alta Alpina 8 pass (Monitor Pass at Topaz) - and likely the highway you'll traverse to get to, and cross during Day two of, the Everest Challenge after descending the damned hard climb to Glacier Lodge - 9 miles at ~9%... but lets just forget that the first couple of miles and the last mile are nowhere near 9% and that makes the middle 6 miles or 10km farking grim. If you plan on doing the Everest - leave the 395 ale until Oct. There are no technical descents on the Everest during the race - especially if they run Day 1 in reverse again - ie first climb to South Lake. The worst descent of the two days is from White Mountain but as the finish of day 2 is at the top of the climb you only descend down it to get back to your car. Some folks have people drive up but do the descent - it's epic. 22 miles from 10,100ft down to 3,900 ft - think descending the top 7 miles of Ebbetts followed by the meandering 7 miles that follows then dropping down the back of Monitor pass to Topaz with a few tight corners and some steeper sections thrown in. If you can imagine that then you've almost figured out what the descent is like. There's some climbing on the way down and your arms will ache especially on the last 1/3 which is effing fast but it makes you appreciate the suffering on the way up and for me at least, it's damned good fun but it does get to the point where 45 to 55mph is almost no longer fun.

If you know a couple of guys that go down hills faster than a ho' goes down on $5 night, have one ride infront of you and one behind. Implicitly trust the guy infront - unless you have **** tires - and take advice from the guy behind. You'll get better with advice. I strongly recommend a set of Conti GP4000S or similar Conti tires with Black Chili compound rubber.

From my experience it's very hard to fall off a bicycle mid corner. Hands follow eyes. Look where you need to go and you'll most likely get there. NEVER look over the edge - unless you're on a straightish road. NEVER stare at potholes as you'll end up going down them or getting so close that your back wheel might nick the edge. Try to avoid staring at a focused location. ALWAYS, browse the road ahead and look for clues. Once you can relax you'll get the bike to lean over faster. Bikes like to turn when leaning over - not so much when straight up and at speed. That little thing I told you about 'tip and lean'... it works wonders. Shoot me a PM if you need a bit of clarrifcation.
 
Originally Posted by DAL1955 .


Good - day 1 is done - Now post the file and let us know how tomorrow goes...
You need to make arrangements to make payment.

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One of the benefits of not being paid to ride: Today it is well over 105 degrees. So I will go out and ride for just 2 hours. Enough time to drink 60oz of water and come home several pounds light.