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- These days when you press the start button
on your watch or your bike computer,
it suddenly releases a whole wealth of data
telling you how far you've been,
how fast, how much you've climbed,
your power, your cadence, your heart rate,
your fitness, your recovery,
amongst many other things.
Which is pretty clever stuff,
providing you know what you're looking at.
And in fact,
there's probably a whole bunch of metrics out there
that you're not using
and you probably should be.
And that is what I'm here for today.
I'm going to be running you through
a bunch of these metrics
that you should be using
with the help of our channel partner, Polar.
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Now, before I do delve into all these different metrics,
it's worth noting that
some brands do have slightly different names
for some metrics.
Some do cross over
while some is that they're actually calling their own
terms or names for certain metrics.
Now today, I will be mostly using Polar's terminology
and using their Vantage V watch as an example.
Obviously, you can find a lot of these metrics
on other devices and with other brands.
I'm going to kick off today with one
that I've been quite enjoying using
and getting stuck into lately.
And that is running index.
Now providing that you are tracking your heart rate
whilst out running,
your running index will be automatically calculated
at the end of your run
based upon your heart rate data
and your run speed data.
The higher that running index number,
the faster you're able to run for less effort.
In other words, as you start to run faster,
your heart rate isn't increasing quite as much.
Now, this is actually essentially an estimated number
for your maximal oxygen uptake,
which is essentially your VO to max.
And you can track that from run-to-run
to see your progression.
But another way
that this running indexes really useful,
it's actually for race predictions or time predictions
for certain distances.
If I go into Polar Flow,
it will tell me my estimated time
for 5,000, 10,000 half marathon, and so on.
Which obviously, if it's improving, can be really nice.
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But I'm moving on to a similar metric,
but this one actually utilizes power.
And this is called energy cost of running
or ECOR, for sure.
And given the advancements in running
and the fact
that we can now look at our power output per foot strike,
we can look at our efficiency with this.
So our power output versus the speed
that we're traveling at.
And not all software has this built in,
but you can calculate fairly simply yourself
by looking at your power output in watts per kilo,
and dividing that by the speed you're traveling
in meters per second.
It's thought that for a top level athlete
or a highly efficient athlete
this can be as low as 0.9.
And this is in kilojoules per kilogram per kilometer,
and it can go as high as 1.1
for inefficient athletes.
Now this is a metric
that is actually getting used more and more
by runners and coaches,
but I understand this might be a little bit
over some people's heads.
So I've got plenty more metrics for you.
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Such as cadence.
Now, cadence or steps per minute or strides per minute
may not seem all that breaking,
I'm sure many of you are already using cadence out there.
It's normally defined as the total number of steps
that you take per minute.
Now typically, top level marathon runner
will take some around 90 steps per minute.
For a lot of amateur runners,
it'll be somewhere around 78 to 82 steps per minute.
Now the nice thing with this metric
is that you can see it
you can record it in real time.
Now, you might find that you need a foot pod
to be able to track this
but on some devices
it'll actually calculate it in the device for you
and show you that as you're running.
Now, let's take this one step further.
And actually another really nice metric is stride length.
Now this is a combination
of both your cadence and your speed
that you're traveling at.
And that will calculate how far
or how long each of your strides is.
And then we have vertical oscillation.
Now this is a really interesting metric.
It's basically the up and down movement
of your body when you're running.
It's measured in centimeters.
For a lot of people,
it's somewhere between six centimeters and 13 centimeters.
But obviously, it takes effort
to move your body up and down.
So obviously, the lower you can get that number, the better.
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Okay, but how about training load.
Now a basic principle of training and exercise
is that it puts stress and strain on your body,
you then need to recover from those stresses and strains
and hopefully adapt
and come back stronger and fitter from them.
That's how we progress
as an athlete.
However, too much of that stress and strain
could end up being counterproductive.
So that's why training load is in place,
it's really important.
Now to give you a bit of an example,
a super cruisy long ride on the bike
could have the same stress and strain
as a much shorter high intensity ride.
You might not initially think so
but that, again, is why that metric is so important.
And that is calculated from the intensity
and the duration of a training session or an activity.
Now, training load under Polar terms
actually has a few different metrics underneath it.
We've got Cardio Load, Muscle Load, and Perceived load.
Now Cardio Load and Muscle Load are automatically calculated
from the data from a training session.
Cardio Load, as the name suggests
is the load on the cardiovascular system.
Muscle Load is the load placed upon the muscular system.
And then the Perceived Load is actually defined by yourself
as the rating of perceived exertion.
And these metrics and values can actually help you
to train smarter
because if a particular workout has a high training load,
well you know that you need to back off
and go easy in the next
or allow some recovery
or equally if it was quite low training load,
you know, you can go harder than the next.
But you might be watching this thinking,
well, this all sounds rather similar to TSS
and you're right it's quite similar.
TSS or Training Stress Score
is the amount of stress placed on your body.
It's a metric used
by a lot of different brands and software,
but is actually calculated slightly differently.
It uses normalized power,
normalized graded pace, intensity factor
and the duration of the activity.
But if you'd like to know a little bit more about that
Heather's actually done a great video explaining TSS
and these other metrics that I just mentioned,
I'll send you to that.
At the end of this video I must be there,
why not subscribe to GTN.
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Okay, now let's talk a little bit more
about power cycling,
has had power for years
it provided instantaneous feedback
as to how hard you're working,
the intensity at which you're working,
rather than waiting for your heart rate to climb or to drop.
Not to say that metric's not great.
But we finally got power in running.
It's built into some devices
or failing that you can get it on some foot pods.
If you've got it,
I'd really suggest using it.
I've been really enjoy using it,
it's been quite interesting on some rolling terrain runs.
I've tried to keep the power the same,
and therefore, the intensity the same for the whole run.
Equally it's quite interesting
as maybe I keep my speed the same
but I've seen a drop in my power over time
or my speeds increased for the same power.
That would show an improvement in my efficiency.
Now go back to cycling quickly
and depending on the power meter you're using,
you can get a metric that looks
at the distribution and power between left and right leg
and this is a really interesting metric
because it can actually highlight quite early on
a weakness between left or right leg
and limit a potential injury.
I've definitely found this interesting in the past,
and it's helped me.
Now unfortunately, we don't have a solid metric for this
in running just yet,
we do have a couple of estimated versions for that.
So that's a lot of our metrics for outdoors
and during activity.
But now it's time to have a look at some of the metrics
for maybe post-workout analysis.
This is a good excuse for us to
head indoors, grab a brew, (bass music)
and fire up the laptop.
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Okay, if you remember back
to that train load or TSS I was talking about earlier,
this can also help us determine our recovery.
Each brand has their own name,
first Polar refers to it
as recovery status.
This can essentially help us
to understand how much training
and how much stress our bodies can tolerate
and how much recovery we need
to allow us to achieve optimum train.
You can think of it almost like
a beefed up version of the training load.
It uses our activity data
along with information and metrics on ourselves
such as height, or weight, or fitness, etc.
To give us a clear indication
as to the strain
that we can put on our body
wherever we're under strain or not,
whether we should be training hard or not.
And in some cases, if recovery feature
can take it one step further
and actually tell us how long we should have off
after workout before the next.
And finally we have heart rate variability,
also known as HRV
or our heart variability.
This is the time intervals between consecutive heartbeats
and a lot of devices
such as the Polar Vantage V actually have this built in.
They may require to use an external heart rate monitor
such as a chest strap, just for more accurate readings.
But what does this number do for us?
Well, it's another clear indication
as to how well our body is dealing
with the demands we're placing on it.
In short, a higher HRV is good.
That shows that we're in good health
or an improved health,
with a well functioning heart
and we're dealing Well with the training
that we're putting upon ourselves at the time.
It also can be a very quick and clear indication
as to whether we are recovering well.
Maybe we're doing too much training,
we're under stress
or perhaps coming down with illness.
And that is what I've used HRV for
very successfully in the past,
and it's given me a clear indication
as to whether if I should be training or not.
There's a whole host of metrics
to play with there,
and I really would recommend having a look at each of them,
seeing if any of them work well for your individual needs
at the moment.
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