intervals.icu - most insightful visuals & metrics to track progress

[robeambro]

Hi all,

I've been using intervals.icu for a long time, but mostly to look at how each ride has gone (e.g. did I stay in such and such zone, did I hit a new PR power..), but now I'd like to get better at tracking my progress. And by progress, ideally I don't just mean how my critical power at various time intervals has moved.

For example (and again - only for the sake of providing one example), I've been doing a heck of a lot of base training for many months (for various reasons) which doesn't seem to have had much - if at all - impact on my FTP and I tend to ride the same Z2 power at the same HR, but I can anecdotally see how much more Z2 I can do right now without fatigue (e.g. two days ago I did a 4.5h Z2 ride which would have had me quite taxed otherwise, yet the following day I felt just fine hammering it in a Zwift race. I can anecdotally see similar improvements clearly, but measuring them is another matter).

Other than my example above, those of you who use intervals.icu, can you show me what visuals / charts you use in either the "Fitness" or "Compare" pages to track your performance?

[eins4eins]

Test and compare power data for various durations.
Heart rate drift, heart rate recovery, Heart rate to power, etc can be used to validate aerobic fitness, but its not as easy to use to evaluate performance based on that as several factors play a role.

[Tifosiphil]

Personally I don't find Intervals the best. Although it is very handy it just doesn't correspond efforts across other sports effectively. I run 2/3 times a week alongside cycling and the load you receive is often not comparable for the fatigue.

For example I recently did an 8km run with 1200ft of elevation within 2km. Legs were screaming and I was blowing out my arse with a high HR. A couple of days later I do a 30minute session with 20mins in Z1 and 10mins under and over FTP and get a load 25% higher despite not feeling taxed at all.

The best way to track your performance on Intervals is like above and do the same/similar workouts and compare them. Personally when I'm training heavily over winter I will start each month with a seated 20min ramp test and then 2 weeks later do a session with a 1, 5 and 15 minute effort to compare power output and heart rate

[robeambro]

Personally I don't find Intervals the best.

I'm open to other free/cheap platforms if that helps; just nothing nuts like WKO, I am not prepared to spend that kind of money.

[rudye9mr]

golden cheetah is open source and very good - there is a bit of a learning curve and the ver 3.6 update is great.

intervals icu is awesome for opensource and recognizes your PRs as well - only used both for cycling

[bikeboy1tr]

I have been using intervals for a couple years now and like it for the most part but did notice that when it loads from Garmin my avg pwr numbers get dumbed down for some reason and are more comparable to the numbers that load to Strava from Garmin. My best guess is both those platforms add in zeros with the averaging for power whereas I dont include zeros on Garmin.
It is nice that you can track decoupling on intervals especially at the start of the season but making the calculations isnt a big deal.
I like that you can add or subtract whatever fields you want to display onscreen and I do use a good number of different data. Here is a link to a hill training session I did today. Hopefully you can see what field data I am using atm. But I also like that you can drag the mouse over big efforts and see what the numbers are for the session.
https://intervals.icu/activities/i39830032

[Lina]

I have been using intervals for a couple years now and like it for the most part but did notice that when it loads from Garmin my avg pwr numbers get dumbed down for some reason and are more comparable to the numbers that load to Strava from Garmin. My best guess is both those platforms add in zeros with the averaging for power whereas I dont include zeros on Garmin.
It is nice that you can track decoupling on intervals especially at the start of the season but making the calculations isnt a big deal.
I like that you can add or subtract whatever fields you want to display onscreen and I do use a good number of different data. Here is a link to a hill training session I did today. Hopefully you can see what field data I am using atm. But I also like that you can drag the mouse over big efforts and see what the numbers are for the session.
https://intervals.icu/activities/i39830032

Your average power is supposed to include zeros. If it doesn't include them it's not your average power.

[bikeboy1tr]

It is a choice and I have choosen not to include zeros and intervals does show coasting time so...

[Spinnekop]

It is a choice and I have choosen not to include zeros and intervals does show coasting time so...

Sure it is a choise.
But by definition it is then NOT average power but called Norm power

[bikeboy1tr]

For the same ride Garmin is showing 207W without zeros and intervals is showing the avg as 187W and Normalized as 251W.

[Requiem84]

For the same ride Garmin is showing 207W without zeros and intervals is showing the avg as 187W and Normalized as 251W.

Is auto pause on on your Garmin?

[k33z]

But measuring power without zeros is just completely useless right? Also, Normalized Power is not the same is average power without zeros.

But an example to show that power data without zeros is useless: You start 1km before the top of a high mountain. You sprint up with 400W for the kilometer. After that you descent with 0W for 39km.

That means your averaged 400W for that ride of about an hour. That is just wrong

Always include zeros in power data.

[bikeboy1tr]

Auto pause is on. If avg without zeros is useless why do they give us the option? Ppl are also saying that L/R Balance is also useless but its still an option for us to have. Do all coaches recommend pwr avging should be with zeros included?

[k33z]

I do not know why the option is there, and yes all coaches use average power including zeros. Just look at my example, that ride (where you did 400W for 1 minute, and then 0W for e.g. 40 minutes in the descent) will give you an average of 400W when you do not include the zeros. When you would include zeros , your average would be really low (e.g. 40W) because you did nothing most of the time.

I am pretty sure that you cannot keep 400W for 40 minutes when you include the zeros. Average power is a completely useless metric when excluding the zeros. Just think about that example.

[Lina]

Auto pause is on. If avg without zeros is useless why do they give us the option? Ppl are also saying that L/R Balance is also useless but its still an option for us to have. Do all coaches recommend pwr avging should be with zeros included?

Literally everyone recommends zeros are included in average power. It's a useless metric without them. The reason it's there is so some people can pad their numbers and feel better about their power numbers. Excluding zeros from cadence is understandable. That way you get the cadence for the time you've been pedaling. And cadence is a metric for when you're pedaling.