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Strava updates Fitness and Freshness for heart rate monitor usersstrava_rgb_boxed_logotype

Strava updates Fitness and Freshness for heart rate monitor users

Keep better track of your fitness, fatigue and form with new Strava features
by David Arthur @davearthur
Tue, Oct 28, 2014 11:23
12

Strava has updated its Fitness and Freshness feature, previously only available to cyclists using a power meter, to those who only use a heart rate monitor.

The updated feature uses your Suffer Score, itself generated by how much time you’ve spent in different heart rate zones, and allows you to easily monitor levels of fatigue, fitness and form over time.

Strava has proved its usefulness to regular cyclists as a way of keeping track of how many hours and kilometres they have cycled every week and month, and beats the old days of writing down training rides in a diary (anyone here remember doing that?). 

The Fitness and Freshness feature aims to offer a relatively easy way to track what impact to your fitness and form your cycling and training is having, and help you to improve over time and work towards any goal events you might have. Being heart rate based also means it will appeal to runners and swimmers using Strava.

The Fitness Score is calculated using Training Load to make it easy to measure your daily training, allowing you to monitor your increase in fitness over a period of time. Strava have used an ‘impulse-response model’ developed by Dr. Eric W. Banister in 1975 and applied to cycling by Andy Coggan.

Bannister developed a heart rate-based model to determine the impact of training on performance, to better understand when to train and when to rest. Andy Coggan developed the training stress score (TSS) that is widely used in cycling by anyone using a power meter. Not everyone has a power meter though, Strava first launched this feature for those with one, but have now expanded it to anyone using just a heart rate monitor.

Ride hard lots and you’ll soon feel fatigued, and Strava aims to be able to display your increasing fatigue as a number so you can quantify your training load, and give yourself a rest or back off the intensity if you’re pushing it too hard.

“You'll notice the score go up quickly after a couple hard days, but also go down quickly as you take a few days off,” says Strava, meaning you should be able to ensure you don’t end up training when you’re tired and worn out, and give yourself some rest.

Form is the difference between your Fitness Score and Fatigue Score so you can see what sort of shape you’re currently in. We all know how good it feels when you have great form, but ensuring you have good form when you actually want and need it can be extremely tricky and challenging, so anything that helps you better ensure you’re in good form, especially if you’re aiming for a goal event like a sportive, time trial or race, can only be a good thing.

The Fitness and Freshness feature is only available to Strava Premium members, and can be found under the Training tab on the homepage. Check it out at www.strava.com

Training
Strava
fitness and freshness
David Arthur @davearthur

David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes. 

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12 comments

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tempo36 | 5 years ago
1 like

Fitness and Freshness is completely useless if you have any interest in monitoring your fitness over time. Why? Because if you update your FTP or max heart rate, the F&F graph completely refreshes for your entire history as if the new FTP has always been there. So the old rides which might have been strenuous now are “easy” and give very little benefit to Fitness. Strava knows about this bug and has known about it for YEARS and still won’t fix it. Since any change in FTP completely rewrites history, it makes any meaningful assessment of trends and evolving fitness impossible. 

See here for example:
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203479564-Changing-F...

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robinhud | 6 years ago
0 likes

I think this is the splended choice for monitoring the heart rate during the jogging or cycling for fitness.  I am also using cycling for fitness but really its not an easy job or you can say that i am a silly person that's why i never like any kind of workouts instead of jogging or cycling along with perfect diet including herbs and plants in our food in form of vegetables or fruits because they have great impact on our health as i have read at hakeemabdulraheem(.)com. I am also using strava product for cyclists using a power meter for only heart rate monitorning. Anyways, thanks for sharing the nice piece of content with us.

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ta2dwez | 9 years ago
0 likes

Whats the best way of getting my form back into the positive numbers? At the moment its -23. I commute 3 days a week and ride once in the week and on a saturday morning. Do i have to just chill out on my commutes and try to get my form back or should i not take these numbers so seriously

cheers

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DaveE128 | 9 years ago
0 likes

Why does it need your FTP if you aren't using a power meter and they're only using the suffer score/training impulse from heart rate? Maybe they're also using the estimated power from speed and elevation profile?

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Paul J | 9 years ago
0 likes

They're just copying cyclinganalytics.com here.

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chokofingrz | 9 years ago
0 likes

I heard you can estimate FTP by doubling your body weight in pounds. E.g. you weigh 150lbs => 300W is your estimated FTP.

Since this method is inherently lazy, I'd knock at least 30% off the figure to account for your equally lazy approach to training 3

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Hugor replied to chokofingrz | 9 years ago
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chokofingrz wrote:

I heard you can estimate FTP by doubling your body weight in pounds. E.g. you weigh 150lbs => 300W is your estimated FTP.

Since this method is inherently lazy, I'd knock at least 30% off the figure to account for your equally lazy approach to training 3

I like that method!
I wont be needing to kill myself over Rubber Glove anymore when I can just go around telling people I have an FTP of 440W.
16

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notfastenough | 9 years ago
0 likes

No problem. Wattbike + Sufferfest 'Rubber Glove', you know you've done it right when you practically fall off at the end and the staff come to check if you're ok!

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andyspaceman | 9 years ago
0 likes

Thank you notfastenough. We have a gym at work that has a couple of Wattbikes. I have a 'showers only' membership for commuting purposes, and because I'm not a big fan of gyms, but that might be an option.

I've done functional threshold tests on my turbo at home (what fun they are!), but that's been to determine my heart rate threshold. I was amazed at the accuracy though - it was within 1bpm of what I figured I could maintain on an hour's climb over the course of a week in the Alps. Will try trainerroad.com to see what they recommend.

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andyspaceman | 9 years ago
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Hmmm, it's telling me I need to input my Functional Threshold Power in order to generate this information.
How might I go about figuring out what my FTP is (without access to a power meter)?

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notfastenough replied to andyspaceman | 9 years ago
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andyspaceman wrote:

Hmmm, it's telling me I need to input my Functional Threshold Power in order to generate this information.
How might I go about figuring out what my FTP is (without access to a power meter)?

Well you've probably got a couple of options:

1. Use your turbo (assuming you have one) in conjunction with trainerroad.com - it'll cost you a few quid to buy a cadence monitor and whatever, but nonetheless a tiny fraction of the cost of a power meter. Then you can determine your FTP using the turbo.

2. I use a wattbike at my local gym - it's a David Lloyd, but I believe Virgin Active have wattbikes coming out of their ears. If you aren't a member, you could either blag a day pass "I'm thinking of joining... etc", or just pay for the one-off - it's expensive - I think David Lloyd charge about £16, but probably ok as a very occasional thing. The National Cycling Centre in Manchester (and other velodromes, maybe?) also have wattbikes you can pay to use.

Whichever you do, I'd suggest getting stuck into your off-season training, then go back and re-sample your FTP to measure the gains made (in the new year, say). Try to use the same method each time, since they may read quite differently, so it's the difference between the 'before' and 'after' figures that you're after.

If you choose option 2, let me know and I'll try and offer some advice to make sure your one-off visit actually yields a productive number.

Oh, and don't rely on the other bikes at gyms - 'spinning' bikes for example are prone to movement of the resistance magnet, so there's no consistency at all, between bikes or visits. I've battered myself in a winter spinning class only to see the girl next to me do the same workout but finish with her hair and makeup still perfect, and no it's not because it was Laura Trott in disguise!

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Suffolk Cycling | 9 years ago
0 likes

This is rather splendid!

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