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Evaluating Progress

KOM Informatics has several ways to evaluate whether an athlete is advancing in their training. There are 2 main categories of tools to gauge training progress. The first, Performance is the gold standard. If you're actually producing more power this week then you did last week for similar efforts, then by definition you're making progress. However your training plan might not call for all out interval type efforts every week. In this case perhaps the best way to gauge progress is to look at Workload. There is a strong consensus amongst coaches and athletes that the best way to progress is to gradually increase Training Load .

Performance Based Tools - Ride Page

• Power Curves - This Power/Duration graph displays the mean maximal power curve for the ride vs your overall best. Exceeding your prior overall best is a strong indication of progress. For more see the Power Curve help topic
• Personal Records - This table displays when you've exceeded a 6 week power record for one or more of 18 durations or timeboxes. The timeboxes group efforts together by the primary underlying energy delivery system making a record harder to attain then if were based on exact duration. Exceeding a 6 week power record is a good sign your recent training is on track.For more info see the Personal Records Overview  help topic.
• Intervals Tab - Riding the same routes with interval efforts in the same places can be a great way to gauge progress. Open up the 2 rides and flip back and forth between them. If interval kilojoules and durations are up for the more recent ride compared to the corresponding effort on the earlier ride, then you've gotten better. You can also use the Find Most Powerful Intervals search form on the tab to compare efforts from the 2 rides. For more info see the Intervals help topic.

• Power Curves Comparison Report - This Power/Duration graph displays the mean maximal power curve for either a ride or time period vs another ride or time period. Checking this week's vs the prior weeks curves can call you whether you've progressed in your more recent training. Checking an earlier ride against a later one where both ride utilize the same route can also be very revealing. Checking this week's curve vs the same week in the prior year can help to show if you are ahead or behind in your training year over year. For more info see the Power Curves Report help topic.
• Personal Records Report - Are your current efforts amongst your best all time? If not are they close? Answers to these questions can shed light on your current progress. For more info see the Personal Records Report help topic.
• Race Readiness Graph - All Time Personal Records strip - The bottomost bar in the strip beneath the graph area will display a blue square if you hit an all time Personal Record on that day. The more years you train on the system the harder they are to come by so when you do see one it's a welcome sight! For more info see the Race Readiness Graph help topic.
• Ride Summary Charts - This report is mostly about workload but Personal Record Count is one of the metrics it reports on. For more info see the Ride Summary Charts help topic.
• Critical Power - Invoked from the Power Curves Comparison Report page, this report's primary use is to predict an athlete's average power on a longer time trial based on performance on a few shorter time trials. For more info see the Critical Power Overview help topic.

Workload Based Tools - Ride Pages

• Training Progress tab - The Training Load Summary This Week vs Prior table displays both the training load incurred both last week, and this week up to and including the day of the ride, and also whether you are ahead or behind this week compared to last week. If you're trying to train in a structured way gradually ramping training load this tool gauges your weekly progress in a timely way, enabling mid-week corrections to plans that get interrupted by other life demands. For more info see the Training Progress tab help topic.
• Training Progress tab - Historical Training Load Context table. The last table on the page shows the historical training load context for the ride based on month and day. Are you running behind on training load for this ride vs an average ride for this month/day of week ? There might be a good reason for this; maybe you're not fully recovered from a harder ride done earlier in the week. But if there's not a good reason you might be losing an opportunity to pick up training load.  For more info see the Training Progress tab help topic.

Workload Based Tools - Reports Pages

• Race Readiness Graph (main body) - The main body of this graph reports on a 6 week rolling average of the training load you've incurred on your rides. An upward sloping line indicates better overall fitness and a greater likelihood of attaining all-time Personal Records. For more info see the Race Readiness Graph help topic.
• Race Readiness Graph - 6 Week training summary. Did you have a record breaking day on the bike? The 6 Week training summary report invoked from the Race Readiness Graph provides a an overall summary and a week-by-week breakdown of the training that produced those results. Understanding your training will give you a better chance to maintain or improve upon your results in the current year, and give you a better chance of getting back to the same level in future years. For more info see the Race Readiness Graph help topic.
• Ride Summary Charts - This report has many workload based metrics that you can select on an ad-hoc basis to appear on a graph. For more info see the Ride Summary Charts help topic.
• Rider Stats Year Over Year - This report compares this year with the prior year over a number of metrics such as miles, duration and kilojoules. Exceeding last year's workload is a good sign of progress. For more info see the Rider Stats Year Over Year help topic.

Performance & Workload Based Tools - Reports Pages

• The Personal Records/Workload Correlation report provides information on the strength and direction of the linear relationship between your training and your performance. It can provide insights into which aspects of your trainiing are having the biggest effect on the performance abilities that can make a critical difference to your success as a competitive cyclist. For more info see the Personal Records - Workload Correlations help topic.

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