UG_Glossary - GoldenCheetah/GoldenCheetah GitHub Wiki

Main Page: Glossary

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General

Activity Data : standard (s.t. Speed, Heart Rate, Power, etc.) and extended (XData) series recorded with periodic samples, they can be inspected and edited in raw format in GoldenCheetah Editor.

Metadata : numerical and text fields stored with activities, they can be used for context information s.t. Notes, or to override metrics values, and they can be configured in Fields Settings .

Metrics : numerical features pre-computed for activities and intervals using activity data and metadata, they can be built in or user defined.

Measures : are daily measurements organized in groups, there are 2 builtin groups: Body and Hrv with predefined fields, in v3.6 the user can add fields and define additional measures groups s.t. Nutrition, Sleep, etc.

CP: Critical Power. A power that theoretically can be maintained for a long time without fatigue. There are video tutorials on CP models in the main site and a companion CP Explainer.

FTP : Functional Threshold Power. The highest power that a rider can maintain in a quasi-steady state without fatiguing for approximately one hour.

Fatigue Zones : Fatigue Zones display how much time you spent at different levels of W’bal during an activity. W1 (Low or Recovered) denotes time at >75% of W’, W2 (Med or Moderate Fatigue) time at 50-75%, W3 (High or Heavy Fatigue) time at 25-50%, and W4 (Ext, Severe Fatigue) time with W'bal <25% of W'.

Tau : your rate of replenishing your W' stores.

Endurance index : the ratio of W' to CP, in the 2 parameters model the limiting time for an athlete to perform a power output that is twice CP. It was introduced as Endurance Parameter Ratio in Fukuba Y., Whipp B.J. (1996) The “Endurance Parameter Ratio” of the Power-Duration Curve and Race Variation Strategy for Distance Running. See also Yoshiyuki Fukuba and Brian J. Whipp - A metabolic limit on the ability to make up for lost time in endurance events.

P-max : maximal power over one full rotation of the cranks.

BikeStress/TSS : Training Stress Score®. A quantification of the training session that takes into account the duration and intensity of the training based on the power data. It's intended to estimate the training load and physiological stress created by that session (it's conceptually modeled after the heart rate-based training load, TRIMP). Applies only to Bike activities.

ATL/STS : Acute Training Load/Short Term Stress. The dose of training that you accumulated over a short period of time, computed as an exponentially weighted moving average of the selected Training Load metric typically with 3 to 10 days time constant, 7 by default. It is claimed to relate to your fatigue.

CTL/LTS : Chronic Training Load/Long Term Stress. The the dose of training you accumulated over a longer period of time, computed as an exponentially weighted moving average of the selected Training Load metric typically with 28 to 56 days time constant, 42 days by default. It is claimed to relate to your fitness.

RR : Ramp Rate. The rate at which CTL/LTS increases per ATL/STS period, 7 days by default. Large values up and down indicate a risk of injury and aggressive taper respectively.

TSB/SB : Training Stress Balance/Stress Balance. It’s the result of subtracting yesterday’s Acute Training Load/Short Term Stress (“fatigue”) from yesterday’s Chronic Training Load/Long Term Stress (“fitness”). In general terms, if it's negative, you're fatigued, and if it's positive you're fresh. It is claimed to relate to your form or freshness.

TRIMP: Training Impulse. A method to quantify training load. It takes into consideration the intensity of exercise as calculated by the heart rate (HR) and the duration of exercise (Strava's Suffer Score is a modified TRIMP score) TRIMP Points: the original Morton/Banister with Green et al coefficient. TRIMP(100) Points: same as above but scaled so 1 hour at LTHR gives 100 points to "align" it with TSS/BikeScore. TRIMP Zonal Points: points are accumulated according to time in zone weighted by a zone coefficient, which is defined in HR Zones.

QA : Quadrant Analysis. It tells you how you created the watts, since the same quantinty of watts can be created by a different percentage of force and cadence. It helps to give you an understanding of the muscular and cardiovascular demands created by each ride. It can also help you determine if in training you are creating wattage in the same quadrants that you would in a race. If not, you can change the way you create the wattage so you’re training just as specifically as you race. Quadrant 1 (upper right: high force and high cadence. Quadrant 2 (upper left): high force and low cadence. Quadrant 3 (lower left): low force and low cadence. Quadrant 4 (lower right): low force and high cadence.

IsoPower/NP : Normalized Power. It's an estimate of the power an athlete could have maintained for the same physiological cost if power had been perfectly constant instead of highly variable. In general, it's not valid for shorter efforts; in these cases average power should be used instead.

xPower : In practice, NP and xPower are largely the same, the only difference is xPower uses 25sec EWMA smoothing while TSS uses 30sec MA. Daniels EqP place much higher emphasis on upper intensity work.

TISS : Training Impact Scoring System. It's a metric to quantify the training strain or response, as opposed to the training load/stress (like TSS and TRIMP). Applies only to Bike activities.

Relative intensity : This is how your xPower relates to your CP. When xPower = CP, the intensity is 1.

BikeScore : A quantification of the training session that takes into account the duration and intensity of the training (it's based on the power data and CP). Like TSS, it is intended to estimate the training load and physiological stress created by that session. For more info see Dr Skiba's paper on BikeScore. Applies only to Bike activities.

SmO2 : the abbreviation for Muscle Oxygen Saturation, that is, the percentage of hemoglobin that is carrying oxygen within the muscle tissue. Essentially you’re looking at how your body, specifically your muscles, responds to exertion over time. It's measured by some devices like MOxy Muscle Oxygen Monitor and BXSinsight.

tHb : total hemoglobin. It's part of your SmO2% measurement, and in simple terms it represents the existing volume of blood, where measured.

Aerobic Decoupling : When power output and heart rate are no longer parallel in a workout where one variable remains steady while the other drifts, the relationship is said to have "decoupled" (e.g. when power/pace remains constant but heart rate goes up, or when heart rate remains constant and power/pace drops). Excessive decoupling (much higher than 5%) could indicate a lack of aerobic endurance fitness, but it is also affected by heat and dehydration. In GoldenCheetah average power is used for cycling, and average pace for running.

RPE : Rate of Perceived Exertion, a subjective measure on a scale ranging from 0 (rest) to 10 (maximal). It can be used during activity, for example to prescribe or monitor intervals bouts, or after an activity (see session RPE) (Foster et al. A new approach to monitoring exercise training. J Strength Cond Res. 2001 Feb;15(1):109-15.)

Response Index : The ratio between xPower and Average HR, similar to Efficiency Factor.

Session RPE : A simple and widely used method for quantifying the subjective training load experienced during a single exercise session (Foster et al. 2001). The athlete scores RPE 30 minutes after exercise to avoid that particularly difficult or easy segments toward the end of the exercise would dominate the rating. The session RPE score is calculated by multiplying RPE by the duration of the session in minutes. A 1 hour all-out time trial would probably give a session RPE of 600 (RPE 10 (maximal) x 60 minutes = 600). Training load based on session RPE complement training load metrics based on heart rate or power. For example, if HR training load is stable and session RPE training load is going up this mean you feel more fatigue with same internal load (or at the same HR you felt more fatigued), possibly indication overreaching or overtraining.

VI : Variability Index. The ratio of NP divided by average power is called Variability Index (VI). The closer your VI is to 1.0, or the more similar your NP and average power, or the "smoother" your power output was.

BikeIntensity/IF : Intensity Factor. IF is calculated as NP divided by FTP, or in other words, it's the percentage of your individual FTP that you maintained, on a normalized basis.

W' : The maximum capacity of work, expressed in kJ, that can be done above Critical Power. See this explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Sw3vOCq9U

W'bal : The amount of W′ remaining at any given time. During power efforts above your CP, W'bal represents the remaining balance (reserve) of W' you have before exhaustion. See this explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Sw3vOCq9U

VAM : average ascent speed. VAM = (metres ascended x 60) / Minutes it took to ascend. A standard unit term with the same meaning is Vm/h, vertical metres per hour; the two are used interchangeably.The relationship between VAM and relative power output is expressed as follows:Relative power (Watts/kg) = VAM (metres/hour) / (Gradient factor x 100).

Estimated VO2MAX : computed from 5 min Peak Power (measured or estimated using a model) relative to Athlete Weight using new ACSM formula: 10.8 * watts / kg + 7 (3.5 per leg) ml/min/kg.

Triathlon-Specific vocabulary

SRI : Swimming Relative Intensity = xPower Swim / STP.

STP : Swimming power at CV/threshold pace.

xPower Swim : normalized swimming power.

Pace Swim: based on average speed with zeros and expressed in min/100m or min/100yd, according to setting.

xPace Swim: the constant swim pace which would give the same SwimScore when sustained for the same duration, same units as above.

IWF : Intensity Weighting Factor (IWF=LNP/RTP), similar to IF/Relative Intensity.

GOVSS : Gravity Ordered Velocity Stress Score, similar to TSS/BikeScore for running. Defined in Calculation of Power Output and Quantification of Training Stress in Distance Runners: The Development of the GOVSS Algorithm

LNP : Lactate Normalized Power: similar to NP/xPower for running.

VDOT : VDOT is an adjusted V02max (which may or may not match a laboratory-generated V02max), which tells you how you might race for other distances (in the row, associated with the same VDOT), and also tells you how first to perform different types of training.

TriScore : combined stress score based on Dr. Skiba stress metrics, defined as BikeScore for cycling, GOVSS for running and SwimScore for swimming. On zero fallback to TRIMP Zonal Points for HR based score.

SwimScore: Based on speed data channel, athletes weight and CV setting from Swim Pace Zones (both weight and CV can be overriden on activity basis). Calculated according to Dr Skiba's paper on SwimScore

Vmax : the equivalent Pmax when modelling speed-vs-duration instead of power-vs-duration

FTV: the equivalent to FTP when modelling speed-vs-duration instead of power-vs-duration

D' : the equivalent to W' when modelling speed-vs-duration instead of power-vs-duration

CV : the equivalents CP when modelling speed-vs-duration instead of power-vs-duration

RTP : Running Threshold Power. Based on athlete's CV.