Total workout gauge

would a pie chart work?  i was kinda thinking about doing that anyways...you will be able to break it down by week, month or year. u can then relate the percentages with the distances your shooting for.

hmmm I guess I am looking for a way to figure out if I'm balanced on all disciplines in my workouts. This of course would require us to figure out how much swimming distance is equivalent to a run or bike distance and or however you decide to compare them.

If it were a pie graph you would have to base it on an x factor, which I'm assuming you would call "time". So is time the answer to the equation meaning 30 min of running is equal to 30 min biking or 30 min of swimming....I just don't think that works. Now distance, how would that work, 1 mile of biking to 1 mile of running to 1 mile of swimming....NOT. But the distance still works if we can figure out the right formula...if the "correct" formula is then used as the x factor for the pie graph then we have something to really look at!!! So what is that right formula?

Whether it's a pie graph, a point system, or a bar chart it doesn't matter to me.

Another way I'm looking at it is this...during the off season, if I wanted to maintain my fitness levels but resort to only 1 or 2 of the disciplines I should be able to account for some number of miles to make up for the other discipline I wasn't working on.

Again using the 400m swim, 12-mile bike, and 4 mile run formula. If I did just that distance for each event I would have 1 point in the swim column, 1 point in bike, and 1 point in run. Now I'm in the off-season and I want to do the same amount in workouts but only in running (my primary focus) and swimming (my secondary focus). I know I need 3 points to equal my last months training...so now I'm going to run 2 points worth and 1 point worth of swimming or 8 miles of running and 400m swimming. Does this constitute for a comparable workout to last month?

I don't know if this even works or not but it sounds like an interesting theory to me. Obviously there is no better practice than actually doing the discipline...but I'm looking for something comparable to maintain or to focus on another area (perhaps a weaker area) while maintaining or exceeding a certain level of exercise from previous months. Like I bet some people just can't seem to find a place to swim year round...and we all know nothing is better practice than swimming itself...but can you make up for lost swim practice by supplementing in your running or biking workouts, by how much, and can I easily see what it will take from my graph?

Let me know where I'm not coming through clear...it's late, I’m tired, and I really should have waited a day or two till my weekend to reply better without rambling...again really sorry Ron!!!

Yeah I would think there could be a pie chart and each event could be colored (red=Run/Green=Bike/Blue=Swim..or whatever) and that for the months you are run heavy you would be more red and bike heavy more green etc... that would be part of the whole pie..... so depending on the focus and the time frame you can gauge what your heaviest training area was.
Sounds pretty cool... I would use it... Nice idea

I think what Casey is looking for is a way to track power of each workout in each discipline. I think that's the only way you can acheive what you are looking for.

I think we all agree that 1 mile in either discipline does not equal 1 mile in another discipline... so distance doesn't work. Time could work as long as the workload in each discipline was close to equal. Perhaps if heart rate was kept constant for each discipline then logging time could accomplish what you want.

Ya Tony, your on the right track. I just am starting to believe you can't measure that power accurately unless you include both time and distance. If I run a mile in 20 min this month and next month I run 3 miles in 20 min and all you look at is how long I ran for then you won't have measured power accurately.

So what you said about heart rate might be on the right track though...if the answer is heart rate then this graph isn't going to work out because it's really difficult to always get accurate heart rate data during every workout. For me, I never take my HRM to my swims cause the belt just slides down. Some of my runs don't get logged either due to electrical interference....yatta yatta yatta. Can you think of any other way to track power other than HR?

I'm willing to be a guinea pig for this and also create sample logs and graphs using excel...

yeah you would have to load HR by distance and/or time, or you can create HR zones and put a HR zone to a time and/or distance, I would think that would give you the desired results.
Forgive my incompetance here(newbie), but HR is the actual load on your body, I mean that is how we can truly(or easily) tell how hard our body is working right? So Distance and time is a preference on the trainee on how they would like to measure.... most work outs I have seen have been in time.
Time and HR I would think could give you an adequate description of your event work out, and if you do not reach and maintain certain zones (depending on your training cycle) you would not be at 100% or a 10 or however you wish to gauge it... And adding the other variable in there could give you that much more detail....


Edited by Scottus 2004-10-18 11:36 AM

let me mull this over for awhile...feel free to post any newer ideas or exact details of a way of doing what u want to do...

How about we call them "IronRatios"... 2.4 miles of swimming = 112 miles of cycling = 26.2 miles of running. By keeping the cycling mileage equal to one portion of the pie chart, multiplying running MILES by 4.28 and multiply swimming YARDS by 0.027, you could come up with the other 2 parts of the pie chart. Just a thought... That way, if you had 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles of cycling and 26.2 miles of running for a given time period, the pie chart would be equally in 3 parts.

Granted, this only takes into account mileage, but it could be extended to include heart rate to give a better view of effort, but that get kinda' subjective.

-Frank

Edited by scuba-punk 2004-10-21 12:38 PM

Ya, your on the right track....the question is are those distances considered "equal" to each other. I mean we all are striving to be an IRONMAN triathlete right...lol, j/k....but really if you take IRONMAN distances and break them down into ratio's then we have a formula. I'm just asking if everyone agrees these are the correct distances we choose to use when comparing disciplines?

If so, I'll create the formula and test it out on myself over the next couple months to track improvement lost and gained or maintained so we can make adjustments from there.

What does 1 Biking increment equal in Running and swimming?
What does 1 Running increment equal to Biking and swimming?
What does 1 Swimming increment equal to Running and Biking?
Increment = Distance(Mile,Meter,Yard, KM) Time(sec, Min, Hour)

Maybe the effort level should be factored into the equation with effort on a scale from 1-5?

increment=distance*time*effort

As I think about it more, this is getting similar to the methods used in the book Training For Endurance by Dr. Maffetone. I've started using PC Coach with the Mike Pigg triathlon training software and it uses Maffetone methods. Every three weeks you do an "evaluation" run to track training progress. The test is a set distance (say 3 miles) and you record the time it takes to complete the run at a set heart rate.

Ok, I've got a rough draft in excel format but I think I've found a few kinks. First off, I used the IRONMAN distances as the base of the formula to make the 1to1to1 ratio between disciplines. The first major problem to jump out at me is the fact that in IRONMAN races, the swim portion of the race is never in a pool (I'm hinting towards the advantage of turns in a pool). So we might need to tweak the distance a tad for our equation.

I've always felt that each turn equates to about 5 bonus meters....so for a 500 meter swim, if you had 20 turns then you would subtract 100 meters from your actual distance swam to simulate how long it would have taken you to swim 400 meters in open water. This is something we can work on.

What I need now are a few guys who have completely accurate records that go back a few months (all I need is total distance and time for each discipline for each month). Also, I'd like to send you a copy Ron...you can go over it and provide feedback.

This will be awesome for those who are serious loggers, should it work correctly.