TSS and backcountry skiing?

Discussion:

Rich_SC

2008-02-17 21:28:08 UTC

I'm taking a "rest" week from riding for a ski trip to utah. I'll be
doing 4-5 days of telemark skiing where basically we're hiking up mtns
and skiing down (repeat till you drop). Think slow stairmaster for
5-6 hours. We usually are working pretty hard during the ski up's and
the post-ski sensations are similar to a hard 3-4 hr bike ride.
Totally wiped.

Just wondering what the consensus is for entering TSS for these "non
riding" activities...I'd hate to lose CTL but don't want to "cheat"

Can I give myself 100TSS for these days? Please? Pretty Please?
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Chris Fischer

2008-02-17 21:34:40 UTC

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It's really hard to judge from sitting here in Ohio, but if you'd like to send me an airline ticket, I'd be happy to accompany you on the trip, then give my best first-hand estimate :-)

Chris Fischer

----- Original Message ----
From: Rich_SC <***@gmail.com>
To: Wattage <***@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 4:28:08 PM
Subject: [Wattage] TSS and backcountry skiing?

I'm taking a "rest" week from riding for a ski trip to utah. I'll be
doing 4-5 days of telemark skiing where basically we're hiking up mtns
and skiing down (repeat till you drop). Think slow stairmaster for
5-6 hours. We usually are working pretty hard during the ski up's and
the post-ski sensations are similar to a hard 3-4 hr bike ride.
Totally wiped.

Just wondering what the consensus is for entering TSS for these "non
riding" activities...I'd hate to lose CTL but don't want to "cheat"

Can I give myself 100TSS for these days? Please? Pretty Please?

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daveryanwyoming

2008-02-17 21:59:20 UTC

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Can I give myself 100TSS for these days? Please? Pretty Please?

Sure, give yourself 300, it's up to you :)

Seriously, I do a fair amount of nordic skiing including a lot of
backcountry tele skiing. I estimate IF when I'm out by paying
attention to how I'm breathing on the climbs, my overall feeling and
how it compares to say a steady Endurance, Tempo, or L4 effort. It's
pretty hard to estimate the IF for the descending portions and that
depends in part on how aggressive you ski(I'm generally pretty
conservative in the backcountry with one at a time in avalanche
terrain and shorter stretches between islands of safety than say lift
skiing) but I spend a lot more time skinning than descending and it's
easier to estimate the intensity of a long steady climb. I tend to
downrate the overall IF since I'm not convinced the cross training
benefit is all that great but it still gives me an estimate.

For example my wife and I did a 6 hour tour yesterday. We skinned
maybe 4000 vertical feet and yo-yo'd some backcountry bowls. Breathing
was deep, steady but very comfortable on the climbs and the descending
was just fun in fresh snow without a lot of heavy breathing or leg
burning efforts. I swagged the IF at .6 which is more or less a warmup
pace for bike riding. I figure we were on the move for 5 out of those
6 hours with some short breaks for putting on or pulling off skins,
water stops, etc. Anyway, 5 hours at 0.6 IF yields 180 TSS. That' a
total swag and it could be high or low. My training week is mostly on
the bike so I'm comfortable entering that swag as a manual workout
towards my PMC and as an estimate of calories burned and an estimate
of fatigue. If I was doing a lot more of that I'd be more concerned
about overall accuracy. I'm more comfortable with my skate skiing
estimates as the activity seems to relate better to cycling in terms
of intensity and rhythm but I still can't estimate how much crossover
benefit I get so those are still swags.

-Dave

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Rich_SC

2008-02-18 01:20:21 UTC

Permalink

Post by daveryanwyoming
For example my wife and I did a 6 hour tour yesterday. We skinned
maybe 4000 vertical feet and yo-yo'd some backcountry bowls. Breathing
was deep, steady but very comfortable on the climbs and the descending
was just fun in fresh snow without a lot of heavy breathing or leg
burning efforts. I swagged the IF at .6 which is more or less a warmup
pace for bike riding. I figure we were on the move for 5 out of those
6 hours with some short breaks for putting on or pulling off skins,
water stops, etc. Anyway, 5 hours at 0.6 IF yields 180 TSS.

This is pretty much how our tours go...your analysis makes pretty good
sense. Thanks. Now all there's left to do is pray for snow.

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Thom Falter

2008-02-18 01:30:53 UTC

Permalink

What I want to know is the TSS for two hours of shoveling snow off my
driveway? Rich, if you need snow, please feel free to stop by
Wisconsin and take as much as you want. :)

Thom

Post by Rich_SC
Now all there's left to do is pray for snow.

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J***@aol.com

2008-02-17 22:11:06 UTC

Permalink

In a message dated 2/17/2008 4:59:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
***@gmail.com writes:

I tend to
downrate the overall IF since I'm not convinced the cross training
benefit is all that great but it still gives me an estimate.

Dave;

While I totally agree with you on this point, consider that "training stress
score" is not "training stimulation score" and that while cross country
skiing adaptations don't completely transfer to cycling, the training stress
still may affect recovery and subsequent training.

John

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Olli

2008-02-17 22:50:55 UTC

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I usually enter 60 TSS per hour for my skate skiing workouts. 2-3
hours of that and I'm pretty much as tired as after 4-5h endurance
ride.

Maybe try to listen to your body and feel how tired you are and
estimate your TSS.

Post by J***@aol.com
In a message dated 2/17/2008 4:59:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
I tend to
downrate the overall IF since I'm not convinced the cross training
benefit is all that great but it still gives me an estimate.
Dave;
While I totally agree with you on this point, consider that "training stress
score" is not "training stimulation score" and that while cross country
skiing adaptations don't completely transfer to cycling, the training stress
still may affect recovery and subsequent training.
John
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-cam...
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)

daveryanwyoming

2008-02-17 22:55:43 UTC

Permalink

John,
I think we're in violent agreement :)

I've posted similar thoughts a few times. I wrestle with the balance
between using the PMC as a measure of cumulative fitness(CTL) vs.
short term fatigue(ATL). I know many on these boards and elsewhere
have argued that only on bike and PM measured training should be
recorded(CTL focus). I've argued you can also use the PMC with a
fatigue(ATL) focus or try to find some kind of balance. I don't know
the cross training benefit of these manually entered workouts nor even
have a good model for how one activity tires me out relative to future
training in other activities. So I tend to downrate IF a bit for cross
training but that's a choice biased towards keeping CTL fairly cycling
specific. I still think it would be nice if you could choose to have
manual workouts sum into ATL but not into CTL so they could predict
fatigue without implying increased long term fitness. But then you get
into the whole "implied data precision" discussion.

Anyway, point taken and no argument really, perhaps over the next
couple of seasons I'll figure out the best way to model fitness,
fatigue and the best way to account for cross training.

-Dave

J***@aol.com

2008-02-17 23:34:02 UTC

Permalink

In a message dated 2/17/2008 5:56:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
***@gmail.com writes:

John,
I think we're in violent agreement :)

I've posted similar thoughts a few times. I wrestle with the balance
between using the PMC as a measure of cumulative fitness(CTL) vs.
short term fatigue(ATL). I know many on these boards and elsewhere
have argued that only on bike and PM measured training should be
recorded(CTL focus). I've argued you can also use the PMC with a
fatigue(ATL) focus or try to find some kind of balance. I don't know
the cross training benefit of these manually entered workouts nor even
have a good model for how one activity tires me out relative to future
training in other activities. So I tend to downrate IF a bit for cross
training but that's a choice biased towards keeping CTL fairly cycling
specific. I still think it would be nice if you could choose to have
manual workouts sum into ATL but not into CTL so they could predict
fatigue without implying increased long term fitness. But then you get
into the whole "implied data precision" discussion.

Anyway, point taken and no argument really, perhaps over the next
couple of seasons I'll figure out the best way to model fitness,
fatigue and the best way to account for cross training.

-Dave

Dave;

I think the best example would be suppose you do a 4 hours of SST tempo
cycling and cross country skiing and burn similar calories with a similar heart
rate profile. Under similar conditions of fitness and temperature these
should generate the same "stress" but we agree the benefit to cycling will be
different. If 300 TSS points is entered for the cross-country skiing event and
in a particular season an abnormal amount of cross-country skiing is performed
this might inflate the training relative to cycling training. OTOH, I don't
think small variations in CTL have a large effect on sport-specific fitness,
so assuming there is not a huge spike in non-specific training, what is
entered is not going to matter much when analyzing training load vs. performance.

Personally, more and more I use TSS and PMC to really track stress. Having
such objective data-based information has been an eye opener and PMC caused
me to discover my physiology being very stress sensitive. Therefore, for each
workout I enter the stress regardless of its source, so I can then determine
if I need additional recovery.

John

**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)

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Cipo

2008-02-19 13:29:52 UTC

Permalink

I love tele skiing. During the 'off season' I'm a mountain bike
racer. I've always wondered if Tele skiing (read 5,000 lunges)
combined with skinning up or boot packing wasn't the ultimate cross
training? Any opinions? How many of you non skiers incorporate
lunges into your winter training - or stair climbing for that matter?

daveryanwyoming

2008-02-19 15:26:38 UTC

Permalink

I love tele skiing, but not for its cross training benefits. The
climbing is good steady work, but a lot closer to hiking than running
in terms of intensity and the descending is typically a series of
short high level to anaerobic bursts which isn't something I focus on
during winter training. The lunges might be great if you were cross
training for lunges but the range of motion is nothing like cycling so
from a specificity, joint angle, muscle recruitment standpoint I don't
see that's it's necessarily all that useful to cycling success.

I sure enjoy being out in the backcountry but don't really think it's
all that great from a cross training perspective. Sure it burns
calories and provides some kind of base but so do a lot of other
activities that I also wouldn't use as the foundation of my winter
training program...

-Dave

Post by Cipo
I love tele skiing. During the 'off season' I'm a mountain bike
racer. I've always wondered if Tele skiing (read 5,000 lunges)
combined with skinning up or boot packing wasn't the ultimate cross
training? Any opinions? How many of you non skiers incorporate
lunges into your winter training - or stair climbing for that matter?

Post by Rich_SC
I'm taking a "rest" week from riding for a ski trip to utah. I'll be
doing 4-5 days of telemark skiing where basically we're hiking up mtns
and skiing down (repeat till you drop). Think slow stairmaster for
5-6 hours. We usually are working pretty hard during the ski up's and
the post-ski sensations are similar to a hard 3-4 hr bike ride.
Totally wiped.
Just wondering what the consensus is for entering TSS for these "non
riding" activities...I'd hate to lose CTL but don't want to "cheat"
Can I give myself 100TSS for these days? Please? Pretty Please?

b***@gmx.net

2008-02-19 15:40:29 UTC

Permalink

You should carefully distinguish between
- alpin skiing - no real cross training benefit for cycling
- ski touring - depending on the intensity, it can be very beneficial for cycling
- nordic skiing (x-country-skiing) - resulting in a very good cross training effect

Of course - it depends on technique, training experience with the particular sport and the intensity, you do it.

One winter, my only bike training was 2 x 30 minutes on the rollers per week and all the other training until mid march was cross country skiing ("skating"), running and some circuit-training for general athletic development.

I was 4th and best amateur racer in a club race (started with a time handicap) at the end of march - after two weeks of on the bike training.

Unnecessary to say, that this was the start my best season ever. ;-)

"Skiing" can be very good IMO, if you chose the right skiing sport, have the technical skills ond find a useful pacing.

/e

Post by daveryanwyoming
I love tele skiing, but not for its cross training benefits. The
climbing is good steady work, but a lot closer to hiking than running
in terms of intensity and the descending is typically a series of
short high level to anaerobic bursts which isn't something I focus on
during winter training. The lunges might be great if you were cross
training for lunges but the range of motion is nothing like cycling so
from a specificity, joint angle, muscle recruitment standpoint I don't
see that's it's necessarily all that useful to cycling success.
I sure enjoy being out in the backcountry but don't really think it's
all that great from a cross training perspective. Sure it burns
calories and provides some kind of base but so do a lot of other
activities that I also wouldn't use as the foundation of my winter
training program...
-Dave

--
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Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer

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samk

2008-02-21 04:09:29 UTC

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I have spent the past 3 years hiking with a splitboard.
I normally 3-4 laps and my Hrate is solid tempo. (roughly 35 minutes
each) I am a pretty weak rider when it comes to leg strength. I find
that after a month of hiking 2-3 days a week .. My wattage on the bike
is pretty stellar. A few years back after a solid CX season I pretty
much just back country skiied for the month of January and then headed
to Vegas for a Stage race. I had one of the best timetrials and road
races I have ever had. Stellar wattages for me. The road race had a
30-40 minute climb and my legs felt incredible.
As far as wondering if cross training works....Last year I broke my
back and was in a full brace for 84 days. I was able to stairmaster
the last 6 weeks. I started with 30 minutes and built to 60.. I did
this every day "all out." I took the brace off in April and hit a
stellar 20 minute on the bike the same day. It was out of the saddle,
but still pretty cool to see I hadn't lost a ton of cycling fitness. 6
weeks later I hit the highest 20 minute of my life. I was shocked. I
think the stairmaster was just like backcountry skiing. It worked on
my biggest limiter, muscular endurance. I find that I give myself the
wattage that matches my Hrate. If anything, the TSS is lower than how
my legs feel after a long day of hiking in the backcountry. 130 TSS
for most days is my guess

I love the trainer..............but I love powder more.

sam k