how-does-athletica-make-adjustments-to-my-plan
Athletica makes adjustments to your training plan based on the principles outlined in HIIT Science. The detailed methods are described in Chapters 8 (Training Load) and Chapter 9 (Training Load Response).
Training load: described briefly, when you perform any form of exercise training, we consider this as a form of stress. The amount of exercise stress, formed as a product of your training intensity and duration, is called the training load. To keep you on track with your training, we want to give you just the right amount of training load on any given day. Some days you will perform too much training, some days not enough, and some days you’ll be right on the money. By monitoring your training with your devices (GPS, power meter, HR) we can accurately determine the training load you completed, and from this, determine whether or not tomorrow should be adjusted or not to build your fitness appropriately.
Training load response: We are all individuals. Just because two individuals look the same on paper, and get the same training load prescribed, inevitably they will respond differently to the training stress. So we need to determine any individual’s response to that training load. As we describe in Chapter 9 of HIIT Science, we determine this by three main ways.
- Your heart rate response to exercise (HR monitor)
- Your neuromuscular response to exercise (GPS, power and accelerometry)
- Your mind’s perception of the exercise (comments, rating of perceived exertion, feel)
We combine these responses to determine how well you are responding to the exercise, and adjust tomorrow’s exercises accordingly to keep you on track.