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Improve accuracy of NGP on hills

As it is today, NGP accounts for hills -- up or down -- by adjusting NGP up when climbing, and adjusting down when descending. However, TrainingPeaks currently applies equal and opposite adjustments for equal up/down grades. That means if you climb and descend the same hill, NGP will be the same as if you just ran flat. That's incorrect. In the real world, if you run up a 6% grade, you burn more energy than the energy you save running down a 6% grade.

I would like to see a much more accurate NGP calculation, as this would help the accuracy and usefulness of TSS for hill (usually trail) runners.

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  • Jim commented  ·   ·  Report

    Is there an update on this one? I posted this over two years ago. Strava gets this right with Grade-Adjusted Pace (GAP), and has for many years. Nudge, nudge, TrainingPeaks! Don't forget about us runners!

  • Greg Romney commented  ·   ·  Report

    Athletes should be able to set hrTSS as the norm for running. This has been requested in the past. Toggling to hrTSS after a workout is completed is not adequate. rTSS is fine for road runners, on similar courses but is not a reliable metric for trail running and variable terrain (roads one day, hills the next). If a workout is changed to hrTSS from rTSS, and the period is subsequently recalculated, all toggles have to be manually set again. I am asking for this feature as it is important to the utility of TP for many people. Personally, i do not want to be forced to use a non-representative metric (rTSS) given TP is a paid subscription service. Thanks

  • Duncan Hoge commented  ·   ·  Report

    Ben - Great news, thanks for the update! I'm probably reaching here, but any idea on the timeline?

  • Duncan Hoge commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree the formula needs to be modified for downhills. I'm curious if there would be a sort of hacky way to do it based on the hardest of hrTSS and rTSS. Seems like a formula could be created to marry the two depending on pitch and elevation. Something like where it would use hrTSS on steep descents. I'm honestly curious which is more effective for trail running – if anyone has any tips on using the existing system more effectively hit me up!

  • Thomas commented  ·   ·  Report

    Trail Running is almost 100% of what I train hence I am frustrated that it seems impossible today to capture accurate training effect despite of all sensors. Not even running power meters seem to help yet. With parameters like body weight, height, running cadence (footpod), (barometrically measured) elevation loss, one would hope for a smart algorithm to get to reliable TSS. In my experience, hrTSS works well for really hard & long mountain trail runs (> 50km, > 6hr) but less below that.

  • Phil Maynard commented  ·   ·  Report

    By "not consider any downhill", I assume you mean, "use the actual pace", instead of correcting using the NGP formula? Certainly omitting it entirely (as Anonymous suggested for MTB) would not do what you intended.

    I agree that although my Fatigue may be quite low two days after a workout with a lot of hard downhill, I'm not ready to do another workout until the DOMS fades. As I transition from mostly road to mostly trails in prep for a trail race, my CTL stays somewhat flat, although I'm actually gaining lots of fitness - it's just becoming more specific to trails.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    A great idea. The same concept could be extended to mountain biking as well.

  • AR commented  ·   ·  Report

    I like the idea. I'd not completely ignore the downhills, but rate them as easier (e.g. a downhill pace of 04:00 would be calculated as 04:30 NPG)

  • David Jeker commented  ·   ·  Report

    There's a few post here about using hrTSS for trail but I think it would be better to make a new TSS specific for trailrunning. I would simply not consider any downhill in the NGP calculation. The pace would only be adjusted on the climbs. Running downhill is less stressful physiologically but more stressful mechanically so I believe it would give a pretty accurate idea of the overall training stress.

    The NGP calculations are probably based on Minetti's equations which are anyway a lot more accurate to predict uphill performance then downhill...