Strength Metrics
I scrolled through the feedback and ideas of others, and it looks like you are making great efforts to make changes, so thank you TrainingPeaks Team!
If you have not already, I suggest looking at the App, Strong. They have a really great format, but I'd rather use TrainingPeaks because it's nice having both my cardio and strength workouts in one area. The new Strength app from TP is very good! For me to really love it and not want to supplement elsewhere, here is what I think could be useful.
1) Heart Rate monitoring during exercise - I am assuming this is easier said than done because of software related tasks between a smartwatch and TP integration. Tracking sets live from the phone and HR from the watch in Realtime I think would be awesome, but I can imagine that is a challenge in of itself. I've done the rep and set tracking from Garmin's workout platform and that takes you too much out of the moment.
2) Being able to add exercises to a scheduled workout while in the workout. Sometimes we need to make changes during a workout and you can't do that currently. My only work around is to list every exercise I think I could do when building a workout, save it, and then leave workouts I do not do blank. I also have no way of adding a set.
3) Labeling a set as a warm up set, a working set, or a drop set. The ability to label if you went to failure, and a RPE. These are features the Strong app has. Very easy to label it in between sets.
4) Having the previous history of the lifts (sets, reps, and weights) shown. This is also something the Strong app has.
I hope this helps and that it doesn't sound like I am overly critiquing. Really love the TP platform and would like to keep everything in one place.
Adam Priest
shared this idea
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DanielLeBlanc
commented
Strong for Android and iOS is arguably the best strength training app out there. Its feature set is perfect and should be the model for TrainingPeaks' Strength builder feature.
- Create workouts on the fly (search/add/delete exercises and sets)
- record RPE for each set
- calculate expected 1-Rep-Max for each set
- rest timer
- workout values update from previous event, user can easily re-use previous lift values or change the value
- unobtrusive exercise instructions and animated instructional videos built-in.Completing workouts in Strong should fulfill planned Strength workouts in TrainingPeaks ("complete as planned").
Strong is also capable of exporting all workout data in .csv format. Please allow for importing this file.
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Loyd Færøvik commented
I use the TrainingPeaks app, and it's pretty good. I use it to coach people at different levels. My background is that I am a powerlifting coach and a regional coach in Norway. I coach several athletes on the more specialized side.
Over time, I have worked my way into the "hybrid athlete" concept and thus train people who want the combination of strength and conditioning.
The problem here is that even though TrainingPeaks' strength builder is good, it lacks some very specific things that are a deal-breaker for me.
The way I work is that I find a potential PR in an athlete and use this to work with percentages. So the training sessions will be specific with repetitions and sets based on a theoretical max (which we have already figured out). This means that they are told how much they can lift (as well as RPE in addition, since there is always some leeway).
I coach people up to the top level internationally, and quite a few nationally. But these programs I use cannot be combined with TrainingPeaks because there is no way to pre-register what weights people should lift (based on a max).
What I wish existed was an opportunity to enter, for example, the maximum load on the exercises, and then select this in the same way that we do with the threshold for running, for example, using percentages of the value that are preset.
example -
Lifter lifts 1 rep x 100 kg in squat -
My program om week one.
80 percent of max - 4 sets - 5 reps - and the program says 80 kg
Week two - 85 percent of max 4 - septs 3 reps. 85 -
And so on.That way I can create structured training programs over e.g. 12 weeks, which calculates how much people should lift, and not just run/cycle.
Is there any possibility that this is coming?
Alternatively, is there a way to import CSV with finished programs into athletes? So that I can create a program in advance and add it?
Now it becomes an awful lot of work when I have to manually enter the weights to be lifted. And it means that I have one program for strength and one for the rest. One foot in and one foot out.
Hope this can be of interest, I'd love to sell some of my plans like others do if it becomes possible with you later, via structured training.
Hope this gives you some good ideas! And I get everything together in one place.