Home - Main (Top) Menu

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The Home view comprises 6 sections, clicking on the + symbol top right of each section allows you to add a new entry.

  • Events
  • Goals
  • Calendar today/tomorrow
  • Find a Coach/Choose a training plan
  • Fitness Ramp Rates
  • Peak performances

Events: What are you training for? Keep track of all of your upcoming events and stay focused with a countdown.

Goals: Stay on track by adding your training goals. Examples: Work on a smooth pedal stroke, Improve final sprint.

Calendar today/tomorrow: Your scheduled workouts.

Find a Coach/Choose a Training Plan: These options are self explanatory.

Performance Metrics: Your Fitness, Fatigue and Form values are used to evaluate your progress towards your fitness goals and also to evaluate your taper leading up to competitive events.

Training Peaks calculates these values by assigning a Training Stress Score (TSS) to every workout based on duration and intensity.

Fitness (CTL/Chronic Training Load) is a rolling 42 day average of your daily TSS.

Fatigue (ATL/Acute Training Load) is a 7 day average of your TSS that takes into account your recent workouts which cause fatigue

Form (TSB/Training Stress Balance) is equal to yesterday's fitness minus yesterday's fatigue.

A positive TSB number of up to 25 means you have a good chance of performing well. It indicates that you are both fit and fresh.

Fitness Ramp Rates: These are the rates at which your Fitness (CTL) is rising or declining.

You can find out more about ramp rates here

Peak Performances: Your all time maximum power over 5 sec, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 20 minutes.

This is automatically populated when you upload your bike, run or MTB workouts.

Calendar - Main (Top) Menu

The calendar shows all your activities including (as shown in this view): Structured training plans, workouts, races, events and goals.

You will also see your weekly summary on the right hand side and icons top left to add workouts and training plans

You can drag an item to change its order or date. For example you could move a workout forward a couple of days.

Calendar Top Navigation Menu

Arrows: Change view back or forward by one week
Today: Show calendar week view that includes today
Circular arrow: Refresh view
Upload: Upload a workout from a file or a device
Search: Word search of the calendar

Upload Workout

TrainingPeaks supports all these file types for when uploading workouts.

csv, fit, gpx, gz, hrm, hst, pwpb, pwx, sdf, srm, tcx, txt, wko, xlsx, xml

Clicking on the calendar hamburger menu top right allows you to toggle the events shown on the calendar.

The Workout and Training Plan Library

There are two icons to the top left of the calendar:

The open book icon lets you access the workout library where you can browse your workouts, create a new workout or search over 700 free Joe Friel workouts.

The closed book icon lets you access the training plan library where you can view your existing training plans or search for more in the training plan store. If you have the Coach Edition you can also create training plans.

The weekly summary

The calendar view always shows a full week and on the right hand side you will see a summary of your training durations for that week as well as your fitness, fatigue and form.

Dashboard - Main (Top) Menu

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The dashboard view is your main performance analysis overview. It comprises multiple charts and metrics and is totally customizable by dragging tiles around the view and adding or removing tiles from the dropdown top left. There are 30 tiles to choose from.

While no single chart can tell you everything you need to know; by examining data from many different angles you see a more complete picture of the athlete’s history and can make better educated training decisions.

According to Training Peaks the 7 most popular charts used by coaches are:

  1. Fitness Summary Chart
  2. Fitness History Chart
  3. Peak Power and/or Peak Pace Chart
  4. Time In Zones Chart
  5. Completed Distance and/or Duration Chart
  6. Metrics
  7. Performance Manager Chart

Click on the top left chart icon to open the chart library and drag your chosen charts onto the view. Although it’s only number 7 on Training Peaks popularity list, Performance Management (PMC) is a VERY important chart so make sure you have that at the top of your dashboard!

Double click on any chart to view full size.

Click on the hamburger menu to change chart parameters in a popup. (The menu shows top right of each chart when you hover over that chart).

ATP (Annual Training Plan) - Main (Top) Menu

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The ATP is where you plan your season in advance by adding key Events such as races and letting the system help you create the training schedule needed to optimize your performance at that event.

You can create a periodization plan automatically based on Joe Friel’s "Training Bible" methodology. Or, create your own custom periodization plan

Begin by choosing your methodology.

You can create an Annual Training Plan based on time, average weekly TSS or Event Target Fitness (CTL).

Click the ATP tab at the top of the main view, then click ‘get started’ or the ‘+’ icon to create a new ATP. (If there is an existing ATP you can click on the gear icon to edit it)

Next, select Weekly Hours, Weekly TSS or Event Fitness TSS as your methodology.

You can find out more about these methodologies here

Current Fitness:

Your options are strong or weak. If you put weak you will spend more time base training initially to develop a good level of fitness before your start the build up to your event.

Recovery Cycle

You have 2 recovery cycle options:

Every 3 Weeks: 2 Weeks Hard followed by 1 week recovery

Every 4 Weeks: 3 Weeks Hard followed by 1 week recovery

It is usually best for athletes who recover slowly, such as older competitors and novices, to do four, three-week periods instead of three, four-week periods. So these athletes will follow a plan including base 1, base 2, base 3 and base 3 again.

Determine Training Volume

Weekly Average Hours/TSS/Start CTL: How much time you can commit OR TSS (weekly TSS): How much stress per week OR TSS (Event Fitness (CTL)) Chronic training load leading up to an event.

Hours:  Enter the Weekly Average number of hours you can commit to. The system calculates and populates Hours: Easiest Week, Hours: Hardest Week, and Hours: Approximate Annual.

TSS: Enter the Weekly Average TSS you want to endure. The system calculates and populates TSS:Easiest Week, TSS: Hardest Week, TSS: Approximate Annual.

You are also asked for a start CTL Value

Event Fitness TSS:  asks for a start CTL Value

Add an Event to the ATP

Once you have set your annual training parameters you can start to add events that you want to train for. You need to fill in the event details and (optionally) your goals.

Most of the details are self explanatory; however priority needs a little clarification:

Event Priority

Every event you enter must be assigned a priority, the options are:

Priority A: Key Event with time for full taper
Priority B: Minor event with just a few days taper
Priority C: Training/Fun Event

You MUST have at least 1 Priority A event to save the ATP, otherwise nothing happens when you try and save it!

You can optionally add goals by scrolling down on the Add Event form. You can also add a custom goal by pressing the + Add custom goal link

How to decide what values to use in the ATP