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Map My Tracks blog

Streamlining training planning for cycling coaches and athletes

Map My Tracks is excited to announce the launch of our latest online tool designed to provide insights into the performance metrics of upcoming workouts.

Workout Training Stress Score calculator

Our free ‘Workout Training Stress Score calculator’ is designed to help coaches and athletes plan workouts, providing invaluable insights into the training load of each session and facilitating more informed decisions for optimizing performance and achieving goals.

Understanding the benefits

1. Predictive training load analysis:
The Workout Calculator allows coaches and athletes to predict the training load of individual workouts with precision. By quantifying the physiological stress of each session, users can anticipate the cumulative impact on their training regimen, enabling them to adjust intensity, volume, and recovery periods accordingly. This predictive analysis is instrumental in fine-tuning training plans for optimal performance gains.

2. Enhanced training plan accuracy:
With the Workout Calculator, coaches can meticulously plan and tailor training programs to meet their athletes’ specific needs and goals. By incorporating TSS predictions into training plans, coaches can ensure that workouts are appropriately challenging, progressively structured, and balanced to promote optimal adaptation and performance improvements over time.

3. Performance management chart integration:
The Workout Calculator seamlessly integrates with the Performance Management Chart (PMC), offering a comprehensive view of athletes’ training load, fitness, and fatigue levels over time. By correlating TSS data with changes in fitness and fatigue, coaches and athletes can gain valuable insights into training adaptations, monitor progress, and strategically plan training peaks for key events or competitions.

4. Informed decision-making:
With TSS predictions, coaches and athletes can make informed decisions about training priorities, recovery strategies, and workload distribution. Whether it’s adjusting training volume to accommodate external stressors, scheduling rest days to optimize recovery, or strategically tapering before a race, the TSS Calculator empowers users to maximize training plans for peak performance and injury prevention.

5. Personalized training optimization:
By leveraging TSS data, coaches can personalize training prescriptions to account for individual differences in fitness, recovery capacity, and training history. Tailoring workouts based on predicted TSS allows coaches to optimize training adaptations, minimize the risk of overtraining or undertraining, and maximize performance gains for each athlete’s unique physiology and goals.

Unlock your full potential with the Map My Tracks Workout Calculator:
Whether you are a seasoned coach or an aspiring athlete, our innovative tool empowers you to optimize training programs, maximize performance gains, and achieve your cycling goals with precision and confidence.

Unveiling the Map My Tracks cycling metrics toolbox

Training tools

Map My Tracks is thrilled to introduce our latest suite of tools tailored to elevate the performance and experience of cyclists worldwide. Our newly launched set of tools is meticulously designed to provide cyclists with invaluable insights into their training efforts, enabling them to optimize their performance, set ambitious goals, and conquer new horizons. Let’s delve into the remarkable benefits of each tool:

Power Zones Calculator
Achieve precision in your training by harnessing the power of our Power Zones Calculator. This tool categorizes your power output into specific intensity zones, allowing you to tailor your workouts to target different physiological adaptations. Whether you’re focusing on endurance, strength, or speed, our Power Zones Calculator ensures that every pedal stroke counts towards your progress.

Functional Threshold Power (FTP) Calculator
Unlock your true potential with our FTP Calculator, which accurately determines your Functional Threshold Power. By establishing this crucial benchmark, cyclists can gauge their fitness levels, track improvements over time, and set appropriate training intensities to maximize their performance gains. Our FTP Calculator gives you the insights needed to push your limits and achieve peak performance.

Training Stress Score (TSS) Calculator
Take the guesswork out of training intensity management with our TSS Calculator. This tool quantifies the cumulative stress of your workouts, providing a comprehensive overview of your training load. By monitoring your TSS, cyclists can strike the perfect balance between training volume and recovery, minimizing the risk of overtraining while optimizing performance gains for sustained success.

Intensity Factor (IF) Calculator
Fine-tune your training intensity with our IF Calculator, which calculates the intensity factor of your workouts relative to your FTP. By understanding the relative intensity of efforts, cyclists can tailor their training to elicit specific physiological adaptations, improving aerobic capacity, lactate threshold, or endurance. With our IF Calculator, you’ll have the insights to train smarter and achieve your goals faster.

Variability Index (VI) Calculator
Optimize your training consistency and efficiency with our VI Calculator, which evaluates the variability of your power output during workouts. By analyzing the ratio of normalized power to average power, cyclists can assess their pacing strategy, identify areas for improvement, and refine their race-day tactics. With our VI Calculator, you’ll enhance your performance by maintaining steady power output and minimizing fluctuations during rides.

Power-to-Weight (W/KG) Calculator
Gain a competitive edge by optimizing your power-to-weight ratio with our W/KG Calculator. This tool calculates the ratio of your power output to body weight, providing insights into your climbing prowess, sprinting ability, and overall performance potential. By optimizing your W/KG ratio, cyclists can tailor their training and nutrition strategies to achieve an ideal balance between power production and body mass, maximizing their efficiency on the bike.

Critical Power & Work Prime (CP & W’) Calculator
Harness the science of performance modelling with our CP & W’ Calculator. This tool quantifies your critical power and work capacity, providing essential insights into your anaerobic capabilities and endurance limits. By understanding their CP and W’, cyclists can strategically manage their efforts during races, time trials, and interval workouts, pacing themselves for sustained performance and strategic attacks.

Heart Rate Zones Calculator
Optimize your cardiovascular training with our Heart Rate Zones Calculator, which defines specific training zones based on your heart rate. By monitoring their heart rate zones, cyclists can tailor their workouts to target different energy systems, improve aerobic capacity, and enhance cardiovascular fitness. With our Heart Rate Zones Calculator, you’ll have the tools to train smarter, improve efficiency, and achieve peak performance.

Whether you’re a competitive athlete or a recreational rider, our suite of tools empowers cyclists of all levels to unlock their full potential, surpass their goals, and enjoy every moment on the bike.

Unlocking your cycling potential: Understanding performance management charts

As a cyclist, you're constantly seeking ways to improve your performance on the bike. Whether you aim to conquer a challenging climb, set a personal best on your favourite route, or enjoy the ride with increased endurance, having insight into your training progress is invaluable. The performance management chart can help with this.

performance management charts

Performance management charts visually represent your fitness, fatigue, and form over time. Understanding these metrics can empower you to optimize your training, prevent burnout, and peak for critical events. Let’s delve into each component:

Fitness (Chronic Training Load - CTL)

The Fitness component, often represented by Chronic Training Load (CTL), reflects your long-term training load and overall fitness level. CTL is calculated based on the cumulative effect of your training stress over several weeks or months. It provides insight into your aerobic endurance and ability to sustain efforts over extended periods.

How to interpret CTL:
Increasing CTL: Consistently challenging yourself with structured training will lead to a gradual increase in CTL. This indicates improved fitness and endurance.

Plateau or Decline in CTL: Stagnation or a decrease in CTL may indicate a need to reassess your training plan. It could signal overtraining, insufficient recovery, or a lack of progressive overload.

Fatigue (Acute Training Load - ATL)

Fatigue, represented by Acute Training Load (ATL), reflects your short-term training stress and immediate fatigue level. ATL provides insight into your recent training intensity and the resulting fatigue accumulation.

How to interpret ATL:
High ATL: Intense training sessions or a sudden increase in training volume can lead to a spike in ATL. While short-term increases are ordinary and necessary for adaptation, prolonged high ATL without adequate recovery can lead to burnout or injury.

Balancing ATL and Recovery: Managing ATL alongside recovery periods is crucial for optimizing performance. Strategic tapering before important events allows ATL to decrease, enabling you to enter races or critical rides with reduced fatigue and heightened readiness.

Form (Training Stress Balance - TSB)

Form, calculated as Training Stress Balance (TSB), represents the balance between your Fitness (CTL) and Fatigue (ATL). TSB indicates your readiness to perform at your best, with positive values suggesting fresher legs and enhanced performance potential, while negative values indicate accumulated fatigue.

How to interpret TSB:
Positive TSB: A positive TSB indicates a state of freshness and readiness to perform. This is often desirable leading up to critical events, as it signifies a tapering phase where fatigue decreases while fitness remains high.

Negative TSB: A negative TSB suggests accumulated fatigue, which may impair performance. However, strategically inducing a negative TSB through periods of hard training followed by adequate recovery can lead to super-compensation, where performance peaks following a rest period.

How to utilize Performance Management Charts

Set Goals: Define your cycling objectives, whether completing a century ride, improving your climbing prowess, or competing in races.

Plan Your Training: Structure your training plan to gradually increase your Fitness (CTL) while managing your Fatigue (ATL) to prevent burnout and optimize performance.

Monitor Progress: Regularly review your performance management chart to track CTL, ATL, and TSB changes. Look for trends and patterns to assess the effectiveness of your training regimen.

Adjust Accordingly: Modify your training plan based on your observations. Increase training volume or intensity to boost CTL, incorporate rest or recovery rides to manage ATL, and strategically taper before essential events to maximize TSB.

By harnessing the power of performance management charts and understanding the nuances of Fitness (CTL), Fatigue (ATL), and Form (TSB), you can unlock your cycling potential and achieve your goals with confidence. Remember, consistency, balance, and intelligent training practices are essential to sustained improvement and enjoyment on the bike.

Ready to dive into the performance management chart? Sign up to Map My Tracks.

Performance Management and Aerobic Charts

Exciting News for athletes and coaches! We’re thrilled to introduce our latest update on Map My Tracks - brand new Performance Management and Anaerobic / Aerobic Charts!

Dive deeper into your training data with our Performance Management Chart, offering insights to fine-tune your workouts and maximize performance.

Performance Management Chart

Monitor your aerobic fitness like never before with our Aerobic Charts, empowering coaches and athletes to track progress and optimize training plans.

Aerobic Charts

Whether you’re a dedicated athlete or a seasoned coach, these tools are designed to elevate your training experience and drive results.

Ready to take your performance to the next level? Check out our new features on Map My Tracks.

Exciting news: Map My Tracks app update unleashes powerful enhancements!

Fitness trends

We’re thrilled to unveil the latest update to the Map My Tracks app, bringing new features and refinements to help elevate your tracking and training experience. Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just enjoying the outdoors, these enhancements are designed to empower your every move.

Fitness trends: Chart your progress over time
Embark on a journey of self-discovery with our all-new Fitness Trends feature! Visualize your progress over time, track your improvements, and celebrate your milestones.

New features for cyclists: Left/right pedal power data
Get ready to take your cycling performance to the next level! The updated Map My Tracks app now provides Left/Right Pedal Power data, offering insights into your pedal stroke balance. Track and analyze your power distribution to better understand your cycling dynamics.

Heart rate and power zone averages
Monitoring your heart rate and power zones is now easier than ever. With the new update, you can view averages for both metrics, allowing you to gauge your effort levels and optimize your training for peak performance.

Customizable dashboard
We understand that everyone has unique preferences. That’s why we’re introducing customizable dashboards, allowing you to choose what data you want to see during your activities. Tailor your dashboard to focus on the metrics that matter most to you.

Refinements and improvements
We’ve been refining the Map My Tracks app hard to ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience. From performance enhancements to bug fixes, this update is packed with improvements to make your tracking and training journey smoother.

How to get the update
Head to the App Store or Google Play Store to download the latest version of Map My Tracks. If you already have the app installed, update it to enjoy these exciting new features.

Thank you for being a part of the Map My Tracks community! Your feedback has been invaluable in shaping these enhancements, and we can’t hear what you think.

A guide to exporting .FIT Files from Zwift to upload to Map My Tracks

image In the world of indoor cycling, Zwift has become synonymous with immersive training experiences and virtual rides.

As you pedal through virtual landscapes, track your progress, and compete with others, you might find yourself wanting to analyze your performance in more detail on Map My Tracks. One way to do this is by exporting your Zwift workout data in .FIT file format then upload it to Map My Tracks.

As Zwift does not support direct uploading to Map My Tracks we’ll walk you through the process of exporting .FIT files from Zwift to seamlessly upload and analyze your data on Map My Tracks.

When using Zwift app on PC or Mac

Step 1: Open the file upload page on Map My Tracks. Click on Choose file and in the file browser go to Documents > Zwift > Activities and attach the .fit file for the ride.

When using Zwift app on smartphones or tablets

Step 1 . Start Zwift and on the title screen, tap the Zwift logo three times to bring up the file browser.

Step 2. Select the .fit file(s) you would like to upload to Map My Tracks and select OK.

Step 3. Email the .fit files to your personalised Map My Tracks dropbox email address.  Files emailed into your MMT mailbox will be automatically imported to your profile for detailed analysis.

From the Zwift website

Alternatively, a .fit file can be downloaded from the activity feed on the Zwift website. Open the activity then click on the cog icon. From there you can download .fit file to upload on Map My Tracks.

Exciting updates to Map My Tracks activity pages

We're thrilled to share some major updates to our activity pages that will elevate your data analysis experience to a whole new level!

We’ve been hard at work to bring you features that enhance the way you analyze and understand your performance data on Map My Tracks. Let’s dive into the improvements.

1. Detailed Performance Charts: Now, get an even more comprehensive view of your activity with detailed performance charts. Monitor your progress, track changes, and identify patterns over time. Whether you’re a casual rider or a seasoned athlete, these charts will provide invaluable insights into your performance metrics.
Detailed Performance Charts

2. Left/Right Power Balance:Precision matters, especially when it comes to power analysis. With the addition of left/right power balance, you can now fine-tune your training by understanding how power is distributed between your left and right legs. This feature empowers you to optimize your technique and maximize efficiency.

3. Left/Right Power Smoothness and Torque: Dive deeper into the intricacies of your power metrics. The inclusion of left/right power smoothness and torque allows you to assess the fluidity of your pedal strokes and the force applied throughout your ride. Identify areas for improvement and refine your cycling mechanics for a smoother, more efficient performance.
Left/Right Power Balance

4. Distribution Charts for Power, Heart Rate, and Cadence: Visualize your efforts like never before with distribution charts for power, heart rate, and cadence. Understand the intensity and distribution of your efforts during different segments of your activity. This feature offers a dynamic way to analyze your performance data, enabling you to make informed decisions about your training strategy.

We believe these updates provide a richer, more insightful experience on Map My Tracks. Whether you’re aiming for personal bests, training for an event, or simply enjoying the ride, these enhancements are designed to support your training and goals.

Thank you for being a part of the Map My Tracks community. We’re committed to continually improving your experience, and we can’t wait to see how these updates enhance your tracking and training sessions.

Important notice: Map My Tracks Plus subscription price change effective December 1, 2023

We are reaching out to inform you of an upcoming adjustment to the Map My Tracks Plus subscription pricing, which will take effect on December 1, 2023.

Over the past three years, we have proudly offered Map My Tracks Plus at a consistent price, providing our users with an affordable and feature-rich experience. During this time, we have continuously worked to improve our platform, introducing new features and ensuring the highest level of service.

However, as our community has grown, so have our operational costs. These costs include server maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, and ongoing development to keep Map My Tracks at the forefront of tracking technology. Despite our best efforts to absorb these increased costs, we need to adjust our subscription pricing to ensure our service’s sustainability and continued enhancement.

Beginning December 1, 2023, the new pricing for Map My Tracks Plus will be:

Monthly subscription: $4.99, €4.49, £3.99
Annual subscription: $49.99, €44.99, £39.99

We understand that any price change can be an adjustment, and we want to emphasize that we have withheld increasing the subscription for as long as possible. Even with this adjustment, Map My Tracks Plus remains competitively priced within the industry, and we continue to be committed to delivering exceptional value to our users.

You do not need to do anything if you wish to continue your Map My Tracks subscription. It will automatically update to the new subscription at the end of your current billing period. 

We value your understanding and thank you for being an integral part of the Map My Tracks community. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this pricing adjustment, please get in touch with our support team at support@mapmytracks.com.

Thank you for your ongoing support and trust as we strive to provide the best tracking and mapping experience.

Share your workouts with a coach

We've been adding a range of new features of late and the latest is one to make is super easy for coaches to be able to review an athlete's workouts.

We know that coaches have a lot of data to analyse from their athletes, and sometimes not enough time,  which is why we have created a ‘My athletes’ dashboard. Once athletes have granted a coach access to their activity the coach can open the athlete’s training room.

Within the training room coaches are able to analyse in detail recent workouts, trends, calendar and peak performances and more.

To get started the athlete/coach set up process is:
1. The coach must first follow the athlete on Map My Tracks.
2. The athlete then grants the coach access by making them a ‘Close friend/coach’ in Settings > Access.

Once that is done the coach will see their athletes in Explore > My athletes and have access to their training rooms.

Coaches do not need a Plus account but the athlete will need an active Plus account to allow access to the Training Room.

We have more coach/athlete features in the pipeline so watch this space. For now, enjoy the new tools.

Dashboard

Trends

Peak performances

Introducing Map My Tracks Close Friends

Share your adventures with your nearest and dearest.

Outdoor adventures bring people together, and here at Map My Tracks, sharing those experiences with your loved ones should be seamless and enjoyable. That’s why we are thrilled to introduce our latest feature: Close Friends. With Close Friends, you can now effortlessly share your outdoor adventures privately with a select group of individuals, ensuring that those nearest and dearest can join in on the excitement and stay connected with your outdoor activities like never before.

How it works: Map My Tracks’ Close Friends feature revolutionizes how you share your outdoor adventures with your inner circle. Let’s take a closer look at how it works:

Creating your Close Friends list:  To begin, you can curate a personalized list of Close Friends within the Map My Tracks website. Go to the Settings page, then select the Close Friends tab. From there, you can add friends, family members, or anyone you want to share your adventures with. You have complete control over who can access your activities, ensuring that only the most trusted individuals can view your private activities.

Sharing activities in real-time: Once your Close Friends list is established, you can share your private activities. As you embark on an adventure, Map My Tracks allows you to seamlessly update your progress, including your location, distance travelled, and photos.

Privacy and security: Map My Tracks prioritizes your privacy and ensures the utmost security for your Close Friends feature. You have complete control over who can access your private activities; only those designated explicitly on your Close Friends list can view your private activities. Map My Tracks’ robust security measures safeguard your data, providing a worry-free experience.

Map My Tracks’ Close Friends feature is a game-changer for those that want to share their experiences privately with their loved ones. Whether hiking, cycling, running, or any other outdoor pursuit, you can now effortlessly keep your Close Friends updated on your progress privately and engage them through every twist and turn.

So go and invite your closest companions to join you on your next adventure through Map My Tracks’ Close Friends feature.

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