The daily approach to training in 2024 is very different to the approach to training in 2004, technology has brought about a big change in how we monitor training. With thousands of apps and websites to track performance and even provide training plans, it is easier than ever for athletes to understand and track their training.
Here are 5 apps that are a useful addition to an endurance athlete's toolkit:
(If you are an experienced endurance athlete, chances are you have used all of these apps already, however, if you are new to cycling or running, the following apps are a great addition to your training.)
TrainingPeaks
An excellent app for tracking all performance metrics and syncing your training to your device for training sessions on the bike, running or in the water. If you have a coach, it allows for pre and post session comments from the coach linked to your account. If you are self coached, you can plan and create your own sessions and create a workout library with hundreds of sessions.
Planning: Provides a comprehensive platform for planning, tracking, and analysing workouts.
Integration: Integrates with numerous devices (Garmin, Polar, Wahoo) to import workout data. Allows for syncing of data such as sleep quality, weight, MyFitnessPal data and more
Detailed Metrics: Offers detailed metrics such as TSS (Training Stress Score), IF (Intensity Factor), and heart rate/power zones.
Elite HRV
Focuses on heart rate variability (HRV) to help athletes monitor and optimise their training and recovery. It's particularly beneficial for those more advanced athletes looking to fine-tune their performance and avoid overtraining.
HRV Analysis: Provides detailed HRV measurements to assess your autonomic nervous system's balance, indicating how well your body is handling stress and recovery.
Readiness Score: A daily score based on HRV and other biometrics, helping you decide whether to push hard or focus on recovery.
Biofeedback and Guided Breathing: Offers guided breathing exercises to improve HRV and stress management.
Integrations: Works with various heart rate monitors and fitness trackers like Polar, Garmin, and WHOOP. It also syncs to TrainingPeaks to allow your coach to see key metrics.
Team Dashboard: Coaches can monitor HRV and other metrics for multiple athletes, making it ideal for team sports or group training environments.
Hexis
Some hate tracking nutrition and some love it, however, if you are aiming to improve your understanding of your daily nutrition and how this relates to your performance, then Hexis is an app that can fast track that process. I've used this app previously when training and competing and while I understand how to periodise nutrition around training and competition, it's a planning process that takes up time. When you're busy, having an app like Hexis do this accurately for you is a great help.
Hexis uses a carb coding system which determines if a meal should be low, medium or high carbohydrate and provides a personalised and periodised approach to training. It also takes in to account your training volume and intensity among other factors such as the type of sport and your body composition goals.
Bluetooth Mass Tracker
Again, some people have a negative view of tracking their mass, however, when you are an athlete this is important. Often, people will use the excuse of not tracking their mass because it 'isn't always accurate', however the real reason is because they don't like seeing the scales going up. It is important to track your mass, particularly if you are an elite athlete.
Tracking your mass is important in order to understand hydration levels pre and post training and important if you are aiming to reach a goal race mass and need to monitor this on a daily basis. A bluetooth app that connects to your scales is an excellent tool because over time it allows you to see your progress. It allows you to look back over previous months and years to understand your previous mass at certain periods of the season.
I use the 'Conair Scales' app that connects to a scales I bought 3 years ago, it has all previous mass data and allows me to understand my mass in the off-season and in-season plus providing day to day data. There are lots of various scales and apps out there that do this. It's not a performance game changer, however it is useful information to have particularly if you are looking to reach a certain goal mass or ensure you are not dehydrated post training.
Strava
This one is just for the craic, while training can be serious, it can also be fun chasing the odd KOM and Strava provides that. Even the best athletes in the world use Strava on a daily basis, riders such as Tadej Pogacar. While we would use TrainingPeaks for more in-depth analysis of training, Strava is good for seeing how your time ranks up a famous climb when training abroad or for groups rides that you do with your club. It is also great for finding new training routes locally or for when you travel to train abroad and are unsure of the local roads.
Some people get carried away with Strava, but if you use it as a secondary tool to track your training it adds a nice social element to training in a world where we often train solo as endurance athletes.
I hope at least one of these apps might be useful for your journey in endurance sport in some way.
Thanks for reading,
G
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