TrainingPeaks allows athletes and coaches to log and track numerous data points for every workout. But, as a coach, one of the most important data points I like to receive is your subjective feedback on how you felt during a workout.
To solicit your subjective rating for workouts, I often provide a 5-point letter grade scale in the workout description. Just like a grade for an assignment, I want you to give your workouts a letter grade to characterize your fatigue level and how you felt.
In your post-workout comments, you can indicate how you felt using the scale below:
A = Felt amazing; superhuman
B = Felt fairly good; decent workout
C = Felt a bit flat or off (e.g., heavy legs)
D = Had to stop early; didn’t have it today
F = Could not train due to illness or fatigue
Recently, TrainingPeaks has created its own version of this scale. Instead of using letter grades, the TrainingPeaks interface now lets you click one of five face icons in response to the question, “How did you feel?” (see image below).
If you use this feature—in lieu of or in addition to the 5-point letter grade scale—simply equate the faces from left (strong) to right (weak) with the 5-point letter grade scale explained above (A – B – C – D – F).
The TrainingPeaks interface also asks you to rate your perceived exertion on a scale of 1 (very easy) to 10 (all out). The Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is how hard your effort felt during the workout. This is another way of getting at how you felt during the workout (see the image below).
To keep things simple, you can ignore this second “Perceived Exertion” scale and just use the “How did you feel?” rating—or, simply note your letter grade for the workout in your post-workout comments along with any other comments you would like to provide.
Below are a few examples of how you might use the letter grade system along with some post-workout comments.
Post-activity Comments
B+
Felt fairly good, but left knee sore for first few miles of run. Better after warming up.Post-activity Comments
C
Legs dead. Had to take a 20-min nap yesterday afternoon, but still feeling tired today.Post-activity Comments
A
Slept well last night and slept late this morning. Beautiful day. Rest day yesterday energized me. Easily hit target pace during workout; had to hold myself back from going too fast.Post-activity Comments
D
Think I’m coming down with something. Cut workout short to get some rest.Post-activity Comments
B
Felt solid.
Logging subjective feedback in TrainingPeaks after workouts provides both coach and athlete valuable insight into how training is going. Doing this consistently attaches a valuable subjective perspective to all the objective data that can be tracked through the TrainingPeaks app.
Train smart!
