Strava Fitness (premium)

Alek

Can the fitness value calculated by Strava be compared with other cyclists?

http://app.strava.com/athlete/fitness

When I started using the HR monitor for every excercise, after a month or two the fitness settled at about 38-39. Then I stopped bothering.

After a few months started to wear it again, and same pattern - slowly raising (I guess gathering data) to reach the <40 plateau.

I ride approx 150-190km a week, no structured training but try to keep my avg. HR between 135-155, with ~183 max.

quozl

I don't believe you can usefully compare it to others. I believe it's an attempt at a HR based equivalent of CTL (http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/what-is-the-performance-management-chart) which is usually based on power.

They'll tell you how hard you're working within the bounds of your own current fitness/ability. So you could get a CTL of 50 by averaging the same amount of time in the same training zones as another athlete who also has a CTL of 50. However that other athlete could be averaging 50% faster than you because his/her max power is so much higher than yours and would horribly crush you in a race

Alek

Oh, so it is percentage of some theoretical maximum fitness of mine. Fair enouugh, this answers the question - thanks

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/a...agement-chart

tl;dr