Day 4: Short Forms & Terminology

This glossary of short terms that are used in Consummate Athlete Coaching and Training Plans.

*Try Using Control-F / Command-F to search for a term you are interested in

**Note that in workouts there are often names in brackets that are not important to know and are just how Peter references a given set/workout.  

• WO – Workout, as in Main Workout (or main set). This is the focused part of your workout.
• WU – Warm Up – This may be prescribed or expected that you will warm up sufficiently to do the main workout (Main WO). For a normal warmup, 20-30 min easy, building your pace over duration and 3-4 sprints or hard efforts ranging from 10-45 sec is most common and effective
• BW – Between (as in recovery 5 min BW the intervals)
• Cadence – Also known as RPM (rotation per minute) how quickly your pedals are going around. If you do not have a cadence meter, count 1 RPM every time one of your feet hit the bottom. If you do a low RPM hill interval where the cadence is supposed to be 60 RPM, you can count 1 right foot revolution for every second on a timer. Counting for 10 second periods periodically can help illuminate your rough average cadence. 85-95 rpm is typically the goal range for endurance road riding.
• MHR – Max heart rate. This is taken from your training and racing data typically. Do not use 220-age but rather use a collection of training files. If you do not have a max heart rate yet we can discuss how to gather data and/or how to use RPE (feeling) 
• RPE and Session RPE (sRPE) – Feeling or Rate of Perceived Exertion – During a workout you might have easy moments like downhills or recoveries between intervals where you would say you were working at 2/10 RPE but you also might have moments where you sprint maximally and say that was a 10/10 effort (this diagram can be helpful). After that workout, you can describe the SESSION RPE (sRPE) in your training peaks comments using a scale of 1-10 and also a smiley/sad face for how you felt.  Read more about session RPE and smiley Faces
• Zones or Ranges – You will always have guidance on what intensity to ride. If in doubt ride 65-75% max heart rate (MHR) for endurance ranges and aim to complete an intensity set at the best pace for the day. You do not need to program zones or remember zones. Setting up your device to display %MHR and using lap functions is important (read more!)
• MTB or MB– Mountain Bike
• TT – Time Trial (best avg effort for distance/time) and as in TT Bike (time trial bike)
• Max – the best pace you can FINISH set/race/workout (always assume equal lap times unless says otherwise). So 5 minutes max doesn’t mean sprint for 10 seconds and that fades to a crawl but rather your best effort for that day held steady for the duration. Sometimes listed as ‘Max Sustainable’. 
• HR – Heart rate as in %MHR (Max Heart Rate0 
• MaF – Maximum Aerobic Fitness test developed by Phil Maffetone. A 30 min test done typically at 180-age, a submaximal test that gives us a workload we can track overtime at a set Heart Rate. An easy way to track improvements in fitness. Not to be confused with MAP (see below). I often use under 75%MHR as the aerobic test rather than this formula.
• Vo2/MAP – basically intervals 2.5-7min long. Usually 15-21 minutes of total work for the session (e.g. 5 x 3min is a classic Vo2 Workout). These are very hard efforts requiring full focus. Careful not to confuse with MAF aerobic work (see above), which are endurance rides.
• FTP – Your best power average for 30-60min, defined as “the highest power a rider can maintain in a quasi-steady state without fatiguing.” This is often estimated from a 20-minute effort (Cp20) and also from training and race data. Do not obsess on FTP the key is training consistently (read more ‘WTF IS FTP“)
• CP – Critical power of a duration – for example CP3 is your best average power for 3 minutes and cp60 is the best power for 60 minutes. CP20 is a popular duration/effort/test to gauge fitness and estimate FTP using ~90% of the result of the CP20. 
• Critical Power (CP) – Note this term is used in a second way (or first way depending on your allegiances!) as an alternative to FTP preferred by many, if not most physiologists. It is  to suggest the duration where the intensity will level out after a certain duration of maximal work. It is the output you will trend towards when riding at a high intensity. It is often a little less than FTP (but should not be used interchangeably) . This is a great post on CP and W’.
• W’ – Watt Prime is the area above the Critical Power that is the amount of work that can be done over CP