Measuring Improvement with CoachCat

There are a number of ways to train, but how do you know what works? How do you know if you are getting better? In CoachCat, there are seven ways to measure your improvement.

#1 Track Consistency

Make as many days on your training calendar turn green as possible.

Consistency is our top element of training philosophy, as encapsulated in our Five Fundamentals for Faster. 

Just training consistently, week in and week out, is the best way to improve. Yes, sometimes things happen and life demands flexibility. Even then, getting some time on the bike is better than none. And being able to track how consistently you have been riding at a glance is a huge way to track your improvement.

#2 Test with xPower

How do you know you are improving if you are not measuring? 

Many of our plans will have you test at the beginning to set your zones and have you test again in six weeks, to measure your improvement. Not rocket science, right?

A handy thing with Optimize is that that app can measure and track your best 20-minute xPower for all of your rides and races. This allows you to accurately measure without always having to do a standalone test!

#3 Observe Training Load

Again with the 'you have to measure to know you are improving' theme... Training Load is a handy metric inside Optimize that measures how much you been training cumulatively. A bigger load equals more training, and more training usually means improvement.

#4 Eat Right

What we call “Winning in the Kitchen”. We have several meal plans within Optimize where you can track what you are eating — as well as get delicious, healthy meals just by FTfP'ing!

#5 Track Your Sleep

The more you sleep, the better you recover. The better you recover, the more you can take your training to the next level.

Optimize tracks not only your nightly sleep but your sleep trends over time, which is the critical part.

#6 Monitor Your HRV

Heart Rate Variability is an excellent indicator of how well your body is recovering from both your training load and your life stresses. Just like with sleep, Optimize tracks the micro and macro trends in your HRV measurement. 

# 7 Watch Your Optimize Needle

There are myriad factors that go into both the training and the recovery sides of the improvement equation, and at first it can be a little intimidating to consider them all at once. This is one reason why we made CoachCat! Our proprietary algorithm takes it all into consideration and delivers a simple, easy-to-read, color-coded score. 

If you're in the red, you're doing too much and not recovering enough. If you're in the yellow, you are fresh and ready to train hard and train more. If you're in the green, you're right on target — you're improving and you are Optimized! 

No wearable? No problem!

Optimize works best when you have three tools: a power meter and bike computer to measure your training, and a wearable to measure your recovery. Optimize works with all the major power meters and bike computers and wearable devices. 

If you don't have a wearable, we got you! We are happy to provide Optimize subscribers with a FREE Whoop, which you can access in the Partners Discount section of the app.

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