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Adaptive training

How to get started with adaptive training, what it is, and how it can make you train smarter and go faster.

Intro to adaptive training

Adaptive training, as we call it, is all about listening to your body, and not to your power meter.

If you’re tired from yesterday’s training, it may have an effect on today’s training. By measuring your muscle oxygen, GRASPOR helps you identify this effect and adapt to it, so you get the most out of your training, without guesswork.

Learn how to:

Measure your muscle performance live

Ride based on your daily fatigue level.

Train at your optimal intensity.

This is adaptive training

Basically, by training based on GRASPOR data you  make sure that you’re pushing yourself to the limit. Not over, or under it.

The reason is that with GRASPOR you can measure your muscle performance on the day and adapt your training accordingly. Most riders know the feeling of heavy legs as you might be tired from work or fatigued by yesterday’s training. With GRASPOR you can see whether it is just a feeling, or a fact.

Now with GRASPOR, you can adapt your training in order to avoid overstressing your body to optimize your time on the bike.

How to get started

Adaptive training begins with a performance test to identify your aerobic (AeT) and anerobic (AT) threhold and then we calculate your training zones. At GRASPOR, we work with 5 training zones.

Your training zones from the threshold test are indicated in watts. You use GRASOR data to see if your oxygen level is decreasing or increasing while you exercise. If you experience a decreasing trend in the oxygenation level while exercising, it is a sign that you are getting fatigued and you should reduce the intensity. Conversely, if your oxygenation level continues to increase while you train and the wattage remains constant, you can increase the intensity of your training.

How to get started

Adaptive training begins with a performance test to identify your aerobic (AeT) and anerobic (AT) threhold and then we calculate your training zones. At GRASPOR, we work with 5 training zones. 

Your training zones from the threshold test are indicated in watts, and you use GRASOR data to see if your oxygen level is decreasing or increasing while you exercise. If you experience a decreasing trend in the oxygenation level while exercising, it is a sign that you are getting fatigued and you should reduce the intensity. Conversely, if your oxygenation level continues to increase while you train and the wattage remains constant, you can increase the intensity of your training.

Adaptive training in practice

The new and revolutionary principles are that you should use your muscle oxygen to manage your training intensity, instead of using power. To help you understand the basics of adaptive training we have a few examples below, to illustrate how adaptive training could improve 2 workouts.

Example 1

In this example the rider set out to do 5 x 310 watts for 3 minutes, with 1 minute rest. But if you look at the average muscle oxygen over the 5 efforts, its increasing (red line). This means the rider ends up riding too easy in the end and will get too little stimulation (training) compared to the goals. This means the training will be less effective.

In this case the rider should have increased the power to make the average muscle oxygen reach around 51% each time (yellow line).

Example 2

In this example, the rider set out to do a series of 1-minute intervals at @300W, with just 1-minute rest in between.

The results tell us that he pushes his body deeper and deeper into a hole for each effort when trying to sustain the 300 watts. Just look at the red lines. His max recovery decreases (the top red line), and the efforts becomes harder (bottom red line).

Instead, he should approach the intervals like this: instead of the workout saying, “1 min on, 1 min off”, it should be “work until the muscle oxygen is at 28% (bottom yellow line) and rest until it reaches 48%” (top yellow line).

Example 2

In this example, the rider set out to do a series of 1-minute intervals at @300W, with just 1-minute rest in between.

The results tell us that he pushes his body deeper and deeper into a hole for each effort when trying to sustain the 300 watts. Just look at the red lines. His max recovery decreases (the top red line), and the efforts becomes harder (bottom red line).

Instead, he should approach the intervals like this: instead of the workout saying, “1 min on, 1 min off”, it should be “work until the muscle oxygen is at 28% (bottom yellow line) and rest until it reaches 48%” (top yellow line).

Book a GRASPOR expert

If you have any questions, or just want to learn more about performance testing or GRASPOR in general, you can book a timeslot with our product manager here: