TSS /IF : what's the point?

Hey guys,
Could someone explain the benefit of TSS®/IF® ?
I understand the TSS, the IF but not the relationship between the two. Probably my bad side in math :slight_smile:

TSS is actually “derived” from IF :slight_smile:

From here,

TSS = (sec x NP x IF)/(FTP x 3600) x 100

where

IF = NP / FTP

and where NP is a “complex” math around power, you can simply think about it as “adjusted average power”.

TL;DR:
IF is meant to tell you how hard you’ve been riding (the closer you get to 1, the closer you are to having ridden at your FTP); 0.7 should fee “easy”, while you won’t probably last 40 minutes at 1.1 :slight_smile:

TSS is meant to tell you how much “stress” you’ve accrued throughout the workout duration (riding at 0.5 IF for 30 hours is going to be quite a bit of stress, but you might get the same amount of stress in a shorter amount of time, riding at a higher IF).

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Thanks A LOT for taking time to explain.

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@Frederic_BATTIE You might find it easier to see the relationships like this:
TSS per hour = 100 x IF squared.

This is the same formula that @Giacomo_Rizzo used.

So, if IF = 0.7, then IF squared is ~ 0.5, so 50 TSS per hour.
IF = 0.8 means 64 TSS per hour
IF = 0.9 means 81 TSS per hour
IF = 1 means 100 TSS per hour.

One additional note.

When TSS is a high priority key metric in one’s training ecosystem, I suggest that the intensity metric to use should be precisely TSS/hour because it gives a linear relationship to other TSS based variables like total TSS, CTL and ATL.

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Thanks a lots for your tought guys. You’re Awesome

IF= % of your FTP

Intensity Factor = Normalised Power / Threshold Power

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