Understanding Your Training: Beyond the Basics
You finish a grueling ride, catch your breath, and check your app. But what do those numbers really mean? Is this workout moving you closer to your goals, or are you just spinning your wheels? For years, cyclists have relied on metrics like Training Stress Score (TSS) or basic power averages to answer these questions. But fitness isn’t one-dimensional, and neither should your training insights be.
Wahoo’s new Cycling Fitness Metrics change how you see your training. Instead of reducing your performance to one number, these tools measure what actually matters: how your body is responding across multiple dimensions, how your fitness is building over time, and when you’re ready to push versus when you need to recover. It’s the difference between knowing you worked hard and knowing exactly how that work is shaping you as an athlete.
Your Starting Point: The Athlete Profile
Before diving into any metric, you need a baseline. Your Wahoo Athlete Profile is that foundation: a snapshot of your strengths across four key power dimensions (4DP), measured through our Athlete Profile Quiz in Wahoo App or through taking the Full Frontal or Half Monty fitness assessment on Wahoo SYSTM. Instead of one number that tries to define you, you get a true picture of what you’re capable of. You understand your Sprint power, your Attack capacity, your Breakaway ability, and your Endure threshold. This personalized profile becomes the lens through which all your other metrics are viewed.
Dimensional Training Load: The Why Behind Every Ride
Once you know your abilities, the next question is obvious: how is each workout challenging your body? This is where Dimensional Training Load (DTL) comes in. DTL takes your Athlete Profile, combines it with your ride’s power and cadence data, and breaks down exactly what you trained. But here’s what makes it different from other stress scores: it doesn’t just tell you how much work you did. It tells you which dimensions of your fitness you stressed.
That hard sprint finish? DTL captures it as Sprint load. A long low intensity ride at steady power? That’s your Neuromuscular load. A punchy attack in the middle of a group ride? Attack load. By showing your training impact across all four dimensions, DTL reveals not just intensity, but training intent. You can see at a glance whether today’s ride built the fitness you’re actually targeting.
Unlike Training Stress Score, which is based only on FTP and duration, DTL factors in your full Athlete Profile and cadence. The calculations are fundamentally different because they’re trying to answer different questions. A high-cadence effort versus a low-cadence grind, at the same power, place strain on different systems. DTL captures that nuance, giving you effort-specific insights that single-metric systems simply can’t match.
Cycling Trends: Your Training in Context
A single activity only tells part of the story. One hard session doesn’t make a cyclist, and one easy day doesn’t erase weeks of training. Cycling Trends pulls all your sessions together to show how your training is stacking up over time. It highlights whether you’re building the balanced fitness you need to reach your goals or if you’re focusing too much on one type of effort while neglecting another.
Think of it as your training portfolio. Are you a sprinter who’s only doing sprint intervals and ignoring endurance? Cycling Trends will show that imbalance. Are you an endurance athlete who never touches a hard effort? The trends make that visible too. By seeing your training across multiple dimensions over weeks, months and years, you can adjust your plan with confidence. You’re not just reacting to today’s workout; you’re strategically building the complete cyclist you want to become.
Training Capacity: Know When to Push
Training Capacity answers one of the most important questions in athletics: How ready am I to perform hard today? This metric measures your current accumulated fatigue and estimates how much productive training your body can handle right now. A high number means you’re fresh and ready to push hard. A low number means fatigue is still in play, and recovery is the smarter choice.
Here’s why this matters: sometimes you’ll deliberately train with low capacity, grinding out a hard effort when your body is tired to build fitness and mental resilience. But knowing where you stand helps you make informed decisions instead of guessing. You avoid the trap of overtraining without realizing it. You also identify ideal times to push harder, when your capacity is high and your body is primed to absorb a challenging workout. Training Capacity turns fatigue from something mysterious into something measurable.
Fitness Score: Your Daily Snapshot
All of these insights roll up into your Fitness Score: a simple daily check-in that reflects your true long-term progress. Unlike systems that penalize you for taking a rest day (essentially punishing recovery), Fitness Score respects the role that recovery plays in becoming a better athlete. It also doesn’t reward a massive training day, giving the illusion of more = better. It blends your workload, recovery patterns, and trends into one number that shows where your fitness is heading and how close you are to being at your best.
Your Fitness Score doesn’t drop just because you took a day off. Instead, it reflects reality: that smart recovery is part of smart training. You can watch this score trend upward as your training accumulates, dip slightly when you push hard, and climb again as you recover. It’s a true reflection of your fitness journey, not a punishment for prudence.
How They Work Together
Think of these metrics as a complete system rather than isolated tools.
- Your Athlete Profile is your current cycling abilities: your baseline.
- DTL shows each activity’s 4DP training focus and difficulty: your daily feedback.
- Cycling Trends reveal how those rides add up over time: your bigger picture.
- Training Capacity tells you how ready you are to perform at your best: your readiness gauge.
- And Fitness Score ties it all together: your progress report.
Together, they answer the questions that matter: What are my strengths? What did today’s ride actually train? How is my overall training stacking up? Am I ready to push or should I recover? How is my fitness actually progressing? No guessing. No oversimplification. Just clarity.
Why This Matters for Your Training
Training isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about knowing when, how, and why to push. Wahoo’s Fitness Cycling Metrics give you that insight. By tracking performance across four dimensions, factoring in how power is actually produced, and respecting recovery, these tools provide a smarter, more personalized way to train.
Whether you’re chasing a podium, prepping for a big ride, or simply aiming to stay consistent, these metrics help you make better decisions every day to plan with intent and train with purpose.
Getting Started
The New Fitness Metrics are available in the Wahoo App and Wahoo SYSTM, with advanced insights for premium subscribers. To unlock personalized insights, start by completing your Athlete Profile. This baseline helps tailor your Fitness Metrics (like DTL and Fitness Score) to your unique physiology, so every ride reflects your real performance.
Becoming a better athlete isn’t just about doing more. It’s about doing what matters, when it matters.
