Platform Updates

min

Sep 4, 2025

9/4/25

Sep 4, 2025

Dominic Valerio

Vekta Volume & Intensity: A New Standard for Training Load

Why Traditional Load Metrics Fall Short

For decades, endurance athletes have relied on outdated load metrics that don’t tell the whole story. At Vekta, we’ve built something better.

For example, imagine you and your teammate both finish the day with the exact same TSS®. You spent 4 hours in steady endurance; they rode 2.5 hours with sharp intervals.

According to TSS®, those rides were identical in training load. Physiologically, they aren’t…

The problem? Most traditional load metrics, such as Training Stress Score® (TSS®), are built on models from over 20 years ago. While groundbreaking at the time, they now oversimplify how we quantify training demands.

That gap matters. When the numbers don’t tell the full story, you risk plateauing because the true stimulus wasn’t enough, burning out because hidden stress wasn’t accounted for, or mistiming your peak because your periodisation was built on incomplete data.

Vekta’s Volume and Intensity change this. They’re two distinct, complementary metrics designed to describe a training session completely. Together, they deliver the clarity you need to train smarter, recover better, and reach peak performance at the right time.

Why It’s Time to Move Past TSS®

Most current platforms give you one score for a session. That single number blends “how much” you did with “how hard” you did it, without distinguishing between them.

Imagine these two sessions:

5 hours steady endurance
2 hours with repeated VO2max intervals

Both could produce a similar TSS®, yet their physiological demands and recovery needs are entirely different.

Recent sports science has shown why this is a problem:

Intensity isn’t linear: efforts above Critical Power (CP) cause a disproportionately higher strain.
Environment matters: altitude, heat, and even hydration status can make the same absolute power output harder to sustain.
Fatigue is cumulative: back-to-back high-intensity intervals carry more cost than the same efforts spaced apart.

Without separating Volume and Intensity, planning and periodisation remain educated guesswork.

The Vekta Solution: Two Lenses on the Same Session

At Vekta, we rethought load tracking from the ground up, combining the latest sports science with real coaching insight. Instead of one oversimplified score, we built metrics that clearly show both how much work was done and how hard it felt — the two factors that matter most for performance.

Vekta Volume

Total session demand → a macro view of how much work you’ve done.

Vekta Intensity

Effort difficulty, regardless of duration → a micro view of how hard it felt.

Think of them like distance and gradient. Distance tells you how far you’ve gone, and gradient tells you how steep it was. One without the other gives an incomplete picture.

Vekta Volume: Measuring the Total Demand

Volume is about the total demand of a session. It answers the question: how much work did I really do?

Definition: Volume represents the total energy produced during a session, adjusted for the rate of production.

Core Principles

Weight-normalised: Increases fairness across body sizes. 200W for 60kg is not the same as 200W for 80kg.
Unlimited scale: The more you do, the higher the score.

Data Needed

Power data from the session
Athlete’s body weight
Session duration

Duration required to reach a 100 Vekta Volume score

Vekta Intensity: Measuring the Difficulty

Intensity answers a different question: how hard did it feel, regardless of duration?

Definition: Intensity captures how hard a session was, regardless of how long it lasted. It’s calculated continuously throughout the ride as “local intensity” and then aggregated.

Core Principles

Above-CP weighting: Efforts above CP are disproportionately more costly, based on recent physiological models.
Athlete-specific scaling: based on CP, W′, and Pmax, so both a sprinter and a time trialist have fair scales, as do beginners and pros.
Cumulative fatigue: Repeated and prolonged intervals amplify local intensity.
Environmental adjustment: 300W at 2,000m altitude feels harder and scores higher than at sea level.
Standardized range: Always between 0 and 100 for comparability.

Examples

2h with 3 x 10 x 30/15 at VO2max → ~75 Intensity

3h with 2x20min at Threshold → ~50 Intensity

How Volume & Intensity Work Together

One number tells part of the story. Both together tell the whole story.

When you put Volume and Intensity together, the picture becomes clear: recovery rides (low + low), long endurance days (high + low), sharp interval sessions (low + high), and race-like efforts (high + high).

Volume	Intensity	Likely Session Type
Low	Low	Recovery / Coffee ride
High	Low	Long endurance
Low	High	Short high-intensity
High	High	Race conditions

Putting Volume & Intensity Into Practice

In weekly planning, track your cumulative Volume with Vekta Load, while using Intensity to make sure you’re mixing hard days with easier ones. In periodisation, lean on high-Volume weeks to build aerobic base, and high-Intensity days to sharpen for competition. And when it comes to recovery, watch out for those high-Volume + high-Intensity days. Your signal that more rest is essential.

Weekly Planning

Track cumulative Volume using Vekta Load; use Intensity to ensure variety.

Periodisation

High-Volume weeks for aerobic base. High-Intensity days for race-specific sharpening.

Recovery Management

A High-Volume + High-Intensity day signals the need for extra recovery.

Race Analysis

Identify if fatigue came from total load or extreme moments of intensity.

The Bottom Line

Training load is complex, but traditional metrics often reduce it to a single, oversimplified number. That approach hides important details. Details that matter for performance, adaptation, and recovery.

Vekta Volume and Intensity bridge that gap. By separating how much work you do from how hard it is for you, we give athletes and coaches a clearer, more granular view of each session. This allows for more informed planning, better periodisation, and smarter decisions grounded in the latest sports science.

At Vekta, our mission is to give athletes and coaches the clearest possible view of their training. Volume and Intensity are our next step in delivering that, tools built on the latest science, designed for real-world performance.

We’re not replacing existing tools. We’re enhancing them, so your data reflects the true demands of your training.

Start your free 14-day trial or Book a Demo

Why Traditional Load Metrics Fall Short

For decades, endurance athletes have relied on outdated load metrics that don’t tell the whole story. At Vekta, we’ve built something better.

For example, imagine you and your teammate both finish the day with the exact same TSS®. You spent 4 hours in steady endurance; they rode 2.5 hours with sharp intervals.

According to TSS®, those rides were identical in training load. Physiologically, they aren’t…

Why It’s Time to Move Past TSS®

Most current platforms give you one score for a session. That single number blends “how much” you did with “how hard” you did it, without distinguishing between them.

Imagine these two sessions:

5 hours steady endurance
2 hours with repeated VO2max intervals

Both could produce a similar TSS®, yet their physiological demands and recovery needs are entirely different.

Recent sports science has shown why this is a problem:

Intensity isn’t linear: efforts above Critical Power (CP) cause a disproportionately higher strain.
Environment matters: altitude, heat, and even hydration status can make the same absolute power output harder to sustain.
Fatigue is cumulative: back-to-back high-intensity intervals carry more cost than the same efforts spaced apart.

Without separating Volume and Intensity, planning and periodisation remain educated guesswork.

The Vekta Solution: Two Lenses on the Same Session

Vekta Volume

Total session demand → a macro view of how much work you’ve done.

Vekta Intensity

Effort difficulty, regardless of duration → a micro view of how hard it felt.

Think of them like distance and gradient. Distance tells you how far you’ve gone, and gradient tells you how steep it was. One without the other gives an incomplete picture.

Vekta Volume: Measuring the Total Demand

Volume is about the total demand of a session. It answers the question: how much work did I really do?

Definition: Volume represents the total energy produced during a session, adjusted for the rate of production.

Core Principles

Weight-normalised: Increases fairness across body sizes. 200W for 60kg is not the same as 200W for 80kg.
Unlimited scale: The more you do, the higher the score.

Data Needed

Power data from the session
Athlete’s body weight
Session duration

Duration required to reach a 100 Vekta Volume score

Vekta Intensity: Measuring the Difficulty

Intensity answers a different question: how hard did it feel, regardless of duration?

Definition: Intensity captures how hard a session was, regardless of how long it lasted. It’s calculated continuously throughout the ride as “local intensity” and then aggregated.

Core Principles

Above-CP weighting: Efforts above CP are disproportionately more costly, based on recent physiological models.
Athlete-specific scaling: based on CP, W′, and Pmax, so both a sprinter and a time trialist have fair scales, as do beginners and pros.
Cumulative fatigue: Repeated and prolonged intervals amplify local intensity.
Environmental adjustment: 300W at 2,000m altitude feels harder and scores higher than at sea level.
Standardized range: Always between 0 and 100 for comparability.

Examples

2h with 3 x 10 x 30/15 at VO2max → ~75 Intensity

3h with 2x20min at Threshold → ~50 Intensity

How Volume & Intensity Work Together

One number tells part of the story. Both together tell the whole story.

Volume	Intensity	Likely Session Type
Low	Low	Recovery / Coffee ride
High	Low	Long endurance
Low	High	Short high-intensity
High	High	Race conditions

Putting Volume & Intensity Into Practice

Weekly Planning

Track cumulative Volume using Vekta Load; use Intensity to ensure variety.

Periodisation

High-Volume weeks for aerobic base. High-Intensity days for race-specific sharpening.

Recovery Management

A High-Volume + High-Intensity day signals the need for extra recovery.

Race Analysis

Identify if fatigue came from total load or extreme moments of intensity.

The Bottom Line

We’re not replacing existing tools. We’re enhancing them, so your data reflects the true demands of your training.

Start your free 14-day trial or Book a Demo

Frequently asked questions

Vekta Volume and Intensity are two complementary metrics that describe a training session completely. Volume measures the total demand of a session, answering how much work was done. Intensity measures effort difficulty regardless of duration, answering how hard it felt. Together they replace the single-score model of TSS with two independent physiological drivers, giving coaches and athletes a clearer picture of training load.

Training Stress Score (TSS) blends volume and intensity into one number, hiding the physiological differences between sessions. A 4 hour endurance ride and a 2.5 hour interval session can produce the same TSS but have very different recovery demands. TSS was built on models from over 20 years ago, before modern understanding of how intensity above Critical Power creates disproportionate strain.

Vekta Volume represents the total energy produced during a session, weight-normalised for fairness across body sizes and adjusted for the rate of production. It scales without an upper limit, so the more work done, the higher the score. The duration required to reach a Vekta Volume score of 100 reflects the total demand of a session.

Vekta Intensity captures how hard a session felt, regardless of duration. It is calculated continuously throughout the ride as local intensity, then aggregated. Above-CP efforts are weighted disproportionately because they are physiologically more costly. The score scales to each athlete's CP, W Prime, and Pmax, and incorporates environmental factors like altitude and heat.

TSS combines volume and intensity into one number, which can obscure what actually happened in a session. Vekta Volume measures total work demand independently, while Vekta Intensity captures effort difficulty separately. Two sessions with the same TSS can have very different Vekta Volume and Intensity scores, accurately reflecting their different physiological costs.

Efforts above Critical Power create disproportionate physiological strain compared to sub-threshold work. Recent sports science shows intensity isn't linear: doubling the time above CP more than doubles the cost. Vekta Intensity reflects this non-linear relationship, so high-intensity sessions register correctly as harder rather than being averaged out by recovery time.

By separating volume from intensity, coaches can plan training blocks with more precision. A base phase needs high volume and low intensity. A race-prep phase needs targeted intensity without sacrificing volume. Tracking them independently shows whether the right kind of stress is being applied, rather than collapsing the picture into one number that hides the imbalance.