Heart Rate Training

For those short of time (I know I am terribly long winded): two questions: 1. anyone here use heartrate as a major training aid or guide? 2. how do you monitor it if you do. 2a. if you use an electronic monitor, which one do you like? The reason I ask this is because I am attempting to go scientific on my training. Since I have started with "race pace" training, where nearly 25 to 30 % of my training time is dedicated to swimming fast, I have become progressively more interested/ concerned about how hard I am actually pushing myself. Several things could be said concerning this topic. I'll try to limit myself to few thoughts. Feel free to ask questions about any of these thoughts. HR Based Training The best way to quantify training using HR is through the TRIMP concept. It allows for quantifying a set, a workout and a full season. Limitations Clearly, HR Based Training is generally perfectly suitable for monitoring longer endurance based efforts. However, it's very inefficient at monitoring shorter intense work. Monitoring or tracking or quantifying the effort requires that the measurement be suitable enough for recognizing the effort. If you swim a fast 50m interval, well you probably left a significant amount of sugar behind but your heart rate doesn't go high enough to recognize the effort. Cardiac Drift One limitation of HR Based training in regard to longer endurance efforts is that we now know that during prolonged endurance effort, the HR goes up and up even if the power generated remains the same. That's not good. Power based training There's an other approach for quantifying swim training/racing. It involves translating swim velocity into power numbers. These numbers can then be used in some algorithms to achieve pretty much the same results as if you were using TRIMP Skiba Swim Score www.physfarm.com/swimscore.pdf This document explains how to turn velocity into power, and then compute these numbers to model performance. I am desperately trying to make an Excel Spreadsheet to use this concept, but I am not good enough at maths. So if anyone is interested in swimming "by power", I'd appreciate a hand. The Race Day I must mention Skiba's software, Race Day, which computes all this and allows for generating graphs and stuff. With such a software, I truly believe that HR Based Training becomes a bit irrelevant. You can download a demo and see for yourself. It's quite easy to figure the first steps out. You have an interface to input interval based sets etc, and you get a "score" for each workout. These scores get computed in a certain way, pretty much the same way as TRIMP get computed, for performance modeling. I gave such a model a serious try last year. I could log cross-training, cycling and swim data into an application (wko). I could then follow the evolution of my fitness level. It is a great tool for assistance in how to taper.

My male triathletes that wanted to wear a polar strap would simply add shoulder straps to it. That was enough to hold it in place.

HR Based Training The best way to quantify training using HR is through the TRIMP concept. ... Skiba Swim Score www.physfarm.com/swimscore.pdf This document explains how to turn velocity into power, and then compute these numbers to model performance. I am desperately trying to make an Excel Spreadsheet to use this concept, but I am not good enough at maths. So if anyone is interested in swimming "by power", I'd appreciate a hand. ... I gave such a model a serious try last year. I could log cross-training, cycling and swim data into an application (wko). I could then follow the evolution of my fitness level. It is a great tool for assistance in how to taper. I also use TRIMPs to track training loads, but have a hard time getting proper HR data for the swim, so I just use yards. The swimscore link looks very interesting. I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'll play around with Skiba's swim score metric, and will report back, possibly in a new thread.

This has been posted somewhere before: www.finisinc.com/.../aquapulse_technology.aspx

I don't have a heart rate monitor, but have been thinking of getting one that can download a workout's heart rate history, mostly because I just love playing with data. I do check my heart rate during workouts and use certain workout elements as a combination heart rate proxy and gauge of swimming progress. One example is a set of 3 x 100 (or 4 x 100 now as I am getting in better shape) on 1:30, trying to see how fast I can hold them. I'm in my early fifties, so you can make this 1:20 if you're young. My experience with this shows me that it takes my HR to maximum when I'm at or near my best average time for the set. Then I track how these best average times for the set decrease over the long haul. In addition, I use other proxies for HR (different set distances, combined with different intervals), so I end up tracking how many yards I do at what kind of pace. Averaged over a 4-week period I graph the following ratio: the numerator is the number of yards done at a given pace per 100 (in a 2-second range) and the denominator is the number of yards done at the next lower 2-second range (e.g. number of 1:08 & 1:09 yards divided by the number of 1:06 & 1:07 yards, all in a four-week period to damp out fluctuations). Periodic checking confirms an approximate heart rate for the lower ranges, so it's not a bad proxy there (upper ranges depend on how many yards I do continuously at that pace range - so it's less useful there). When I'm training well and seeing my biggest improvements, I find that these ratios are about the same for the lowest three or four contiguous ranges. So it's sort of a proxy for HR training, is easier to track on a spreadsheet, and is more closely related to my ultimate goal -- swimming faster! One comment on this: Skiba Swim Score www.physfarm.com/swimscore.pdf This document explains how to turn velocity into power, and then compute these numbers to model performance. I took a look at it. It looks interesting, but I have one issue with it. You calculate efforts that include rest times. This seems fundamentally wrong to me. I know from doing race pace work that there is a big difference between sets done at 90 to 95% for a particular short distance (say 100yd), but that have the same average time as 75% sets when rest intervals are included. This may work if you are training for distance events, but I would have big reservations for anything from middle distance on down.

I use a Polar HR monitor and believe in HR training. Here are a few previous posts on the topic: Max Heart Rate & Recovery Training - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums chest straps - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums Steve: How did you do in the St. Nick's meet? I think we may have raced in a few of the BR events? Yes, most have plenty of memory. In addition to displaying your heart rate on the watch, they'll record hours' worth of data and let you save it and/or analyze it on your computer.

I took a look at it. It looks interesting, but I have one issue with it. You calculate efforts that include rest times. This seems fundamentally wrong to me. I know from doing race pace work that there is a big difference between sets done at 90 to 95% for a particular short distance (say 100yd), but that have the same average time as 75% sets when rest intervals are included. This may work if you are training for distance events, but I would have big reservations for anything from middle distance on down. Your set done at 90-95% will get a higher score even though its avg power including the rest equals that done at 75%. The reason for this is that higher power levels have more weight in the algorithm used to calculate the normalized power. Skiba calls this variable xPower, probably due to some copyrights restrictions, but it does the same thing. The normalized power is a concept that was first introduced in 2003 by Dr.Andrew Coggan. It's been tested in the cycling world ever since, including by trackies (who's event durations are somehow similar to swimmers'). The purpose of normalized power algorithm is to recognize the impact efforts have physiologically speaking. The more intense the effort is, the more weight it's getting. To account for this variability, TrainingPeaks uses a special algorithm to calculate an adjusted or normalized power for each ride or segment of a ride (longer than 30 seconds) that you analyze. This algorithm is somewhat complicated, but importantly it incorporates two key pieces of information: 1) the physiological responses to rapid changes in exercise intensity are not instantaneous, but follow a predictable time course, and 2) many critical physiological responses (e.g., glycogen utilization, lactate production, stress hormone levels) are curvilinearly, rather than linearly, related to exercise intensity, By taking these factors into account, normalized power provides a better measure of the true physiological demands of a given training session - in essence, it is an estimate of the power that you could have maintained for the same physiological "cost" if your power output had been perfectly constant (e.g., as on a stationary cycle ergometer), rather than variable. (A.Coggan) home.trainingpeaks.com/power411.aspx I also use TRIMPs to track training loads, but have a hard time getting proper HR data for the swim, so I just use yards. In other words, you're pluggin what? Yards instead of HR? I don't understand. Anyhow. Race Day (Skiba's software) can calculate its model based on TRIMP. It's a feature which I find handy. I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'll play around with Skiba's swim score metric, and will report back, possibly in a new thread. Well, I wouldn't call it a hijack. Power based training is like a virus that spreads rapidly among cycling/running communities. It's just a matter of time before swimming ultimately dive into it.

Your set done at 90-95% will get a higher score even though its avg power including the rest equals that done at 75%. The reason for this is that higher power levels have more weight in the algorithm used to calculate the normalized power. Skiba calls this variable xPower, probably due to some copyrights restrictions, but it does the same thing. The normalized power is a concept that was first introduced in 2003 by Dr.Andrew Coggan. It's been tested in the cycling world ever since, including by trackies (who's event durations are somehow similar to swimmers'). The purpose of normalized power algorithm is to recognize the impact efforts have physiologically speaking. The more intense the effort is, the more weight it's getting. Hmmm... That didn't jump out at me when I read through the link. I must have missed the weighting part. I'm starting up a new training spreadsheet, and may give this a try, and see how it stacks up against the other performance indicators I track.

Hmmm... That didn't jump out at me when I read through the link. I must have missed the weighting part. I'm starting up a new training spreadsheet, and may give this a try, and see how it stacks up against the other performance indicators I track. good luck. Yesterday a pal of mine tried to use these algorithms to create a spreadsheet. His comment was that it's not possible given the explanations given by the author. More specifically, I wrote an email to ask the author how to compute EP.

In other words, you're pluggin what? Yards instead of HR? I don't understand. From wearing the HR monitor a few times, I know that a typical swim with Coach X will net 1.0 TRIMP per 25 yards, an open water swim will be 0.9 TRIMP per 25 yards. Etc. So then I just use yards, and the scaling factor, and can skip the HR monitor.