Do you think this "base" hangs around for 20+ years though?
Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for them, my answer is a definite yes. Especially if this base was built at young age, that is while the body is still growing.
Training regiment of this sort leave a permanent footprint.
As a proponent of TRIMPs and other similar models, you surely realize this is an oversimplification.
From the point of view of building a "base" -- i.e. physiological adaptation of aerobic energy systems -- the training has a limited half-life. Decay times are typically ~45 days for the fitness side of your fitness-minus-fatigue models, so all of the (aerobic) effects of your training are gone within 6 months. My mitochondria certainly don't remember how much I swam 20 years ago.
I won't argue that college swimmers don't retain something after 20 years, but it's not "base" in a TRIMPs sense. Whether it's technique, or genetics, or some permanent physiological change induced by training in formative years doesn't really matter. They have it, and I don't. They won't lose it, and I'll never find it, at least not until I match their 30 million yards in the pool.
But that ancient history just provides the bounds on performance. We all build our base in the same way, we just return to different baselines once we lose it.
Do you think this "base" hangs around for 20+ years though?
Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for them, my answer is a definite yes. Especially if this base was built at young age, that is while the body is still growing.
Training regiment of this sort leave a permanent footprint.
As a proponent of TRIMPs and other similar models, you surely realize this is an oversimplification.
From the point of view of building a "base" -- i.e. physiological adaptation of aerobic energy systems -- the training has a limited half-life. Decay times are typically ~45 days for the fitness side of your fitness-minus-fatigue models, so all of the (aerobic) effects of your training are gone within 6 months. My mitochondria certainly don't remember how much I swam 20 years ago.
I won't argue that college swimmers don't retain something after 20 years, but it's not "base" in a TRIMPs sense. Whether it's technique, or genetics, or some permanent physiological change induced by training in formative years doesn't really matter. They have it, and I don't. They won't lose it, and I'll never find it, at least not until I match their 30 million yards in the pool.
But that ancient history just provides the bounds on performance. We all build our base in the same way, we just return to different baselines once we lose it.
