I bet I could convince even the coolest of the cool on my team to wear a watch during practice and sync it with their computer if it would further swimming research.
Hmmm, I'll take that bet. I suspect you could get a few to do it for a practice or two but long term die hard swimmers will not wear watches, as a general statement. Now, give the watch to a bunch of tris and they will strap one on their nose for you, heck, they will want to wear two, maybe three watches, but only if combined with a man-kini, heart rate strap, paddles, pull buoy, and fins.
Now, give the watch to a bunch of tris and they will strap one on their nose for you, heck, they will want to wear two, maybe three watches, but only if combined with a man-kini, heart rate strap, paddles, pull buoy, and fins.
omg, that's funny... but only because it's so true...
This yields the question then why the heck even talking about it.
Yeah, that is what confused me for so long. If building a base is any work done previously, then there isn't much to discuss.
As a sport, we lack the detailed data acquisition devices that other sports have. I am hoping a future version of the poolmate watch allows syncing to a computer. Once that happens, the ability to collect training data will be available to everyone, and I bet you will see the masters community sharing a lot of that data.
Yeah, that is what confused me for so long. If building a base is any work done previously, then there isn't much to discuss. The reason why I find it important to define what's the Base is that in a lot of articles, including that posted by Coach T. early in this thread, there's no mention about it.
What sort of Base should an Elite sprinter carry? At least 5k/d in my opinion, with Peaks during the Base building phase that will probably go over 6k/d.
That is still well over the level of most other endurance sports, talking about the ratio between your event duration (100m) and the Base you need to build.
This places Swimming in a category of its own. Relies on endurance, just like running, but as complex as playing Tennis. So while I agree with Rushall et al on the importance of putting quality to work, I still think that a strong endurance base is required, even for sprinters (50/100).
the ability to collect training data will be available to everyone, and I bet you will see the masters community sharing a lot of that data. Race Day, manufactured by Physfarm (Phil Skiba) doesn't require any computer interface. It does performance modeling based on threshold tests, which can even be fair guessed (you don't want to test a T1000 at fly right?) using either CSS or Riegel's prediction equation (t=b*d^m).
I do not think that these will ever get popular among swimmers though. I may be wrong but...
What do you guys think about starting a thread devoted to habit / skill acquisition? Coach T. Another very smart topic. Skill acquisition like any other performance component should be scheduled as part of the yearly plan.... but let us stop right there.....
I see no basis for this statement. Fat old elite swimmers who havn't done more than lift a beer for 20 years can hop in the pool and swim a couple fast 50s or 100s. Fast being relative to a typical trained non-ex-elite master.
What would logically explain this? They are completely out of shape, but can still attain above average speeds. Would this be base developed years ago that they are still drawing from?
No, it is technique. Swimming is like riding a bicycle. You get a little rusty, but you never forget. Better technique is what allows them to become elites in the first place. I have to disagree a little bit here.
Swimming is far more difficult than riding a bicycle. Far more complex than running, but yet, this principle applies to these endurance cyclic disciplines as well.
In fact, it is even more striking on the bike I find. Those old 50-60yo farts that were competitive cyclists at earlier age? They drive a lot of youngsters completely nut. If you want to make an idea for yourself, next time you ride your bike, try to hold 40kmh (25mhp) for an hour. These old guys can do this, with minimal training.
The only strong basis for my statement is that if you're training hard while your body is still growing, you won't grow the same way you would have if no training at all. Definitely not.
Take a 12yo kid. Teach him how to swim. Then get him to commit to daily training that includes hard aerobic capacity sets, hard everything. Their cardiovascular functions will develop in accordance to this sustain and prolonged training stress, most definitely. That is just to mention the cardiovascular functions. Now think about the whole body. Articulations, muscle structures, mental strength, nervous system (centra/peripheral) etc...............
BTW, this is why I believe that it is a crime to over specialize a young age grouper. Got a talented fast twitched sprinter that starts to cry in front of a 200m event? Get him to swim the 200/400/800/1500, at least until he reaches the youth ag category.
To answer your last question, yes the Base factors in Economy. And since Economy is greatly affected by swim technique, then we can state that Base factors in technique. A swimmer with better technique will be able to pile in more mileage at same energy costs.
The subset of the community frequently known as nerds.
Like the kind of people who hang out on forums, post blogs, argue about training techniques and argue about tech suits?
I bet I could convince even the coolest of the cool on my team to wear a watch during practice and sync it with their computer if it would further swimming research.
And I would finally have an excuse to talk to the cool kids...
Hell yes.
Recently sold the idea to a few that I coach to buy and use the Wetronome in practice.
ref www.swimsmooth.com/wetronome.html
I only had to suggest it once. They all follow the clic now.
All that said though, I am not sure it is even necessary, or relevant to compute trimp using hr data. Alejandro Martinez is currently testing RPE based trimp calculation if I am not mistaking. His Excel application, though written in Spanish, can be downloaded here...
sites.google.com/.../
Just download modeloguizmoRPEsomething. A lot of interesting files can be downloaded to process swim related data as well, including a performance predictor sheet that uses Riegel/DeKoninck prediction formulas. I think it's called curvadefatigueguizmosomething.xls
Principles used to model performance using the RPE modelo thingy is the same as that I described earlier in the discussion. CTL (Chronic Training Load) is your base, ATL (Acute Training Load) is your fatigue, TSB (Training Stress Balance) is your fitness.
If someone spent 20 years as a coach potato, I don't care how much he trained as a teenager, he won't have the base of almost any masters swimmer who practices regularly.
Perhaps not the base, but is it possible that all that training at a young age may have produced physiological changes to the body that can later be tapped into even years or decades afterward?
You talented folks, have a very hard time understanding this concept of genetic limitation.
What I am simply suggesting here is that what you do at early age (certainly between 10 and 21) probably pushes your genetic limitation. At later age, aerobic capacity potential will be higher, mental strength (which can often confused with genetic limitation) too, everything.
Base established between age 10 and 21 becomes part of your athletic legacy. Belongs to you forever. What you did in the last five years contributes a lot to your actual performances, I agree with you. But what you did in the first 5 years also contributes to it, still today.
It seems to me that 3 related variable are being conflated here:
-- Performance. You seem to be using performance (eg, ability of a 50-yo to do a 40k TT in under an hour) as evidence of a "base" that developed at an early age and never died.
-- Good genetics. One way of describing this is that people who are blessed need less base to achieve a given performance level.
-- Base: as you put it, "the amount of work that one can routinely perform (Chronic Training Load)." There is probably some genetic component to this but I largely think of it as an adaptation brought about through training. Anyone -- of any talent level -- can probably adapt to a weekly training load of (say) 40,000 yards of swimming. They may not be as fast at that training as a very gifted individual, or gain the same benefit from it, but they can achieve the same base. (In any event, surely it is nice to partition performance modeling in terms of parameters that we cannot control -- good genes, for example -- and things we can, like training?)
I have no doubt that genetics plays a huge role in performance (as does training, of course, and not just by changing the base...which is partly what started all this).
I also don't doubt that early hard training can cause various physiological changes that never disappear. But I don't believe that base -- as I understand that term -- is one of them. But the way this problem is defined, it is going to be difficult to settle the question between good genes and an early indestructible base. To all intents in purposes, they are the same thing (ie, we can't do anything about either one at this point.)
We're moving to philosophical matters here.
I think it is important not to try and contain real-word significance within the boundaries of any of these models. The reason for this is that their authors (Banister, Coggan, Skiba) are the first to acknowledge that their models suffer from sever limitation in their ability to represent the complexity of this real world.
Models by their nature (and definition) are all about over-simplification of the "real" world. One possible purpose of a model is predictive: what happens to performance if we change factor X or Y? But another important purpose of a model can be interpretive. In that sense, trying to look at the relationship between real-world variables and model parameters is not just "philosophical."
Unfortunately there is often an inverse relationship between predictive accuracy and model interpretation...so if those authors have models that are both inaccurate at predicting "real" world effects AND also cannot be easily interpreted, what is their purpose?
(This is a genuine question...I admit freely that I am not at all familiar with the models or studies that you and sjstuart seem to be comfortable with.)
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.
This states my position better than I ever did...
Nice discussion -- and I will eventually read it more carefully --though I suspect it is getting more abstract than most would like...I suspect the question most people care about is, "how can I get faster in the (limited) time I have to train?" And, more specifically, if I'm a sprinter, how much base do I need? Thanks to SolarEnergy, who has done a good job addressing this, I think.
This actually gets at one thing that I think is missing from these models. They all assume that there's only one "thing" being trained, even though we all know better, as we show by explicitly training different energy systems with different intensities (which was the point that started this thread off). To the models, though, a trimp is a trimp, regardless whether it came from 200 yards drill, 100 tempo, or 50 race pace.
Where these models work best is in modeling the parts of training & fatigue & performance that have half-lives of a few weeks -- exactly the energy systems that define "base" in the sense of that word that it is understandable by most on this thread. In my mind, saying that college swimmers have some residual "base" after taking time off is applying too much real-world significance to a model parameter. It may make the model work better for that athlete, but that doesn't mean it's real. And it tends to confuse those that would rather think about "base" as a training term instead of a model parameter.
I prefer to think that there are different components to performance that have their own response to / decay from training.
Aerobic energy systems and endurance are one of the most important factors for some races, and we can do okay (in training plans and in using models) by pretending that they are the only component. These decay on a 45-day schedule (for example).
Anaerobic energy systems are different, and you can't train one effectively by working (just) the other. We can do better (in training plans and in models) by acknowledging that.
But there are other components -- like technique and genetics -- that have an infinitely slow decay. Once you get them (through lots of training or good parents), you don't lose them. This is why Lance can beat you after a year off his bike, and why the ex-college swimmer who joined my lane 2 weeks ago can beat me after 10 years out of the pool.
If we got really fancy, we could define a different training stress for aerobic & anaerobic energy systems. Another for tendons instead of energy systems. Or one for my shoulders and one for my knees. Each might have a different response / decay time.
I do enjoy these models, as you have guessed. I haven't looked at the links you provided yet, although I plan to. I track something trimps-ish for my swim training, but it doesn't do a good job of factoring in intensity, because it's hard to quantify for swimming. I haven't deciphered Skiba's model well enough to implement it.
