In threads where training philosophy comes up, discussions of TRIMPS and TSS and other training models occasionally intrude. These models are not very well known, and even more poorly understood, so probably SolarEnergy, qbrain and I are just talking to each other and killing threads in those conversations. In any case, I figured I would present a brief overview of what it is that we're talking about when this terminology starts showing up.
Best case, this will introduce these models to the subset of swimmers (or coaches) who would be interested enough to use them, but didn't previously know enough to do so.
Plus, even if you're not the type to be interested in quantifying your training, it can be useful to think about workouts in this general framework.
And, at the very least, this might serve as a place to discuss some of the details without worrying about driving those other threads too far off-topic.
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I don't think it's RPE that's missing. It's the connection between power and (the magic biomarker indicating a training effect). Most models use lactate ion concentration as this biomarker.
The reason TRIMPS don't use HR directly, bu use exp(HR), is because this is what correlates with lactate.
The reason TSS uses a rolling average of power^4 is because (1) lactate correlates with power^4, not power, and (2) it takes a while for lactate to build up or get flushed away, so the rolling average helps determine an average lactate concentration.
Personally, I'm not at all worried about missing the rolling average. Energy points and rolling-average-energy-points would be (exactly) proportional to one another, so that distinction disappears in the normalization.
It might be significant whether you use something that scales with power, or something that scales with power^4 (= pseudolactate). Call those "pain points" instead of energy points. But as far as I know, nobody really knows for sure that lactate makes a better "magic biomarker of training effect" than anything else.
You raise an interesting point about economy changing over time. But I suspect that the half-life for changes in swimming economy (the holy grail for most of us) is enough longer than the half-life for fitness decay that I can assume that all of my base was obtained at roughly constant economy.
I don't think it's RPE that's missing. It's the connection between power and (the magic biomarker indicating a training effect). Most models use lactate ion concentration as this biomarker.
The reason TRIMPS don't use HR directly, bu use exp(HR), is because this is what correlates with lactate.
The reason TSS uses a rolling average of power^4 is because (1) lactate correlates with power^4, not power, and (2) it takes a while for lactate to build up or get flushed away, so the rolling average helps determine an average lactate concentration.
Personally, I'm not at all worried about missing the rolling average. Energy points and rolling-average-energy-points would be (exactly) proportional to one another, so that distinction disappears in the normalization.
It might be significant whether you use something that scales with power, or something that scales with power^4 (= pseudolactate). Call those "pain points" instead of energy points. But as far as I know, nobody really knows for sure that lactate makes a better "magic biomarker of training effect" than anything else.
You raise an interesting point about economy changing over time. But I suspect that the half-life for changes in swimming economy (the holy grail for most of us) is enough longer than the half-life for fitness decay that I can assume that all of my base was obtained at roughly constant economy.
