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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Former Member
Yes, but capturing a variable that represents economy is difficult. How much drag did experience as you swam down the pool? If that could be answered a really good model could be built. Usually, RPE based weighting factor are used to achieve exactly this. Not as precise as HR some might say, but much more flexible though.
The Excel file attached (sorry it's in Spanish) shows you a very simple example of this. I think it just goes duration*rpe.
Therefore by doing so, you transfer the responsibility of fair guessing an Economy/Taxing indicator down to the athlete.
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. Yes and some models use RPE to act as this marker.
But anyway, I buy your simplicity principle as is. No need to make all models the same after all.
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. Food for thoughts I admit.
Yes, but capturing a variable that represents economy is difficult. How much drag did experience as you swam down the pool? If that could be answered a really good model could be built. Usually, RPE based weighting factor are used to achieve exactly this. Not as precise as HR some might say, but much more flexible though.
The Excel file attached (sorry it's in Spanish) shows you a very simple example of this. I think it just goes duration*rpe.
Therefore by doing so, you transfer the responsibility of fair guessing an Economy/Taxing indicator down to the athlete.
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. Yes and some models use RPE to act as this marker.
But anyway, I buy your simplicity principle as is. No need to make all models the same after all.
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. Food for thoughts I admit.
