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 have used qbrain's energy points for a few workouts now. Some comments:
I think it's pretty good at rewarding quality. It's nice to know you'll earn a few more points as a reward for squeezing an extra second out of that next rep.
It's definitely a good counter to the natural tendency to just count yards. I was surprised that this morning's workout earned me fewer points than Monday's despite swimming 10% more yards today. That gives me an excuse to look back over the workout and see why.
It's forcing me to pay more attention to landing times. This is both good and bad. My group tends to do stuff on prescribed rest, rather than prescribed intervals. So normally I'm paying more attention to effort level than to landing times. Especially for short-rest sets (:05 to :10) when I often don't bother to look at a pace clock to count my rest. But even though it's a bit of a hassle, I'm sure having more pace-awareness is good for me.
Mixing in stroke & kick causes problems. Throwing away the swimmer-dependent constants is a very clever idea, but everyone becomes a "different" swimmer (for these purposes) when swimming different strokes. It takes a lot more energy (power, lactic acid, etc) for me to swim 100 BR in 1:20 than to swim 100 FR in 1:20, but I earn the same number of "points" for each. Kick is also a conundrum. I can knock myself out doing 100 kick, and only earn about half as many points as a 100 swum at warmup pace. That may actually be reasonable for energy expenditure, though.
To me, there are two purposes for any point system (energy points, trimps, TSS, whatever). One is as a reward system. Energy points are a convenient way to reward quality, but they discourage "inefficient" modes like stroke & kick. The second purpose is to contribute towards training cycle planning (for injury prevention, peaking, taper, etc). I don't know enough yet to compare them to other alternatives for this purpose.
I have used qbrain's energy points for a few workouts now. Some comments:
I think it's pretty good at rewarding quality. It's nice to know you'll earn a few more points as a reward for squeezing an extra second out of that next rep.
It's definitely a good counter to the natural tendency to just count yards. I was surprised that this morning's workout earned me fewer points than Monday's despite swimming 10% more yards today. That gives me an excuse to look back over the workout and see why.
It's forcing me to pay more attention to landing times. This is both good and bad. My group tends to do stuff on prescribed rest, rather than prescribed intervals. So normally I'm paying more attention to effort level than to landing times. Especially for short-rest sets (:05 to :10) when I often don't bother to look at a pace clock to count my rest. But even though it's a bit of a hassle, I'm sure having more pace-awareness is good for me.
Mixing in stroke & kick causes problems. Throwing away the swimmer-dependent constants is a very clever idea, but everyone becomes a "different" swimmer (for these purposes) when swimming different strokes. It takes a lot more energy (power, lactic acid, etc) for me to swim 100 BR in 1:20 than to swim 100 FR in 1:20, but I earn the same number of "points" for each. Kick is also a conundrum. I can knock myself out doing 100 kick, and only earn about half as many points as a 100 swum at warmup pace. That may actually be reasonable for energy expenditure, though.
To me, there are two purposes for any point system (energy points, trimps, TSS, whatever). One is as a reward system. Energy points are a convenient way to reward quality, but they discourage "inefficient" modes like stroke & kick. The second purpose is to contribute towards training cycle planning (for injury prevention, peaking, taper, etc). I don't know enough yet to compare them to other alternatives for this purpose.
