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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where did some of the things like intensity cubed is proportional to power come from?
As qbrain pointed out, this is because power rises as the cube of velocity, when drag is the most important force to overcome.
I bring it up just because I'm wondering if a different exponent might make more sense for some purposes.
qbrain's formula is perfect when you want to measure energy expenditures (as the name "energy points" implies). And qbrain is clear that this is what he is interested in -- he'd rather measure energy than count yards, as a way of encouraging quality over junk yards.
But (a) I'm not sure this is enough incentive for me to avoid junk yards. A 100 at warmup pace is worth about half the points of a race-pace 100 for me. Mentally, I'd much rather swim an easy 200 than an all-out 100.
And (b) for anyone (like me) who wants to use points of some sort to model training with an impulse-response model, I don't think energy output is the best thing to track. Cyclists, in particular, like to track power^4, because this has been found to correlate with lactate concentration in the blood. And lactate seems to be the standard for predicting training effect.
That would suggest that qbrain's energy points could be extended to define "pain points":
p-points = (d / t)^12 * t
Doing some sample calculations suggests that these track a lot more closely with the mental effort required to do the set, and with the perceived training benefit. For example, I would earn about as many "pain points" for doing 3x100 race pace with lots of rest, as I would for doing 10x100 with :10 rest. And to earn the same amount of points at warmup pace, I'd have to do 80x100 easy.
where did some of the things like intensity cubed is proportional to power come from?
As qbrain pointed out, this is because power rises as the cube of velocity, when drag is the most important force to overcome.
I bring it up just because I'm wondering if a different exponent might make more sense for some purposes.
qbrain's formula is perfect when you want to measure energy expenditures (as the name "energy points" implies). And qbrain is clear that this is what he is interested in -- he'd rather measure energy than count yards, as a way of encouraging quality over junk yards.
But (a) I'm not sure this is enough incentive for me to avoid junk yards. A 100 at warmup pace is worth about half the points of a race-pace 100 for me. Mentally, I'd much rather swim an easy 200 than an all-out 100.
And (b) for anyone (like me) who wants to use points of some sort to model training with an impulse-response model, I don't think energy output is the best thing to track. Cyclists, in particular, like to track power^4, because this has been found to correlate with lactate concentration in the blood. And lactate seems to be the standard for predicting training effect.
That would suggest that qbrain's energy points could be extended to define "pain points":
p-points = (d / t)^12 * t
Doing some sample calculations suggests that these track a lot more closely with the mental effort required to do the set, and with the perceived training benefit. For example, I would earn about as many "pain points" for doing 3x100 race pace with lots of rest, as I would for doing 10x100 with :10 rest. And to earn the same amount of points at warmup pace, I'd have to do 80x100 easy.
