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.
Parents
Former Member
A paper cut takes a couple days to heal. A good elbow scrape takes two weeks. Muscles restore glycogen at a rate of 5% an hour. Based on this, I don't think tapering for 2 to 3 weeks is really to restore glycogen.
For example, muscle strength of the trained group recovered to the baseline by 3 days after exercise, where the untrained group showed approximately 40% lower strength than baseline. These results suggest that resistance-trained men are less susceptible to muscle damage induced by maximal eccentric exercise than untrained subjects. 3 days for returning back to baseline level (using plasma creatine kinase activity as an indicator, which is often the case in these sort of less invasive studies) is consistent with what I learned when I was trained in my exercise physiology classes, as part of the coaching certification. Full glycogen replenishment can take up to 72 hours, so all in all, fairly close. Over the years, it's been generally accepted that the acute fatigue caused by training takes 7 days to fade out. Since we can not afford to cut training by 100% (to let 100% of the fatigue to fade out in 7 days), that may explain why an effective taper spans over more than 7 days.
In other words, you are causing more tissue damage and glyco depletion and NS fatigue during this tapering phase, hence the fact that it takes more time that it would normally take to get rid of this overreaching. If you would cut your training by 100%, all fatigue related markers would probably go back to baseline within this 7 day time frame.
Muscle tissue damage can not be compared to scraping an elbow. The trauma is not the same, exposure to several components which slow down the healing process probably play a big role in your scraped elbow recovery time.
A paper cut takes a couple days to heal. A good elbow scrape takes two weeks. Muscles restore glycogen at a rate of 5% an hour. Based on this, I don't think tapering for 2 to 3 weeks is really to restore glycogen.
For example, muscle strength of the trained group recovered to the baseline by 3 days after exercise, where the untrained group showed approximately 40% lower strength than baseline. These results suggest that resistance-trained men are less susceptible to muscle damage induced by maximal eccentric exercise than untrained subjects. 3 days for returning back to baseline level (using plasma creatine kinase activity as an indicator, which is often the case in these sort of less invasive studies) is consistent with what I learned when I was trained in my exercise physiology classes, as part of the coaching certification. Full glycogen replenishment can take up to 72 hours, so all in all, fairly close. Over the years, it's been generally accepted that the acute fatigue caused by training takes 7 days to fade out. Since we can not afford to cut training by 100% (to let 100% of the fatigue to fade out in 7 days), that may explain why an effective taper spans over more than 7 days.
In other words, you are causing more tissue damage and glyco depletion and NS fatigue during this tapering phase, hence the fact that it takes more time that it would normally take to get rid of this overreaching. If you would cut your training by 100%, all fatigue related markers would probably go back to baseline within this 7 day time frame.
Muscle tissue damage can not be compared to scraping an elbow. The trauma is not the same, exposure to several components which slow down the healing process probably play a big role in your scraped elbow recovery time.
