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
I know people who were severely overtrained who needed months to recover (unfortunately they often didn't rest completely during the recovery...after all, these are people with a tendency to overtrain...) Overtraining is a medical condition that is very close to depression of nervous system. Time it takes to recover is no longer dependant on day-to-day / business as usual physiological changes, but rather on the time it takes to restore this fragile chemical balance (brain) responsible for letting the nervous system do its job correctly.
That said, sever overreaching effects can take up to 21 days to fade away, which probably explains why certain 21day long tapering protocols have shown some results in certain context. In fact, we often talk and focus solely on tapers. In my opinion, the 3 weeks that preceded the taper are just as important since they set the magnitude of this overreaching. What you did 3-6 weeks before tapering should in big part, condition how long this taper should be.
Intense race pace / vo2max training during this critical phase is gaining more and more popularity nowadays (even about long duration endurance athletes), since it's believed to create massive cardiovascular surcompensation (cardiac output, enzymes etc...). That calls for at least 14 day long tapers though.
I know people who were severely overtrained who needed months to recover (unfortunately they often didn't rest completely during the recovery...after all, these are people with a tendency to overtrain...) Overtraining is a medical condition that is very close to depression of nervous system. Time it takes to recover is no longer dependant on day-to-day / business as usual physiological changes, but rather on the time it takes to restore this fragile chemical balance (brain) responsible for letting the nervous system do its job correctly.
That said, sever overreaching effects can take up to 21 days to fade away, which probably explains why certain 21day long tapering protocols have shown some results in certain context. In fact, we often talk and focus solely on tapers. In my opinion, the 3 weeks that preceded the taper are just as important since they set the magnitude of this overreaching. What you did 3-6 weeks before tapering should in big part, condition how long this taper should be.
Intense race pace / vo2max training during this critical phase is gaining more and more popularity nowadays (even about long duration endurance athletes), since it's believed to create massive cardiovascular surcompensation (cardiac output, enzymes etc...). That calls for at least 14 day long tapers though.
