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
in fact yardage is an adequate input that in my own work has shown no difference from sharp stress scores as inputs
On this question, I have changed my mind a couple of times.
At one point, I gave up tracking trimps of any sort, for exactly the reason you mentioned: my training was fairly unvaried, and trimps were pretty much proportional to yards. So it didn't seem like tracking trimps was worth the extra effort. I suspect this is the case for many masters swimmers with a single coach writing workouts that are not dramatically periodized.
But I switched pools a year ago, and my training mix is very different now. Plus I swim with different coaches on different days of the week, with very different styles / workouts. Even if the week-to-week balance is about the same at the masters workouts, there are other variables. For example...
...I do weekly lake swims for half the year, and they have dramatically different trimp/yard ratio from my pool swims.
...At swim meets, just counting yards gives a ridiculously poor estimate of the training load.
...Last week I was on vacation and dropped in two other teams' workouts. Since I have been playing around with "energy points" and "pain points" recently, I can tell you that one (excellent) workout with GSMS in North Myrtle Beach earned me 20% more "energy points" per yard than I'm used to, and 2.4x as many "pain points" per yard as I'm used to!
Given all of these sources of variability, I have stopped relying on yardage alone, and am back to using trimps / points / scores to track training stress. I'm still looking for a method with the right balance of detail without too much daily hassle.
in fact yardage is an adequate input that in my own work has shown no difference from sharp stress scores as inputs
On this question, I have changed my mind a couple of times.
At one point, I gave up tracking trimps of any sort, for exactly the reason you mentioned: my training was fairly unvaried, and trimps were pretty much proportional to yards. So it didn't seem like tracking trimps was worth the extra effort. I suspect this is the case for many masters swimmers with a single coach writing workouts that are not dramatically periodized.
But I switched pools a year ago, and my training mix is very different now. Plus I swim with different coaches on different days of the week, with very different styles / workouts. Even if the week-to-week balance is about the same at the masters workouts, there are other variables. For example...
...I do weekly lake swims for half the year, and they have dramatically different trimp/yard ratio from my pool swims.
...At swim meets, just counting yards gives a ridiculously poor estimate of the training load.
...Last week I was on vacation and dropped in two other teams' workouts. Since I have been playing around with "energy points" and "pain points" recently, I can tell you that one (excellent) workout with GSMS in North Myrtle Beach earned me 20% more "energy points" per yard than I'm used to, and 2.4x as many "pain points" per yard as I'm used to!
Given all of these sources of variability, I have stopped relying on yardage alone, and am back to using trimps / points / scores to track training stress. I'm still looking for a method with the right balance of detail without too much daily hassle.
