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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The normal assumption is that these time constants are fairly transferable. You can (some have) fit the time constants, but it requires a lot of data and work.
It's fairly reasonable to think that they should be constant. They have a fairly biological interpretation, and are related to the rates at which your body can build new mitochondria, or hemoglobin, etc. It seems reasonable to think that these biological rates would be pretty similar across individuals.
I have to disagree with these statements emphatically.
After reading the Hellard et al paper, I'd agree that the constants obviously differ a lot from athlete to athlete. I'll have to abandon my belief that they have a biological basis. Given the (ridiculously) big spread in values for the 9 elite swimmers in the Hellard et al paper, I wonder if it says more about the fact that the model is underfit, though.
When I said the "normal" assumption is to keep them constant, I was thinking about their use in software like WKO+ for cycling. I have fit them for myself, and know first-hand that they can differ from the default values.
As for fitting the models, it's not as hard as it might seem, the weekly or bi weekly performance test is the biggest hurdle in my opinion.
I agree, on both counts. Again, my statement about "a lot" of work was relative to what most athletes are willing to put in. Those reading this thread are atypical. :)
Periodic performance tests are definitely a problem. Especially for swimming: I can get close to my current running PR in a self-timed tempo run. I can never come anywhere close to a current swimming PR in practice, even when I dive from the blocks and have someone timing me. You could say that consistency in the performance test is all that's important, but then you can't include meet times in the model (when that was the entire point!).
Plus, to make sure you've got enough data to fit the model well, you'd ideally want some performance tests after a wide variation of different training. But most of us aren't willing to suffer through goofy blocks of training just to determine the model parameters. My suspicion is that this is part of the reason the models seem to be unstable in many cases.
The normal assumption is that these time constants are fairly transferable. You can (some have) fit the time constants, but it requires a lot of data and work.
It's fairly reasonable to think that they should be constant. They have a fairly biological interpretation, and are related to the rates at which your body can build new mitochondria, or hemoglobin, etc. It seems reasonable to think that these biological rates would be pretty similar across individuals.
I have to disagree with these statements emphatically.
After reading the Hellard et al paper, I'd agree that the constants obviously differ a lot from athlete to athlete. I'll have to abandon my belief that they have a biological basis. Given the (ridiculously) big spread in values for the 9 elite swimmers in the Hellard et al paper, I wonder if it says more about the fact that the model is underfit, though.
When I said the "normal" assumption is to keep them constant, I was thinking about their use in software like WKO+ for cycling. I have fit them for myself, and know first-hand that they can differ from the default values.
As for fitting the models, it's not as hard as it might seem, the weekly or bi weekly performance test is the biggest hurdle in my opinion.
I agree, on both counts. Again, my statement about "a lot" of work was relative to what most athletes are willing to put in. Those reading this thread are atypical. :)
Periodic performance tests are definitely a problem. Especially for swimming: I can get close to my current running PR in a self-timed tempo run. I can never come anywhere close to a current swimming PR in practice, even when I dive from the blocks and have someone timing me. You could say that consistency in the performance test is all that's important, but then you can't include meet times in the model (when that was the entire point!).
Plus, to make sure you've got enough data to fit the model well, you'd ideally want some performance tests after a wide variation of different training. But most of us aren't willing to suffer through goofy blocks of training just to determine the model parameters. My suspicion is that this is part of the reason the models seem to be unstable in many cases.
