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POSTED IN 01/10
Dan Heil
Contributing Editor
Dan Heil is an avid master skier and triathlete from Bozeman, MT. As Associate Professor of Exercise Physiology at Montana State University, Dan also serves as the director of the Movement Science / Human Performance Lab for testing local master and junior Nordic athletes.
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The last Master Skier article (Pre-Season 2008) focused on training logs to track markers of training load, which, in turn, was defined as the product of exercise frequency (F), intensity (I), and duration (D) of your workouts accumulated throughout a week.
The easiest tracking metric for training load is total training volume, or time spent training (FxD), which is reported as hours of training per week.
However, it is not too difficult to imagine 15 hrs of base training (low intensity dominant) as a very different training load on the body when compared with 15 hrs race season training (high intensity dominant).
Ideally, the best tracking metric for training load should include the intensity component as well duration and frequency, or FxIxD.
How can Master skiers do this with nothing more than a spreadsheet-based training log? The answer is TRIMPS!
What’s a TRIMP?
The TRaining IMPulse was devised by exercise physiologists to more accurately describe the influence of different workouts on the body’s perception and subsequent adaptation response to training loads.
The TRIMP load is calculated as intensity times duration, or IxD, for individual workouts. While duration is simply the hours or minutes spent working out, the intensity component is more difficult to quantify.
Some of the original research in this area used time spent within heart rate training zones to calculate TRIMPs. For example, imagine a 2-hr roller ski workout at a level 2 heart rate. The training load, or TRIMP, for this workout would be calculated as:
Example 1:
TRIMP Load = (level 2) x (120 minutes) = 240 (no units)
The calculation of the TRIMP load has simply weighted the time spent at a level 2 heart rate. Of course, the same workout duration at level 3 would be much more difficult on the body, which is reflected with a higher TRIMP load calculation of 3x120 = 360.
Now imagine a more complicated interval workout that includes 20 minutes at level 2 for a warm-up, 4x5 minutes at level 4 with 10 minutes at level 2 for recovery followed by 10x30 seconds at level 5 and 1-minute rest intervals, and finally another 20 minutes at level 2 for a warm down. The total duration for this workout was only 85 minutes, but the TRIMP load calculation says…
Example 2:
TRIMP Load = [ 2x20 minutes +4x20 minutes +2x10 minutes +5x15 minutes +2x20 minutes) = 255
Thus, the interval session of 85 minutes that included 50 minutes at level 2 was actually a greater training load on the body (TRIMP load = 255) than the 120-min workout at level 2 (TRIMP load = 240).
Weekly TRIMPs
Over the course of a week, TRIMP loads for daily workouts are summed at the end of the week just like training volume hours.
The interpretation of the TRIMP load and training volume methods, however, are completely different. Using the 15 hrs/week example again, the training volume method gives 15 hrs/week whether the load was dominated by base training or intervals.
In contrast, the TRIMP calculation for a 15-hr base training week (TRIMP load = 1800 /week) is much lower than for a 15-hr hard training week (TRIMP load = 2475 to 2700 /week).
Using TRIMP load calculations, the actual training load experienced by the body was 25-35% lower during base training despite the same number of hours spent training.
Advantage… TRIMP
There are several notable advantages to using the TRIMP method for calculating training load over training volume (i.e., hours per week). First, the TRIMP calculation is an objective calculation that is not based upon perception of effort.
Second, the TRIMP method can be applied to any aerobic-based sport, though the actual heart rate zones may vary between sports for an individual.
The general use of TRIMPs across multiple sports is important because athletes, such as skiers, who include multiple sports in their regular training regime (e.g., cycling, running, hiking, roller skiing) have a means of calculating a common training load.
Lastly, TRIMPS can be summarized and tracked numerically or graphically within a spreadsheet-based training log.
Graphic summaries are tremendously useful for displaying large amounts of data in an easy-to-understand format. This latter advantage cannot be underestimated for those die-hard fans of spreadsheet-based training logs.
Alternative TRIMP Calculation
The calculations described can be somewhat daunting when you start to consider the number and variety of workouts that many Master skiers perform each week. Over the past five years I have developed my own simplified method for calculating TRIMPs that overcome some of the limitations.
Basically, I use two levels for rating intensity rather than five, where the “easy zone” of effort, or EZ, includes heart rate levels 1-2, and the lowest two-thirds of level 3.
Any effort above EZ (heart rate zones of upper 3 to 5) is in the “performance zone”, or PZ.
Next, I weight time spent in EZ with an intensity value of “1” and time in the PZ with a “3”. Time spent resistance training is included as PZ intensity.
This simplified technique seems to work really well for tracking my own training load variations, but everyone is different so you can try your own weighting scheme that makes sense for you and your body.
Good training logs take time to accumulate enough information to start being really useful so start your calculation of TRIMPS as soon as possible!
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