Seasonal training plans are carefully designed to ensure that swimmers are in peak performance for their races. However, what is planned and what takes place in the water often differs. Sometimes there isn’t enough time to get through the workout, or perhaps there is a need to focus more on certain skills. This is why tracking and understanding athlete adaptations to the training plan are crucial.
TritonWear Intensity and Readiness eliminate the guesswork of how hard you trained and help keep your body primed for performance. This type of athlete output enables frequent iterations to ensure that you are practicing at the correct energy zone at the right point in time.
Energy Zones
Tracking all workouts and monitoring swimmers’ adaptations to the different energy zones enables targeted training. Each energy zone supports swimming sets of different distances, rest and intensities. You can use the same set and train in different energy zones; all it takes is adjusting the distance, rest and intensity (velocity). As you shift from aerobic to Vo2 max to lactate production, the set’s distance will decrease while rest time and swim intensity will increase.
The Intensity score will rise when you increase total distance, active time or swim intensity. Personalized recommendations will indicate what exactly caused a spike in Intensity. On the contrary, the Intensity score may drop as you decrease distance, active time or swim intensity. When you translate what your Intensity score means, it is essential to consider training periodization.
Tapering
During periods of tapering, rest time and intensity increase while volume (load) steadily decreases. The goal is to simulate racing conditions during practice. For a sprinter (100-200), the goal is to develop the athlete’s ability to produce and tolerate lactate. For instance, during race pace sets like broken 100’s, there will be a short rest between the laps but ample rest between the rounds of broken 100’s. For long-distance swimmers, the workout load decreases during tapering but so can rest time.
How does TritonWear track training output and adaptations?
The TritonWear algorithm creates an average for your usual distance, active time and swim intensity and adjusts it as you improve or train harder. This means that even if you are not hitting your goal times during a Vo2 max set, our AI will know if you are training within the right energy zone.
Not all training days are created equal; nutrition/hydration, sleep, and emotional state affect a swimmer’s ability to respond to high-intensity training. To get as fit and fast as possible, you’ll need to take on high-intensity training days, but you must still pay attention to both your Readiness and Focus scores. To take on strain from a high-intensity day, you must ensure you are not overtraining (Readiness) or sacrificing your technique (Focus).
Next, learn: How Rep Intensity Impacts Workout Intensity.
