Can you manually calculate TRIMP values?

Gav888

Hi,

I want to create some workouts which give a specific TRIMP value, is there anything that can do this or is there a calculation I can use in Excel to work this out?

Thanks.

Gav888

Ps, im using Sportracks at the moment with the training load plugin which gives a TRIMP value after each workout, I want to calculate this.

jibberjim

Sport Tracks calculates TRIMP by time in zone multiplied by a weighting factor.

Zone 2 HR gives me 1.1 trimp a minute
Zone 4 HR gives me 1.55 trimp a minute

(look in the Sport Tracks settings for your numbers, although as well as gettings your zones reasonable, having reasonable factors there is helpful.) Also creating a zone 0 for no training benefit is a good idea for cycling as that happens surprisingly a lot when you're descending etc. ie HR is pretty much at resting levels because otherwise you're not measuring the extra training that you're doing which is what you're really trying to do otherwise all 24 hours would be scoring you zone 0 trimps. (this is a problem with power based intensity measures too, when your power output drops to levels so low they're the same as doing nothing leading to inflated TSS)

Anyway back on topic, just multiply the number of minutes in a zone by that zones multiplier to create the workout.

Gav888

Thanks for the info Jibberjim, always helpful as usual

Gav888

Another question if I can.

Ive just worked out the TRIMP value for 2 workouts as an example.

2 x 20 in Z4 with 1x 5min rest in Z2 and 10min warmup in Z2 = TRIMP 84
5 x 5 in Z5 with 4 x 5min rest in Z2 and 10min warmup in Z2 = TRIMP 77

I would have thought the Vo2max Z5 efforts would be harder than a 2 x20min Z4 workout, well I find them hard work anyway!

Should the Z5 factor of 1.78 be made higher to reflect this or am I looking at it wrong?

Also, what sort of TRIMP increase would you expect week by week?

chrisw12

They may be harder but they have less work time 25 mins compared to 40 mins so I'd say your trimp scoring is pretty reasonable.

IIrc when I did 6x4's in the summer with 4 min rest (a 48 min session) I'd get roughly the same power based score (tss) as doing 50 mins at ftp.

I've emphasised roughly there as I think it's good to get accurate primary data but I'm not sure how important it is to then get super accurate secondary figures like trimp and tss which by their nature are estimates.

jibberjim

Yep, strikes me as reasonable too.