by Coach Suzanne | Feb 9, 2008 | Training, Training Plans
Your coach planned workouts contain a number of space saving abbreviations. Once you become accustomed to them, your workouts will read like plain english. Review this list of abbreviations to help you get your bearings
‘ or min – Minutes
” or sec – Seconds
1:00 – One hour
00:30 – 30 minutes
AT-Anaerobic Threshold
ATP-Annual Training Plan
BCR – Big chain ring
bpm – Beats per minute (heart rate)
CD – Cool down
km – Kilometer
LT – Lactate Threshold (same as AT-Anaerobic Threshold)
M – Mile
m – Meter
MS – Main Set
MTB – Mountain bike
RI – Recovery Interval
rpm – Revolutions per minute
SCR – Small chain ring
WU – Warm-up
Y, Yd or Yds – Yards
Z – Heart Rate Intensity Zone (eg. Z3 – Zone 3)
Adapted from Peaksware.com
A Few Examples
Here are a few examples to help get you oriented.
Swim Workouts
WU: 100 swim easy, 50 kick easy, 100 swim moderate, 50 kick moderate, 100 swim build speed, 50 kick build speed. MS: For the first set decrease times with each work interval. All aerobic-easy breathing. 4 x 100 (10″) moderate. RI 2 minutes. Kick 300 steady. 6 x 25 relaxed speed (15″). CD: 200 easy swim. Total: 1500
Translation:
Warm-Up: As described Main Set: Four repetitions of 100 yards/meters at a moderate pace with 10 seconds of rest between each 100 yard repeat. Rest 2 minutes after this set. Then Kick 300 yards/meters. Next, swim six repeats of 25 yards each at a “relaxed” speed, with 15 seconds of rest between each repeat. Cooldown: Finally, swim 200 yards/meters very easy as your cooldown.
If a rest period is not specified, simply begin the next part of your workout when you feel ready to go. For example, you may be able to go immediately from a kick only set to a relaxed swim set with little rest.
Biking Example
Tempo intervals. On road or trainer. Do 4-5 x 6 minutes in the 3 zone (2-minute recoveries). Relax! Smooth pedaling. 80-90 rpm. Aero position.
Translation
The interval type is called a “tempo” interval, which are done in Zone 3 (you can use heart rate, rating of perceived exertion or a power meter to determine if you are in zone 3). Do four OR five six minute intervals in Zone 3 based HR, RPE or Power. Recover with easy spinning in zone 1 for 2 minutes between each interval. Pedal at a cadence of 80-90 revolutions per minute. (can be counted or viewed with the cadence function on your cycle computer). Use the drops on a road bike, or the aero position on a triathlon bike.
by Coach Suzanne | Feb 9, 2008 | Uncategorized
Steel City Endurance uses one of the most sophisticated Training Logs available on the internet. Training Peaks software allows your coach to upload a customized daily training plan. You are able to log into your training peaks account directly from our home page. Once logged in, you can view your annual training plan, your monthly and daily workout planner, a nutrition tracker, race tracker and more.
Recording Your Workouts
Training Peaks has a dedicated Wiki/How-To that should help you find the answer to just about any question you have about how to use the software. The activity that you will be doing most often is recording workout data from a previously planned (coach planned) workout. There are a few items that you will need to record on a daily basis. (It’s OK to fill in 2-3 days of info at once, as long as every workout has an entry)
Before reading further, View a screenshot of your Daily Log.
When you log in to view your daily workout, you will see two boxes. One is called “Workout Description”. This is the coach planned workout. Although this box can be edited, please do not change any of the text. This is the only way your coach can keep track of the original schedule. If there are any deviations from the planned schedule your coach will need the initial workout information in order to make changes for your next block.
Just below that you will see a box titled “Athlete Comments”. This is where you will enter your daily training notes. Your coach needs good feedback from you in order to make modification to your schedule for upcoming blocks. Please enter at least a short comment for every workout. You should comment on how the workout felt, any trouble you had with the workout session, or anything that felt particularly good or bad about the workout.
You will also need to record the actual time you spent on the workout regardless of the planned duration of the workout. Again, your coach needs this information in order to make adjustments to your schedule for your upcoming blocks.
Training Peaks Wiki Links
Read the Wiki on How to Record Workout Data Here.
If you are using a training device including any of the following, then read this Wiki to find out how to automatically upload workout data:
- 3.1 Garmin
- 3.2 Powertap
- 3.3 Polar
- 3.4 SRM
- 3.5 Lemond
- 3.6 Suunto
- 3.7 Ergomo
- 3.8 CompuTrainer
- 3.9 Timex
- 3.10 Cateye
- 3.11 iBike
- 3.12 Nike Triax Elite
- 3.13 Symbol Calorie Scanner
- 3.14 Tacx
- 3.15 Nike + iPod
For a general overview of the functions available in your Training Peaks account, browse the Overview Wiki.
by Coach Suzanne | Feb 4, 2007 | Training
Rating of Perceived Exertion
An extremely useful method of gauging intensity is your rate of perceived exertion. A scale called the Borg scale I find very helpful and easy to use.It begins at 6 and maxes out at 20.Why not just 1-10?In general, the Borg scale was designed to correspond to 1/10th of the HR at that level. In other words, a resting HR of 60, and a max HR of 200. You know from the discussion on HR that such a strict HR scale is not appropriate for everyone, but I find it to be a useful gauge for correlating your perceived exertion with your own HRs. Using it is simple; you just pick the level that corresponds to your exertion level.
Using RPE along with your Heart Rate
With practice and objective use, especially if you combine it with a HR monitor for awhile, you will become very sensitive to your relative training zone based solely on your exertion level. Although your daily energy levels will fluctuate due to sleep, nutrition, hydration and motivation, an objective determination of RPE should remain fairly constant. Note what RPE descriptions are associated with the HR zones determined above. If you are training your aerobic engine, your RPE should remain around 9-11. This will seem ridiculously easy and slow for some people. It requires a small amount of faith that you are actually improving your aerobic fitness while training in these zones, and if you stick with it in an organized, structured fashion, you will see improvements over time. Remember, a better aerobic engine means you will last longer, be fresher, recover faster and have more reserves for short bursts of energy.
RPE Charts
Download a color coded PDF file by clicking on the text:
BORG RPE Chart
Below is the same chart.
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