Training Log

A Training Log

Having an overview of what training you’ve done and how you responded to it is the secret of training successfully. This overview is far more important than any detailed analysis of a single workout. My first training log, in variable on-water conditions and before the advent of high technology (and with less sophisticated training knowledge than I have today), had to rely on rule of thumb estimates which are still at the core of my training assessment.

Me in 1973

A page from my Logbook in the last week of December 1973 (I even trained on Christmas Day!)

Mileage in the single scull for the week was 80.5miles (129km). And I also ran 15.25 miles. (Lord knows why?)

“Firm” Strokes total for the week was 2474 (what I now estimate to have been about 20k at T3-T4 or near Threshold Pace)

“Hard” Strokes total was 1046 (perhaps about 8.7 km at race pace T5). Note the 2k ‘Course’ on Thursday in 5’30”! On a swiftly flowing tide.

My Weight was 13stone 3lbs (88.5kg)

My Average Resting Heart Rate was 48 (which it still is today!) and Harvard Step Test score 138.6.

I also did two Dynamometer Strength Tests whose result I seem not to have recorded.

The training log I use today is on an Excel spreadsheet I developed gradually over the years. It records information that is essentially similar to that in my handwritten diary, but is far more precise and comprehensive, and performs calculations and analyses on the fly. For example, when I copy over data such as distance, and time and heart rate from the Concept2 or NK Strokecoach utilities, the spreadsheet calculates in what power zone, heart rate zone and work per stroke zone each piece is performed, what energy system this pace predominantly uses, and produces a training load score, a freshness score, and a fitness score for each day and week taking into account whether the work was done in a certain class of boat or on an ergometer.

Strokes performed precisely within 5% of the average work per stroke of my personal best 2k become classified as ‘Hard’. ‘Firm’ strokes are those that are over 80% and under 95% of 2k maximum work per stroke, and so on.

So that an easy visual comparison can be made between each external output and its internal metabolic and neuromuscular cost, the zones are colour coded: Violet for Alactic (zone 7), Red for Glycolitic Sprint pace (zone 6), Orange for vVO2max to 2k Race Pace (zone 5), Yellow for Threshold (zone 4), Green for Intense Aerobic (zone 3), Blue for Easy Aerobic (zones 2 & 1), and Grey for Active Recovery.

Thus the row of each segment of work has a colour coded cell identifying its Power/Pace zone (P1-7), its Heart Rate zone (H1-7), and its Work per Stroke zone (W1-7). These zones roughly correspond to the traditional UT1, UT2, AT, TR and AL zones but are particular to each parameter. (I initially labelled the power zones T1-T6 to correspond with the zones used by the Australian Institute of Sport. However, because through trial and error my algorithms evolved into something different, I have now decided to go with P zones.)

The workout’s total for each training and adaptation parameter is automatically calculated as a percentage of the sum of the average and the highest score that had been recorded over the previous four weeks to give an overall estimate whether this workout constitutes an increase or decrease in either accustomed stress or in adaptation.

Particularly in the graph view of the spreadsheet above you can see how my workload, intensity, and fitness fluctuated as they ramped up and also, in the transition following the 2021 World Rowing Indoor Championship, how they started to plummet!

The most useful view in the sheet is the “Weeks” view which enables a retrospective view of training loads and types and therefore judgements about attention to energy systems, and rates of adaptation and overload.

Each Workout can be identified as either a Stimulus Workout, i.e. one that introduces an overload and thus counts as a hard session, or as a Recovery Workout or easy session, or as a Maintenance Workout or moderate session. or else as a Development Workout introducing a new type of training.

The parameters or variables that characterise each type of workout are: 1. Duration, 2. Distance, 3. Volume or Workload 4. Intensity or Speed, 5. Heart Rate, 6, Average Work per Stroke, 7. Maximum Power Strokes, 8. Recovery Intervals, and 9. Stroke Rate. Each parameter can be judged as High, Moderate or Low in relation to averages and maximums performed over the previous four weeks.

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