Impellizzeri Franco

An important step in the training process is the control and monitoring of the training load in order to verify that the planned programmed has been imposed an effective training stimulus on the athletes. There have been several attempts to quantify training in a single term (Foster, 1998; 2001; Banister, 1991) especially for endurance athletes. One of the most interesting strategy to quantify training load is the one recently suggested by Foster (1998). This method quantify the TL as the product of the whole training session RPE by its duration (RPE-TRIMP) and it seems to be also useful in game sports like basketball, which training is characterized by both aerobic and anaerobic exercises. The aim of our investigation was to verify the validity of this training load quantification in soccer, using various HR based methods as reference. Nineteen young soccer players were involved in the study. During 7 weeks their training sessions HR were recorded using HR telemetric system. The RPE-TRIMP were determined multiply session RPE by the min of training. Several HR based TL were determined: Banister’s TRIMP, Edwards’ TRIMP, training duration multiply by mean training session HR expressed in % of HRmax, of lactate thresholds’ HR and HR reserve. Pearson’s product moment correlation was determined to verify the individual relationship between RPE-TRIMP and various HR based methods. Training loads of 479 training sessions were collected. The mean individual correlations between various methods of TL quantifications and RPE-TRIMP range from 0.60 to 0.70 (p<0.05).The results of this study extend the validity of Foster’s RPE-TRIMP in quantify training load in soccer training.
The validity was verified assuming HR as the best way to describe TL. However, HR could not reflect as well as RPE the contribution of anaerobic exercises to the overall TL. In fact, Drust et al. (2000) found a similar VO2 and HR during intermittent exercise on a treadmill simulating soccer activities compared to continuous exercise at the same mean velocity, while ventilation and RPE were significantly higher during the intermittent trial. In conclusion, we suggest this simple quantification method to monitor and to control soccer training load.

References:
Banister EW (1991). In: Physiological testing of elite athletes;
Drust B, et al (2000). J Sports Sci. 18 :885-892 ;
Foster C (1998). Med Sci Sports Exerc. 30(7):1164-1168;
Foster C, et al (2001). J Strength Cond Res. 15(1):109-115