- Ah, I was totally struggling on the bar today.
Just didn't have the legs for that FTP test.
I don't why I didn't just forget about my splits and
chill out with a bit of a loosener on the trainer,
sticking in zone 1,
I mean rather than trying to hit my LTHR.
It was just crazy, but can't wait for a taper
when I can start to get the feel, but a few pick ups
should help with that I think.
(long beep)
Hang on, stay with me, because if that has just gone
completely over your head, don't worry.
I'm going to be explaining some of this jargon
that you so often hear with Triathlon chat.
(low rumbling music)
(funky guitar music)
No, we're not talking about your coach,
and we're not talking about your running shoes either.
This is actually one that got me when I started Triathlon.
As anyone talking about their trainer,
is actually referring to their turbo trainer.
Unsurprisingly, this one comes from swimming,
and my coach used to talk about it all the time.
It's that feeling that you know when you know.
Basically, getting a feel for the water means feeling good.
It's quite often put into your training program
when maybe you've been out of the water for a little while,
or you've been traveling, and you might have to
get in and just get a feel for the water.
So you're getting a good catch, and you just feel strong.
Here, we're referring to the aero bars on a TT bike.
You might have to come off the bars, if say,
you've got a technical or a steep descent.
And maybe in poor weather conditions,
you might hear athletes talking about
hardly spending any time on the bars,
basically meaning they will have had to be on the base bars
of their bike instead of in the aero position
in order to control their bike.
This one takes us back to the pool.
If you swim with a squad,
you might hear the coach saying leave five, or leave ten.
Well, they're referring to the number of seconds
that you need to leave between you and the swimmer in front.
And other terminology that's referring to the clock
will be going on the top, the bottom,
or maybe on the fifteen.
Well that's quite simply referring to where the second hand
is on the clock, and if it's a digital clock in your pool,
then that's basically going to be on nought seconds,
fifteen seconds, or thirty seconds for example.
Some days are harder than others, and if you've been set
a tough session that doesn't quite go to plan,
then maybe it's because you don't have the legs that day.
If you hear someone saying that, well they're basically
referring to feeling rather tired, and if a session is say,
set to power numbers, or times to hit, then you might
hear people saying, just not hitting the numbers.
Again, another reference to just the session
not quite going to plan.
Really we need a whole other video for these
effort level terms, but if someone says to you
they're doing an FTP test, or they're doing a VO2
or LTHR session, that basically means it's a hard effort.
For example, the VO2 is your maximal oxygen intake.
LTHR is your lactic threshold heart rate,
and FTP is your functional threshold power test,
and that's basically your maximum effort
that you can maintain for one hour.
I love this one.
It's the wind down in training load
as you get close to a race.
Basically, your training is going to get easier
so that your body can start to feel good
and you're going to be conditioned perfectly for race day.
These are often used within a taper.
It's about getting your legs to feel good,
so if you've had a hard session the day before,
then you might be instructed to just go for
a bit of a spin on the bike
or a run to loosen up the legs.
Another one is pick ups.
This basically refers to going and doing a fairly
easy level effort, but with some increases
in pace and intensity for very short periods of time.
And they're just designed to help you feel good,
often put in, again, just the day before a race.
You might have been out on a bike ride,
and heard someone say, Aw, I can't go any faster today
cos I'm in zone 2 training.
Well generally speaking, there are five zones
that refer to effort levels as measured on power
or heart rate, and they go from one to five,
one being the easiest, five being the hardest.
That should have filled in a few gaps, so the next time
a friend or training partner talks about the splits
from their LTHR session they did on their trainer,
you don't just have to nod and smile awkwardly.
But if there were any terms that used to confuse you,
that you now know what they mean, do share them
in the comments section below, or if there's any
that we missed out, let us know as well.
Hopefully you've enjoyed it.
Hit the thumb up button.
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you get all of our videos here at GTN.
If you want a video on common swimming mistakes, so that
you don't have to make them, you can find that down here.
And if you want some more jargon busters,
well Mark actually made a video, and that one's down here.