With the latest updates we added new performance indicators for the ones of you using heart rate monitors.
Besides having updated the interface to display your distance, training time and average speed more clearly, we’ll calculate the T2 equivalent minutes, or T2min for every session. In addition you can enter the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) to give your coach further feedback on how you experienced the training. Here we’ll explain the concept of T2min and RPE and how they are used to quantify a session.
Heart rate zones
Before we get started on T2 minutes, it is important to understand how the heart rate (HR) zones are defined. In Tracklete we follow the suggestion of the Australian National Sport Science Quality Assurance Program (check the publication of Tanner, Rebecca & Bourdon, Pitre “Standardisation of Physiology Nomenclature” from 2006, for more information).
Here, the HR zones are defined as follows:
| Zone | Description | Percent HRmax | Blood Lactate Threshold Relation | Blood Lactate mmol/L | Percent VO2max | RPE | Critical duration |
| T1 | Light Aerobic | 60–74 | Below LT1 | < 2.0 | 60-74 | Very Light | >3 hours |
| T2 | Moderate Aerobic | 75-83 | Lower half between LT1 and LT2 | 1-3 | 75-83 | Light | 1-3 hours |
| T3 | Heavy Aerobic | 84-88 | Upper half between LT1 and LT2 | 2-4 | 84-88 | Somewhat hard | 20-60 min |
| T4 | Threshold | 89-93 | LT2 | 3-6 | 89-93 | Hard | 12–30 min |
| T5 | Maximal Aerobic | 94-100 | Above LT2 | >5 | 94-100 | Very hard | 5-8 min |
Using this information, we can now define the T2min indicator.
T2min
As you’ve probably experienced, training exertion can vary depending on which sport you perform, even when training in the same heart rate zone, i.e. 60 minutes of cycling in zone 3 feel will strain you differently than 60 minutes of open water rowing in zone 3. Further more, exertion does not scale linearly with heart rate but rather exponential. The best way to measure exertion has shown to be by measuring the actual power output, as it’s routinely done by cyclists. For rowing, power meters are unfortunately rather expensive and not commonly used.
To provide a measure for the training load of rowers, Australian physiologist Dr. Tony Rice developed the T2min training load (check out the original research paper here).
The T2min training load is based on a qualitative analysis of the rowers workout sessions and calculates, depending on sport and HR zone specific weighting factors, the equivalent training time you would have spent doing open water rowing in HR Zone 2.
The weighting factors for the HR zones and sports are:
Activity (Fx) | Weighting |
| Rowing | 1 |
| Ergometer | 1.35 |
| Cycling | 0.8 |
| Spinning | 0.95 |
| Walking | 0.5 |
| Running | 1.4 |
Training zone (Fz) | Factor |
| 1 | 0.9 |
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 1.35 |
| 4 | 2.1 |
| 5 | 5 |
| 6 | 9 |
The T2min are calculated as follows:
T2min = T1min + T2min + T3min + T4min + T5min
Where TXmin is calculated from the time you were in the particular training zone (Tx) and the weighting factors of the sport (Fx) and the training zone weighting factor (Fz):
TXmin = Tx * Fx * Fz
Example calculation for T2 minutes
For example, if you did a 1h spinning session during which you were 30 minutes in zone 3, 20 min in zone 4 and 10 min in zone 5, the T2min would be:
T3min = 30 min * 0.95 * 1.35
T4min = 20 min * 0.95 * 2.1
T5min = 10 min * 0.95 * 5T2min = T3min + T4min + T5min = 125.875 min
Take away message
How does this help? With this knowledge the planing of training sessions becomes a lot more accurate. Using a fixed number of T2min as your weekly trainings goal you can plan every session weighted by its sport factor and intensity factor of the HR zones, giving you a training load indicator independent of external factors such as the sport type, boat type, distance, location, or weather.
RPE
The RPE, short for Rating of Perceived Exertion, is a feedback from the athlete to the coach of how difficult the session was for him. You are asked to input the RPE for every session. This way your coach will know better how you performed and it can help to adjust the training schedule for the next day.
The values of the RPE vary from 6-20, described in the table below, including on how they correlate to the training intensity set by the coach for the session (A-E):
| RPE Score | Feeling | Schedule indicator |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | No exertion | E |
| 7 | Very light exertion | |
| 8 | ||
| 9 | ||
| 10 | Deeper but comfortable breathing. Able to hold a conversation | |
| 11 | D | |
| 12 | ||
| 13 | aware that breathing is harder; able to talk but difficult to hold conversation | |
| 14 | C | |
| 15 | starting to breathe hard and getting uncomfortable | |
| 16 | ||
| 17 | deep and forceful breathing. Uncomfortable and not wanting to talk | B |
| 18 | ||
| 19 | Extremely hard | A |
| 20 | Maximum exertion |
To enter the RPE, open a training session and select your session RPE from the drop-down list by clicking on the “⏎” symbol in the performance indicator table on the top right.