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thetrilife.com triathlon jargon buster
Cadence: Cadence is most commonly spoken about in connection with cycling. Your cadence is how quickly you are turning the pedals or your revolutions per minute (rpm). In cycling, it is usually suggested that 90 rpm is an efficient cadence to use because of the activation and utlisisation of your slow twitch muscles at this cadence. Whilst this is excellent advice, it is a topic of ongoing research and discussion amongst coaches.
Drills: Drills are exercises that are used mostly in swimming but are relevant and should be used in each triathlon discipline. A drill is an exercise that exaggerates or promotes a sepecific beneficial movement. For example, in swimming a drill would be “Finger Trail”, in cycling a drill would be “Single Leg Cycling” and in running a drill would be “Strides”. thetrilife.com has produced a database of swimming drills in Stroke Builder an app for IPhone and IPad.
RPE or Rate of Perceived Exertion: RPE is an athletes assessment of exercise intensity, formed by assessing their breathing rate and level of discomfort. The 15 point Borg Scale shown below is commonly used.6 – 20% effort
7 – 30% effort – Very, very light (Rest)
8 – 40% effort
9 – 50% effort – Very light – gentle walking
10 – 55% effort
11 – 60% effort – Fairly light
12 – 65% effort
13 – 70% effort – Somewhat hard – steady pace
14 – 75% effort
15 – 80% effort – Hard
16 – 85% effort
17 – 90% effort – Very hard
18 – 95% effort
19 – 100% effort – Very, very hard
20 – ExhaustionSpinning: A term usually related to cycling, meaning to pedal with light resistance at a cadence that would most likely be above 90 rpm. Mainly used as a recovery technique, spinning should be low intensity.
Training zones: Training zones are used by athletes to describe the effort level that they training at. This in turn dictates the physiological benefits of the training. There are a number of ways of describing training zones ie., heart rate, rate of perceived exertion, power.
