Training Impulse

Training Impulse is a website dedicated to developing and promoting a greater understanding of the measurement of training load in both applied and academic settings. Training Impulse (TRIMP) is a term coined by Eric Banister in his early research on training load monitoring. Since then you may have seen or heard the term “TRIMP” used by numerous authors and companies.

Banister used TRIMP, (an integration of time, intensity and relative weighting of the intensity of exercise) to describe the exercise “dose” as a single number. Many studies have been conducted in the intervening years that have produced, compared and supposedly validated the use of different measures of exercise “load” for application in sports and athletic training.

This website is dedicated to assessing this field and informing developments in applied settings through research and discussion with like minded individuals. It is hoped that this website will provide a forum for researchers and practitioners and act as an online community for those wishing to learn more about this area and enhance applied practice.

Having reviewed the training load research it is clear that both research and technological developments have set the basis for where we find ourselves today in the applied environment. Hopefully the information provided on this website allows you to assess how much of this has been positive and what has been misleading. We may not always find the answers but are we asking the right questions?

“A scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's the one who asks the right questions."

Claude Levi Strauss (1908 - 2009)

I hope that the numerous practitioners who rely on researchers for direction and often lack the resources and time in their busy environments find this website useful as a starting point to explore and understand this most cumbersome of areas. For those students, researchers and practitioners that have consulted me in recent times you have motivated me to create such a resource and I hope this website keeps you up to date with developments in the area.

Dr Ibrahim Akubat