If the major car companies, electronics companies and other industries can get together ad agree on certain industry standards, why not swimming? Do you think that all computer firms just suddenly come up with the USB? No, they all agreed to the design, capabilities and limitations, so all could compete and flourish on par.
Same goes for swimming, but it hasn't happened yet. Lap or Length have been argued to death here, with no consensus. This morning I was reminded of another set of easily confused terms; build and descend. I was taught that build meant increase speed (or at least effort) during the individual swim you are about to perform, descend was to make each swim in a set a little faster, so the last 100 (or whatever the distance) was faster than the first one .
Anyone else have terms of inconsistency or ambiguity? Can we get the coaches to issue forth a letter of understanding on certain terms, so we have an interchangeable vernacular across the country?
Best average means work them all hard. Don't blast the first one or two repeats so the remainder drop off a lot. Don't be gutless in the beginning, saving up for the end.
That's what I was trying to say - meaning that, since you're going for the fastest average possible, you have to go all out from the beginning, whether you think you can maintain that time or not.
That's what I was trying to say - meaning that, since you're going for the fastest average possible, you have to go all out from the beginning, whether you think you can maintain that time or not.
I disagree with this. For a successful best average set you have to know your own body and fitness level very well. If you go too fast on the first one or two you may fall apart later in the set. If your fastest swim is your last one then you haven't swum the set correctly.
My standard best average set is 10 X 50 meters on the 3:00. I try to keep my average time at :30 or below. If I'm 29.5 on the first one I'm minus .5. In order to keep track while I'm delerious, it's just easier to do the +/- calculation in my head. If, at the end of the 10th repeat I'm +2 my average time was 30.2. Make sense?
Best Ave sets have become the staple of our training. We do these every Tues and Thurs.
10x100's on 2:00 mins
or
5x200's on 4:00 mins
Every three weeks we up the repetitions by 2 and try to maintain and/or drop the overall best average. We track and graph our performance as we go. We also alternate stoke. One week we do 10x100's free (Tues) and 5x200's backstroke (Thurs) (or stroke) the next we do 5x200's free and then 10x100's backstroke. Overall goal is to get to a 1:1 ratio of swim to rest. These hurt if you truly find your best ave limit!
Enlighten us please. What is 'mustard stroke'?
My "mustard" drill is when you swim 3 strokes of full-catch up drill, and then 3 strokes of your regular swim stroke, and keep that 3/3 pattern for a whole 100. Then I have them swim a regular 100 where they don't do anything special, just swim. I find this drill really only works well for those who are new to swimming and don't really know how to NOT have a windmill stroke.
My reason for starting this thread was not to see if you knew (or thought you knew) various terminology, but get the coaches to agree and use common terms exclusively instead of interchangeably.
Reminds me of a coach who screamed at a masters swimmer after he'd completed the last swim of a 10 x 100m set.
The swimmer finished a long way behind the other swimmers in the pool.
The coach screamed, "When I said Take Your Time, I meant Take Your Time, not Take Your ******* Time!!!"
We do a lot of LIFO...last in first out. Our new swimmers have such a puzzled look on the their faces the first time they hear it. As soon as the last person finishes-first person leaves.
We do a lot of LIFO...last in first out. Our new swimmers have such a puzzled look on the their faces the first time they hear it. As soon as the last person finishes-first person leaves.
We call that 'lane relay' and I haven't heard of it called anything else until now, which is interesting.
Michael, I've never heard any other definition of 'build' (get faster during each individual swim) or 'descend' (each repeat in a set faster than the one before), was this from a specific coach or in a specific area of the country?
