In my most recent blog entry, "One Man's Garbage..." forums.usms.org/blog.php , I asked my fellow swimmers their respective opinions on the impact long, slow, continuous swimming has on meet performance.
The expression "garbage yards" (and the pejorative overtones such a phrase conjurs) has become so embedded in the forum lexicon that many, I suspect, now consider as indisputable truth swimming this way is a waste of time for anyone with competitive ambitions.
Such a view appears particularly well-entrenched among the many non-credentialed exercise physiology pontificators here on the forums who also have a fondness for sprinting and dry land exercise.
But is the concept of garbage yards truly valid--or a kind of urban legend made up largely by sprinters who would rather be doing something other than spending 90 minutes without stopping in the pool?
I don't mean only practicing this way. But if you are, like me, inclined to enjoy swimming, once or twice a week, long, slow, relatively relaxing, continuous yards, do you believe (and more importantly, perhaps, have any evidence to bolster said belief) that so-called "garbage yards" can have some value for actual racing?
Or do these only teach your body to swim slow?
I invite you to read my recent blog forums.usms.org/blog.php and post your thoughts advice there or here.
At the risk of provoking censure by the forum authorities, I furthermore ask you to leave all civility by the wayside.
Feel free to trash talk and smack upside the head of any and every one who disagrees with your personal bias here!
It's been way too long since these forums have had a good, old-fashioned range war of opinions run amuk and ad hominem attacks!
Go at each other tooth and claw. It will only stir the blood of us all, I say--something we garbage yard enthusiasts probably need a bit more of, I will admit.
I didn't participate in the poll as it looks like"heads I win tails you lose."
1) is pro distance
2)is pro distance
3) is neutral
Come on.
Allen, I apologize for not responding to your perspicacious comment earlier.
I had actually semi-noticed that 1 & 2 do actually say more or less the same thing, i.e., that El Garbagio is a myth. I should have worded answer #2 more clearly so that it was the obvious choice for those who believe garbage yards are a real phenomenon, and that they contribute nothing positive, and most likely something negative (i.e., teaching your body to swim slowly) to meet performance.
I had hoped that the broader question at the top of the poll would have finessed this, i.e., the part that describes the three possibilities as Yay, Nay, and Meh.
I hadn't reckoned that the poll would be deconstructed by a practicing psychiatrist-breaststroking vundermensch, two-thirds of which, I shall concede, has been the undoing of many of my lazy intellectual efforts over the years.
For those of you who missed the definition of "Meh" when it won "word of the year" honors in 2007, here it is with some examples of it being used in actual sentences:
May 22, 2007 Urban Word of the Day
Indifference; to be used when one simply does not care.
A: What do you want for dinner?
B: Meh.
"The verbal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders." -quoth me
"(While holding gun to their own head) Give me one good reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger!"
"meh."
Used in the greatest tv show of all time The Simpsons. in the episode Hungry, Hungry Homer, bart and lisa respond to a homer inquiry with "meh". mystery solved
Homer: Kids, how would you like to go... to Blockoland!
Bart & Lisa: Meh.
Homer: But the TV. gave the impression that--
Bart: We said "meh".
Lisa: M-E-H. Meh.
--from Urban Dictionary
I didn't participate in the poll as it looks like"heads I win tails you lose."
1) is pro distance
2)is pro distance
3) is neutral
Come on.
Allen, I apologize for not responding to your perspicacious comment earlier.
I had actually semi-noticed that 1 & 2 do actually say more or less the same thing, i.e., that El Garbagio is a myth. I should have worded answer #2 more clearly so that it was the obvious choice for those who believe garbage yards are a real phenomenon, and that they contribute nothing positive, and most likely something negative (i.e., teaching your body to swim slowly) to meet performance.
I had hoped that the broader question at the top of the poll would have finessed this, i.e., the part that describes the three possibilities as Yay, Nay, and Meh.
I hadn't reckoned that the poll would be deconstructed by a practicing psychiatrist-breaststroking vundermensch, two-thirds of which, I shall concede, has been the undoing of many of my lazy intellectual efforts over the years.
For those of you who missed the definition of "Meh" when it won "word of the year" honors in 2007, here it is with some examples of it being used in actual sentences:
May 22, 2007 Urban Word of the Day
Indifference; to be used when one simply does not care.
A: What do you want for dinner?
B: Meh.
"The verbal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders." -quoth me
"(While holding gun to their own head) Give me one good reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger!"
"meh."
Used in the greatest tv show of all time The Simpsons. in the episode Hungry, Hungry Homer, bart and lisa respond to a homer inquiry with "meh". mystery solved
Homer: Kids, how would you like to go... to Blockoland!
Bart & Lisa: Meh.
Homer: But the TV. gave the impression that--
Bart: We said "meh".
Lisa: M-E-H. Meh.
--from Urban Dictionary
