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.
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I guess the basic question that is emerging at this point is this: if you do, say, 1 or--at the most--2 pure slow distance swims per week, but you do this against a background of other practices of reasonably high and challenging quality, will the garbage yards help at all? Or would you be better off just resting those days?
I suppose time will tell. As of now, I am betting they will help me. But who knows?
I do feel I am creeping slowly but surely in a positive endurance direction. On the other hand, a tweaked shoulder and general feeling of being run down argues that maybe I am deluding myself.
More as the data filters in...
I think everyone has their own definition of what garbage yardage is. Mine is that it is yardage only for the sake of yardage AND at the expense of technique AND without regard to a prudent recovery element. That said, if one doesn't care about form, recovery, and the main goal is to get in x amount of yardage per day over x period of time, then that is a fine goal, albeit not mine! There is no requirement that there be any improvement in technique, form, or speed in masters. I can completely see the point in making a yardage goal, in itself, the only goal. Perhaps one day I will attempt to swim 100 days in a row or an endurance swim and at that point, I wouldn't be paying attention to my form or having a cohernent thought anyway by the end of that race! And for me to make it to 100 days in a row, maybe not for you or another other forum reader, but for ME to make it there, i'll be slopping my body up and down the pool with whatever body parts are still working to just wheeze in to my 100th day.
But back to your original (rhetorical? were you expected an answer? well, here's mine, anyway) question - it is not whether the "garbage" yardage will help or not, but whether I want to go to the club and take a shower. I might as well get something in while i'm there. In fact, today I did about 500, nothing hard and random stops along the way. I think it was helpful - not only did I get squeeky clean with awesome water pressure shower and free toilettries and hot towels that I don't have to launder, but I also relieved the stresses of stupid idiots doing stupid things in my bankruptcy cases!
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I guess the basic question that is emerging at this point is this: if you do, say, 1 or--at the most--2 pure slow distance swims per week, but you do this against a background of other practices of reasonably high and challenging quality, will the garbage yards help at all? Or would you be better off just resting those days?
I suppose time will tell. As of now, I am betting they will help me. But who knows?
I do feel I am creeping slowly but surely in a positive endurance direction. On the other hand, a tweaked shoulder and general feeling of being run down argues that maybe I am deluding myself.
More as the data filters in...
I think everyone has their own definition of what garbage yardage is. Mine is that it is yardage only for the sake of yardage AND at the expense of technique AND without regard to a prudent recovery element. That said, if one doesn't care about form, recovery, and the main goal is to get in x amount of yardage per day over x period of time, then that is a fine goal, albeit not mine! There is no requirement that there be any improvement in technique, form, or speed in masters. I can completely see the point in making a yardage goal, in itself, the only goal. Perhaps one day I will attempt to swim 100 days in a row or an endurance swim and at that point, I wouldn't be paying attention to my form or having a cohernent thought anyway by the end of that race! And for me to make it to 100 days in a row, maybe not for you or another other forum reader, but for ME to make it there, i'll be slopping my body up and down the pool with whatever body parts are still working to just wheeze in to my 100th day.
But back to your original (rhetorical? were you expected an answer? well, here's mine, anyway) question - it is not whether the "garbage" yardage will help or not, but whether I want to go to the club and take a shower. I might as well get something in while i'm there. In fact, today I did about 500, nothing hard and random stops along the way. I think it was helpful - not only did I get squeeky clean with awesome water pressure shower and free toilettries and hot towels that I don't have to launder, but I also relieved the stresses of stupid idiots doing stupid things in my bankruptcy cases!
