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.
Hey, thanks for the kind words from my fellow masters swimmers across the pond. Much appreciated.
To answer Jim's question - My heart rate was pretty normal (for a swimmer) before I stepped up the yardage. I have a friend who is a pharmacist. He supplies me with magnesium and potassium tablets, and also beta-blockers. I eat them like sweets, although I know I shouldn't! These help to keep my resting pulse rate down. Every three months I have a course of botox around my eyes. This keeps the eye muscles and nerves absolutely solid. It may sound like I go to extremes, but I'm used to it now. It's only when I tell people how I work that it doesn't sound so normal.
Graham, there is so much about your life (as gleaned from the Discovery Channel video) that strikes me as fascinating. But I shall confine myself to a few brief inquiries:
Do you take beta blockers on an ongoing, or an "as needed" basis? Since they work fairly quickly, I would think you wouldn't need to take them all the time, rather just before you are engraving, although perhaps you do this every day?
I read someplace that botox injections can have a beneficial effect on depressed mood by relaxing, so to speak, a brow otherwise furrowed with woe. It sounds ridiculous, but supposedly it actually works--sort of like the old pencil test--not that pencil test for strapless evening gowns, but rather the one that found if you hold a pencil in your mouth horizontally, it improves mood, presumably by activating muscles used when smiling; if you place it in the other way, i.e., hotdog eating style, it dampens mood, presumably by activating muscles used during a frown. Anyhow, have you had any mood effects from botox or, for that matter, eating hotdogs?
I once interviewed Al Teague, a legendary land speed racer who holds all sorts of high speed driving records on the Bonneville Salt Flats and other locales. He only raced piston driven cars--he found so-called "rocket cars" to violate the spirit of racing. I suspect with nanotechnology that there are high tech ways to write messages almost on the level of individual atoms. Does this kind of approach appeal to you, or are you--like Al Teague--a purist of sorts who is committed to doing this amazing work by hand?
Penultimately, to bring things back a bit to swimming, I am amazed that you can do 10K per day long term without just breaking down. I swam 6500 yards (shorter than meters!) the other day, and my shoulders were definitely starting to grind a bit. Is your daily 10K something that your body has just gotten used to? Does it cause any problems? Do you ever rest? Any advice for the likes of me?
Finally, have you every swum the English Channel? I once tried to get permission to jetski across it, but France wouldn't allow this. The thought of ending up in a french prison, being fattened to death on glorious food served by surly waiters--well, I didn't pursue it, opting instead to cross the Bering Straights instead. But I digress. Excellent to meet you online!
a regular part of my training consists of long sets... 3000 - 9000 yds @ x (100 - 200 yds) on an interval that allows me 5-10 seconds rest.
additionally, i'll impose a strict SPL to be maintained throughout.
no, this isn't going to help me swim a fast 50, but it does wonders for the 1650 (which is still a sprint in my book)
The part about 1650 being a "sprint" made me do a bit of a double-take. But then I thought about it and realized that - on a much smaller scale - my own perception of what's a "long" swim has changed as a result of doing long slow distance (LSD) swims. When I was younger, racing a 500 seemed nuts. I never dared try it. But more recently, before changing things up in preparation for racing, I was doing an LSD day each week - a 45 minute continuous swim, also focusing on SPL and keeping my technique decent. As a result, I'll be trying the 500 in that upcoming meet - and it doesn't seem like such a big deal. I probably won't be swimming it very fast - but the point is that maybe another benefit of LSD swims is that they change your relative sense of "distance."
Not that I ever expect to call a 1650 a "sprint," though...!
The part about 1650 being a "sprint" made me do a bit of a double-take. But then I thought about it and realized that - on a much smaller scale - my own perception of what's a "long" swim has changed as a result of doing long slow distance (LSD) swims. When I was younger, racing a 500 seemed nuts. I never dared try it. But more recently, before changing things up in preparation for racing, I was doing an LSD day each week - a 45 minute continuous swim, also focusing on SPL and keeping my technique decent. As a result, I'll be trying the 500 in that upcoming meet - and it doesn't seem like such a big deal. I probably won't be swimming it very fast - but the point is that maybe another benefit of LSD swims is that they change your relative sense of "distance."
Not that I ever expect to call a 1650 a "sprint," though...!
I agree with you.
I swim the hour postal swim in late January to make the 1650 seem less daunting.
Then I swim the 1650 in late February to make the 1000 and 500 less daunting.
But nothing seems to make the 200 less daunting. Not sure why that is.
a...
no, this isn't going to help me swim a fast 50, but it does wonders for the 1650 (which is still a sprint in my book)
I agree. I can't swim a fast 50 to save my life, but I prefer the longer events, so it doesn't matter,
Jim, I'm aware I'm taking this thread off its original topic. I didn't mean to do so.
I can't work more than 5 days at a time. I get too tired, so I have to follow this with three normal days when I don't work during the night. I take the beta blockers when I arrive at work at 10.00 pm every evening.
I've never noticed mood changes caused by the botox. I'm grumpy most of the time anyway! Sometimes the doctor pumps in too much, causing some paralysis around my mouth. Many times, after the injections, I can't blink for about five days. I'm continually pulling my eyelids down by hand to lubricate my eyes. This wears off though, after a week or so.
I suppose there must be high-tech ways of imprinting lettering on something as small as atoms. I wouldn't know how to do this. I simply use very fine needles which I rub down even more, using an Arkansas stone which the American banknote engravers use.
I can understand you feeling tired after doing 6,500 yards in a set. Believe me, your body will adapt to this after a while. A few years ago I had a shoulder problem when swimming 10k a day, and had to rest for a few weeks, but I was doing 7,000m of this on fly in those sessions. Now I only do front crawl. 10 years ago when I was 55 years old I got down to 2:37.7 secs for 200m fly. I can't get anywhere near it now. In fact I don't swim fly at all.
As for swimming the English Channel - Don't be ridiculous!! I hate cold water and without a straight line on the bottom of the pool I can't swim straight.
But nothing seems to make the 200 less daunting. Not sure why that is.Because the 200 freestyle is an evil event. I think I currently hate it even more than the 50 breaststroke.
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
Jim does math, intriguing.
While true the exertion lasts about 25% less time, the amount of exertion is substantially greater than doing it at 2:00. There is probably some mathematical formula at play here, chime in at any time knelson.
I am not sure this is actually true. I will agree that effort/hydrodynamic resistance increases greatly (exponentially?) with increasing speed, but that is so within a given swimmer.
Some of these 6' 5" sleek behemoths with their gigantic flipper feet and hands the size of paddles and ripped abdomens devoid of flapping fat are like America's Cup yachts compared to New York Harbor tugboats of your typical Thornton-style geriatric competitor.
I would venture to bet that were we to rig up both the NCAA champion and me at the end of our respective best 200s of any given year, the testing apparatus would suggest without doubt that one of us had been moved, by his efforts, considerably closer to the boneyard than the other.
You can tell which one of this is by the fact that the one who has exerted himself more continues to lie down on the pool deck where the handicapped hoist has plopped him for a good half hour, while the other one has merrily jogged off to show the women's team his abdomen, giant feet, giant hands, and the rest of the championship package.
A few notes on this fascinating thread:
1. Graham, your skill is incredible, my handwriting--normal size--doesn't look that good! What patience!
2. It really should be "Il garbagio" if we're going for an Italianate feel (just sayin'...)
3. I'm not sure if analogy can be called evidence in this case; but, if you are looking for physiological evidence I think the analogy with running is pretty good (sprinters don't do a lot of mileage... distance runners do a lot of mileage).
4. following on the last point: distance runners do a lot of LT work and some sprint work too, but the vast majority of their work is in the aerobic range. The faster distance runners have higher LT, but threshold training may only account for 20-30% of overall mileage. Would they call the 65-75% of their mileage at slower aerobic pace garbagio?
5. So following points 4-5, what for a distance runner is essential might be garbagio, indeed even detrimental, for a sprinter... I agree, then, that one person's garbagio is another's tesoro!
6. 200s are pretty close to the swimming equivalent of running's 800 (or vice versa)... 400 is a sprint, but 1500 is middle distance; the 800 is just a puke fest (I went all the way to HS state meet three times at that distance... probably one of the reasons I love/hate to do interval 200s in the pool now).
Thanks for the thread!
