My apologies up front for asking a question that has been asked on various different threads over the past couple of years I have been in USMS. I don't remember the responses, however, and can't seem to find the answers in my searches.
Here's the deal: I started as a breaststroker and only competed in the three breaststroke events as a newbie. Seven months later, however, I competed in a pentathlon and found I really enjoyed racing the stroke sprints and 100 IM. Last year, I ended up winning my age group and felt even more encouraged to continue working on my other strokes.
Recently, I attempted an easy 400 IM in workout to see if I could swim a 100 fly without pausing at the walls. I came in at 7:24 :cane:, but it wasn't the worst in my age group in the rankings! :D
Today, after my usual three day post-meet bout of insomnia, I thought, what the heck, I'll try it again. (Yes, I AM crazy!) Again, I took the fly out very easy with the intent of surviving without rescue. My time ended up 7:16, now placing me 56 out of 71 in my age group; still low, but improved. :wiggle: So, now, I'm thinking of giving it some real effort and see where I can go with this...
50 breaststroke is my best event, followed by 100 breaststroke. After that is 50 free and 100 IM. Don't even ask where my 200 breaststroke rates... :bitching: But, my 400 IM, with some effort, will have it beat soon enough.
As a six day per week swimmer on pace to beat my goal of 400 miles for the year, how would you recommend I plan my swim week out to train 400 IM without losing breaststroke speed? I average 3,000 yards per workout and currently dedicate Mondays and Fridays to Allen's breaststroke sets or Ande's sprint IM sets that he wrote up for me. Saturday is my recovery day. September thru May, I train in a challenging coached adult program and swim 3,500 - 3,800yards; a mix of speed, endurance, etc.
Any advice or suggestions would be most appreciated! (Oh, and, by the way, I am working up to swimming 400m IM and 200yd fly, too.) :afraid:I hope to swim 400IM at Dixie Zone Championships, in August, and see where it goes from there. :worms:
Former Member
If these were my goals, I would handle it by putting my sprint training on hold until September then follow conventional training plans for 400 IM through your target meet in August. Just consider it your summer of torture--er, distance!
If these were my goals, I would handle it by putting my sprint training on hold until September then follow conventional training plans for 400 IM through your target meet in August. Just consider it your summer of torture--er, distance!
Why put the sprint training on hold? A full sprinters workout would only take another 7-8 minutes/day.
Elaine, I think I've mentioned this to you before but one of my favorite IM training sets is 20 x 50 IM order on :50(1:00 br). You should adjust the intervals accordingly. Generally I get about 8 secs on fly,6 on back, 12 on br and 10 on free. This keeps that heart rate up and while it's short distances, it adds to 1000 IM or 5 broken 200s so it's also a longer distance IM, too and it helps me get used to going that longer distance without much rest. I'm usually dragging by the end but it feels great to finish!
Enjoy!
Heidi
My opinion is you don't really need to do distance IM or stroke sets to do well in the 400 IM, but you need to be getting that aerobic training in somewhere. It's kind of up to you. If you like doing long stroke sets, go for it, but if not you could also just get in a couple good aerobic free sets per week. My team does almost all our aerobic training freestyle with more of a quality emphasis on the stroke and it has not adversely affected my IM times. By my thinking an aerobic set means swimming for at least 30 minutes at a steady pace without much rest. Also, don't go in assuming you need one day to be a distance day and the next day is your sprint day. You can always do an aerobic set and then follow it up with a sprint set in the same workout.
HIT isn't unique to sprinters. And, all sets should be quality, regardless of distance. I disagree that sprinters don't benefit from heavy aerobic. I see aerobic all the time from sprinters, all of whom are headed to trials. But, they sure aren't doing it now.
I agree that quality is for all. Quality is not the equivalent of HIT though. And by all means you D folk should do some AFAP 500s or 400 IMs for time.
USAS teams seem mostly about aerobic work. So it's unsurprising that kids going to trials are doing it. They also seem to have longer seasons than masters and hence some periodized aerobic work may be ideal. I've also read that the teen years are when you need to develop your aerobic engine. I have no idea if this is baloney. And of course anaerobic work trains the aerobic systems also. Maybe race pace work will be more in vogue for kids with Michael Andrews approach getting so much attention. I would think it would cut down on burnout, which seems to be a significant problem.
For me, heavy aerobic work would trash my sprinting. Im undoubtedly faster without it. I even remember my best season as a kid in LCM was when I slept through some practices and loafed some sets, pissing my coaches off. I suspect people are different responders.
Now I must go back to my diva hot tubing.
I agree that quality is for all. Quality is not the equivalent of HIT though.
The notion that HIT is some exclusive club for sprinters is not true. You can HIT no matter what your events are.
And, I'm not just referring to kids doing heavy aerobic. It is useful for many of our older OT sprinters.
The notion that HIT is some exclusive club for sprinters is not true. You can HIT no matter what your events are.
I get what you're saying and I agree. But HIT does not include "heavy aerobic" for example. It might include, as I mentioned, 400 IMs for time with plenty of rest. HIT = brief, intense, infrequent, right? To answer Chris' post, quality seems like a broader category than HIT. I can see the descending sets Geek mentioned as quality, but not HIT. Quality is a set with a specific purpose for X event that requires some (perhaps varying) effort and is not just junk yardage short rest repeats.
Aerobic work is necessary for a 100 LCM sprint (LCM sprinting is very different than SCY sprinting). For sure. Still, heavy aerobic work depletes glycogen stores, fatigues fast twitch muscles and diminishes force production. That's why it has to be periodized for even elite sprinters, I would imagine. And who really knows what the ideal mix of training is? There's not much science on the topic. Maybe less "heavy aerobic" and more HIT year round would be better for those sprinters?
Masters are a whole different species. Most of us can't train, either because of time or physiology limitations, like kids.
I guess my opinion is that HIT hasn't been co-opted to be one type of HIT. Maybe there is HIT sprint training and HIT IM/Distance, etc. I mean, doing a 50 and getting your HR to 180+ for one minute is HIT and so is a 40 minute set @ 155-160.
You can maximize your sprint potential with HIT training.
You can be pretty good at sprints and able to do longer races by blending HIT training with longer sets.
