Set design for HIT training for the 200m and 400m events.
Have any of you any experience with this? I know there are prominent sprinters among you of the HIT persuasion, but have it been done for, say, the 400 IM or 200 ***?
Both in my teens and the four years I have been swimming masters, I have focused on mid distance and distance events - the 400, 800 and 1500 free, the 400 and 200 IM and the 200 *** and fly. I've been doing traditional high volume training, although as a master, 'high volume' is a third or less of what it used to be.
The last two years I've incorporated an increasing amount of race pace training, and the first set after warm up is always a sprint set - 4-8x10-25 m. For the 1500, race pace training is close to traditional nx100 sets, but with a keener eye for the rep times.
I am now thinking of taking it further. After finding this link on the Science of Swimming thread, I am curious to see if one can train for the 200m and 400m events with HIT training as explained here:
coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../energy39.pdf
The problem now is how do I design the sets and the workouts? I get a fair idea of how to train for the various 200s, but I find the paper vague when it comes to IM training. Do I swim one set of each stroke? 20x50, 'five of each'? Or do I mimic the race by swimming the repeats in IM order - 50 fly, 50 back, then ***, free, fly, back, *** etc for the 200 and, perhaps, 2xfly, 2xback, 2xbreast etc for the 400?
And if this is an acceptable interpretation one will probably have to add some mixed style repeats to practice the turns, but then speed will be harder to monitor.
