Not so sure about that. I'd summarize his position as "too many people are training to be really good trainers, when the goal should be to be the best racer." Rushall's opinion seems to be that anything other than race-paced training is suboptimal. You might not be truly "wasting your time" by doing long aerobic sets, but you could get more bang for the buck by doing a race-paced set instead. Well, let us not mix things up....
Context. Most swimmers targeted by this study (ie, elite) do swim more than once a day. I don't think Rushall recommends for instance to commit to 9 or 10 sessions of these per week. I think he goes as far as suggesting one session per day, which assuming a day off per week, translates into 6 sessions per week, which typically leaves at least 3 sessions for basic endurance work, as normally you'd combine technical work along with UTS. It's a well known fact that too many swimmers tend to perform much better at quality work during the afternoon swim. This leaves the AM session for working out the Threshold etc...
All warmup cool down work is low level endurance right? At least half of your overall technical work will rely heavily on aerobic metabolism to supply energy. Sorry but you don't sprint sculling. You may sprint the single arm drill, but will you do it every time you do single arm drill? I doubt so.
I don't think you can go over 1 full kilo of work (working time, not resting volume) at UTS. Say you go for 12.5m, that means 80 times. Say that you keep the rest distance = it sums up to 2k session, which again there leaves at least 1 kilo for warming up, 500k for technique maybe and 500m for cool down for a total of 4k in total. Note that the hard work only represents a quarter of the overall mileage.
So even Rushall himself couldn't deny the fact that all in all, most volume done by swimmers who do commit to UST will remain done under race pace.
I rather see his statement as an intensive to:
1. Include race pace work if it's not already on your menu
2. Favor UST over AC (Anaerobic Capacity) work
As simple as that.
Not so sure about that. I'd summarize his position as "too many people are training to be really good trainers, when the goal should be to be the best racer." Rushall's opinion seems to be that anything other than race-paced training is suboptimal. You might not be truly "wasting your time" by doing long aerobic sets, but you could get more bang for the buck by doing a race-paced set instead.
edit: I think this quote sums it up
Yes but let us not overlook this here:
While other forms of training are possible, the more those forms deviate from replicating the energy supply and biomechanics demanded of every swimmer's racing intentions, the less beneficial they will be.
And that, Knelson, basically explain why swimmers (read, coaches) that don't buy Rushall's ideas on UST, will still be able to outperform those who buy it.
40x12.5 hard followed by 12.5 easy is Rushall's way. 8x100m fast with 150m of technique in between each would be the Anaerobic Capacity way (in its purest form for the sake of making my point). They both address race pace. And everyone on usms know how the last 25m of a 100m usually feels like....
Rushall believes that it's better to limit this form of work, not because it's not efficient, but because according to his paper, it would be too energy consuming... His point is that UST has an edge as it allows for working at race pace every day. You just can not come back with 8x100m fast once a day. So I guess that a fair compromise could be to increase the volume of UST, and decrease the volume of AC work.
Like I said earlier, Rushall is an activist, but a smart one still...
It may be worth to quickly replace all this in the context of your master enthusiast that trains 3-4 times per week. Recovery between sessions is such that glycogen store is likely be replenished, which already there, makes Rushall's UTS far less relevant.
Not so sure about that. I'd summarize his position as "too many people are training to be really good trainers, when the goal should be to be the best racer." Rushall's opinion seems to be that anything other than race-paced training is suboptimal. You might not be truly "wasting your time" by doing long aerobic sets, but you could get more bang for the buck by doing a race-paced set instead. Well, let us not mix things up....
Context. Most swimmers targeted by this study (ie, elite) do swim more than once a day. I don't think Rushall recommends for instance to commit to 9 or 10 sessions of these per week. I think he goes as far as suggesting one session per day, which assuming a day off per week, translates into 6 sessions per week, which typically leaves at least 3 sessions for basic endurance work, as normally you'd combine technical work along with UTS. It's a well known fact that too many swimmers tend to perform much better at quality work during the afternoon swim. This leaves the AM session for working out the Threshold etc...
All warmup cool down work is low level endurance right? At least half of your overall technical work will rely heavily on aerobic metabolism to supply energy. Sorry but you don't sprint sculling. You may sprint the single arm drill, but will you do it every time you do single arm drill? I doubt so.
I don't think you can go over 1 full kilo of work (working time, not resting volume) at UTS. Say you go for 12.5m, that means 80 times. Say that you keep the rest distance = it sums up to 2k session, which again there leaves at least 1 kilo for warming up, 500k for technique maybe and 500m for cool down for a total of 4k in total. Note that the hard work only represents a quarter of the overall mileage.
So even Rushall himself couldn't deny the fact that all in all, most volume done by swimmers who do commit to UST will remain done under race pace.
I rather see his statement as an intensive to:
1. Include race pace work if it's not already on your menu
2. Favor UST over AC (Anaerobic Capacity) work
As simple as that.
Not so sure about that. I'd summarize his position as "too many people are training to be really good trainers, when the goal should be to be the best racer." Rushall's opinion seems to be that anything other than race-paced training is suboptimal. You might not be truly "wasting your time" by doing long aerobic sets, but you could get more bang for the buck by doing a race-paced set instead.
edit: I think this quote sums it up
Yes but let us not overlook this here:
While other forms of training are possible, the more those forms deviate from replicating the energy supply and biomechanics demanded of every swimmer's racing intentions, the less beneficial they will be.
And that, Knelson, basically explain why swimmers (read, coaches) that don't buy Rushall's ideas on UST, will still be able to outperform those who buy it.
40x12.5 hard followed by 12.5 easy is Rushall's way. 8x100m fast with 150m of technique in between each would be the Anaerobic Capacity way (in its purest form for the sake of making my point). They both address race pace. And everyone on usms know how the last 25m of a 100m usually feels like....
Rushall believes that it's better to limit this form of work, not because it's not efficient, but because according to his paper, it would be too energy consuming... His point is that UST has an edge as it allows for working at race pace every day. You just can not come back with 8x100m fast once a day. So I guess that a fair compromise could be to increase the volume of UST, and decrease the volume of AC work.
Like I said earlier, Rushall is an activist, but a smart one still...
It may be worth to quickly replace all this in the context of your master enthusiast that trains 3-4 times per week. Recovery between sessions is such that glycogen store is likely be replenished, which already there, makes Rushall's UTS far less relevant.
