I doubt it. Just curious why you think it would be? To me "drop dead" people only know one speed--all out. The longer the race, the worse they do because they inherently slow down more and can't pace well. UST is very much about pacing. If you try to go all out on these sets you'll pay the price very quickly.Thanks. I haven't taken the time to fully read the article but with it's shorter distance application, I believe I was confusing this with the Tabata approach, or whatever one involves brief maximum efforts (much faster than pace) with active (and to lesser extent, static) rest. Neuromuscular memory/aerobic training.
How on earth will I ever be able to come back strong on the last 25m of a 100m ***, and on the last 50m of a 200m ***, if I never go above 12.5 at race pace in training.
THAT, is the question.
The question is why I would want to sign up for a 100M or 200M *** in the first place~! :bolt:
The question is why I would want to sign up for a 100M or 200M *** in the first place~! :bolt:
Who keeps signing you up for them then?
www.usms.org/.../indresults.php
I wish I could take credit, but it wasn't me :dunno:
The question is why I would want to sign up for a 100M or 200M *** in the first place~! :bolt:
James always manages to cut through the chaff and get down to the real question!
It's pretty clear we're interpreting this substantially differently. Maybe you have some other data to suggest Rushall feels UST should be seen as just a part of an overall plan. OTOH, I'm taking what he's written in the article at face value. I believe he's advocating UST as the best form of training to use--not just some subset of the overall training plan. To me it's clear he's suggesting that UST covers all the physiological needs of training and doing anything else is in some way sub-optimal compared to UST--even including dry land conditioning and weights.
The thing I think that would make Rushall's ideas at least worth considering for many masters swimmers is that a) our bodies are wearing out, so reducing training volume intelligently is a useful thing, and b) most masters swimmers don't swim any distances greater than 200 yds in meets (most probably don't go past 100 yds per race).
To make this concrete, I used to swim 3500-4000 yards per practice 3-4 times per week (I'm a mere novice compared to most people here). Even with that relatively modest regimen I eventually developed problems with my right shoulder. I blame my 90-pound labrador retriever and her penchant for launching herself at squirrels and rabbits while attached to my shoulder via her leash in her younger days. Be that as it may, after a relatively long quiet period, I now swim much shorter workouts (rarely exceeding 2500 yards per workout) and pay much closer attention to what my shoulder tells me. Given that my workouts are shorter, I'm obviously interested in improving the quality of the yards I do swim. I do many more drills than I used to in an attempt to improve my technique, but I'm also open to at least try out race pace training of various kinds, including UST and elements of Leslie's HIT workouts.
I will admit I'm making an assumption here, too, since he doesn't directly address drills in the paper.
I was looking at the longer paper and he does specifically address drill in that one:
Throughout this paper, mentions were made of irrelevant swimming activities that do not relate to or
could improve race performance. They are most of what is commonly seen in competitive swimming
pools today. Drills, land-training, pool-use equipment (e.g., bands, pull-buoys, paddles, snorkels,
etc.), and single-energy specific training sets are irrelevant activities for influencing racing in a
positive manner.
(see coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../energy39.pdf, p 43)
So I think you can now officially put Rushall on your black list, Charles! :)
I believe Kirk's interpretation is correct. Rushall is promoting a single training session a day, a significant decrease in total yardage and an elimination of all sets that don't relate directly to racing or warm up/recovery.
I don't have any problem with this in theory. I don't do sets anymore that aren't race pace.
However, (1) I can't imagine doing UST every single day -- boredom; (2) I am not giving up equipment that helps make me fast (fins, chute) -- why does he dislike equipment? because it takes away from race pace efforts? (3) I don't think a steady diet of UST is a substitute for pure speed training for sprinters; and (4) if you don't do rehearsal swims, how will you know how to pace yourself in a race? I also disagree with his quoted statement that "single-energy specific training sets are irrelevant activities for influencing racing in a positive manner."
Skip, I do sets with intervals such as:
10 x 25 burst + cruise (12.5 or 15 with fins) @ 1:00
8 x (25 AFAP + 75 EZ) @ 3:00
5 x 50 AFAP @ 5-6:00
broken 100s @ 8-10:00
Sometimes I don't use any intervals, and just do AFAP efforts with lots of recovery swimming.
I do drills in warm up and on my recovery days. However, unlike Solar Energy, I can certainly imagine swimming without single arm drills. :)
And, for the record, I'm not advocating Rushall's approach. In fact I can't really fathom doing this ultra-short training exclusively, but I'm biased by 20 years of training completely differently. I truly truly think you misread or misinterpret his text.
In short, and we could argue about it for 50 more posts, but in short here's what he says:
1. If you have no race pace component to your training, WAKE UP!
2. Swimming is a strange animal, body is horizontal, there's a severe muscle mass bottleneck which means that lactate produce in these regions could more easily shuttle to other areas
3. Based on point 2, Rushall thinks that Lactate Tolerance sets aren't as important as people might think
4. Lactate Tolerence sets (ie Anerobic Capacity sets) tend to be very energy consuming, which prevents being able to perform a lot of mileage at this
5. Let's not forget point 2
6. Half life of most physiological changes that take place whilst training are around 30sec
7. Point 6 means that if you work very hard for short duration, but do not rest for more than 30sec every time, you allow to train: ATP-CP (that's obvious) but also Aerobic metabolism. And since lactate level are still quite high it's assumed (by Rushall) that this component also be addressed
8. In the same time, since Aerobic Metabolism is well activated, it's also assume that this increase the rate of replacement of CP, which means that you'll be using less sugar (glygogen) and therefore able to swim this everey day
What this paper doesn't say is:
Replace all your existing mileage by UST. It just says to replace your QUALITY portion by UST (less AC work, more UST work). And again, if you don't even do Race Pace work, then read (or write on a paper learn it by heart then eat the paper) Rule#1 : If you don't have Quality work in your session (ie race pace work) then WAKE UP
