Look at what you'd be missing...
Phelps Single Arm.avi - YouTube
Things don't need to be exaggerated to dangerous limits, in order to be efficient. There's still room for balance in a swimming program, even that of a sprinter. Not sure a pure 50m specialist can abandon work on sculling neither. Anyway, we could go on and on and on, and that's what Rushall publishes for. He's an activist. Can you name one single swimmer this guy could take to the top?
Single arm fly is the one single arm drill that I do.
I did ultras today and I consider that my aerobic work for the week in my "balanced" swim program. :D
I guess the question you should be asking yourself, or questioning is:
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. Because the remaining of your program is not affected by Rushall's paper. As simple as that. How the hell can I come back strong if I never work on this aspect....
It is easy to access all of Rushell's body of work.In some articles(I am not patient enough to look up where) he pretty clearly comes out anti-drill,in fact anti-anything that is not producing proper neuromuscular repetition.He is an iconoclast who seems to like to shake things up.I admire that about him,but take all his pronouncements with copious amounts of salt.He does make a lot more sense to me than the mega-yardage advocates.
The thing I like about Rushall's method is that it's based on empirical data. Most coaching is based overwhelmingly on anecdotal evidence ("Bowman is using this for Phelps so it must be good"). The problem is this is taken to the extreme by Rushall. Rushall could have come to these conclusions about training swimmers without ever having personally watched a swimming race or a training session, and that's a little extreme, IMO. The advantage coaches on the deck have is that they are watching swimmers constantly and can see what makes swimmers swim faster. The downside to this is the previously mentioned tendency to believe anecdotal evidence. There definitely needs to be a balance.
You may be right, but I don't know where he states this. I have a feeling you just can't believe he'd recommend such a radical departure from convention training, but I think he is.
No not at all. Not a matter of not believe he'd recommend such a radical approach, but rather that if he had done it, it would be explicit obviously. Bare in mind that this paper was NOT published to be read and interpreted by swimmers themselves, as it wouldn't be fair to assume that they know what Phosphocreatine is.
Also, like I explained you earlier, *your* interpretation of this chart, I mean if you were a coach, what you're arguing about, would be the equivalent of putting an elite squad on severe volume diet, only made of HIT or UST, which obviously doesn't make any sense. It would, it if was the case, call for an explicit mention. The minimal session duration for a sprinter varsity level is 4.5k I'd say? So you'd be, if you were a head coach applying Rushall's theory shrinking this down by at least 30%, which calls for an explicit mention. 4.5 * 9 sessions = 40k, not excessive for a world class sprinter.
The other thing, like I also explained you, is that they train 2wice a day on a few days per week, whereas this paper suggests this approach for a daily basis. Again, if it was recommended to perform this 2wice a day, a mention would be explicit. And there he would have to demonstrate that it's good thing to book race pace work at 15 to 6 AM, and there (without having done any research), I think evidence must exist to suggest it wouldn't fit all your swimmers.
Bare in mind that in a squad of 40, you may have 1 or 2 contenders for Olympics selection, no more (well, sometimes more but you know what I mean). If these two aren't geared for hard work in AM, you'd be missing the boat. So these factors are far too important to be kept implicit.
Thanks for bringing this table to my attention.
By the way, Rushall is alive, and quite easy to reach I believe. Feel free to ask this question if you want. He's no evil. He pisses coaches off, but without crossing the line what would make him as a publisher, entirely irrelevant.
Here's anohter example of his works, again there. Not bad, not wrong, but it shakes things up for sure, and pisses coaches (at least those who swear on a Periodized approach) off.
www.roble.net/.../rushall7.html
Yep, I'm reading this paper with my coaches' eyes. Sorry.
Like I said, it if bugs you, write to him. I'm willing to spend a certain time chatting about Rushall, but not too much time neither. Rushall is Rushall. Activists are activists. Necessary Evils, but not worth spending that much time...
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.
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 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.
That would be 1k of work at the target 50 race pace. A non-UTS workout would have 0 yards at such a pace. Rushall is saying that race pace work is really all that should count. Warm up, cool down, recovery, whatever yardage doesn't need to be measured, it is extraneous.
He has a point, effort matters more than distance, but distance is the most commonly tracked and discussed.
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 think you guys are making a very clear point that Rushall is dismissing most of these activities as being potentially good enough to influence performances at race pace. That said, let us put it this way.
Would you be kind enough to point to volume cut recommendation? Overall that is? I'm being very sincere here. Could you find me a place in the document where he'd recommend say, a volume of 24k per week for distance swimmers, as 2500 of main set + 1.5 kilo of irrelevant stuff (4k * 6 times per week) to beat Sun Yang?
Could you find a place where he'd recommend a volume cut for a mid distance, say.... 1500 + 1500 = 3k * 6 = 18k per week to beat Phelps over the 400m IM?
If this is really what you guys believe, no wonder why you'd be skeptical about his thoughts.
If you do find these mentions, I'd like to know. Cause I'm simply going to put the jerk on my black list and forget about this crap. Good luck to any head coach trying to prepare a distance swimmer for a world class qualification (even the Worlds Aquatics) on 24k per week.
I made clear in my very first post, I hate Rushall, and part of the reason why is that he's making several people wasting considerable time...
That would be 1k of work at the target 50 race pace. A non-UTS workout would have 0 yards at such a pace. Rushall is saying that race pace work is really all that should count. Warm up, cool down, recovery, whatever yardage doesn't need to be measured, it is extraneous.
He has a point, effort matters more than distance, but distance is the most commonly tracked and discussed. That's 1k * 6 times per week = 6kilo of significant work for preparing to beat the best sprinters in the world.... So to me, if it's really what he meant, he has no point at all. 2h per day * 6 = 12h * 52 = 624h of training for the year, that's still under Bompa's recommandation for reaching fair national level, regarless of the sport (since Bompa's work encompass all sports). In fact, this schedule is that of a serious Master Swimmer.
By this you mean that your rest does not allow for the aerobic system to fully recover right? Because anaerobic work pretty much requires the aerobic system to be at 100%.
1. Rushall is a professor, not a swim coach. He doesn't have to deal with boredom... or um... he is the producer of bor... :bolt:
2. He dislikes equipment because it has been show statistically to not improve performance, and thus a waste of time. He is not a coach and he has not studied non-elite swimmers. He doesn't have to keep swimmers engaged (the primary driver to toys) and he hasn't studied swimmers who can't achieve near competition speed at near competition distance.
3. I agree.
4. He is not against rehearsal swims. I would have to dig through his 8 million papers to find the details but he is pro racing and pro frequent shave and taper meets or the equivalent and anti trainForOneMeetAYear.
Since he is not a coach, he does not have to worry about keeping swimming interesting
Yes, that's what I meant, no adequate recovery. I get almost all my aerobic work derivatively through anaerobic efforts.
It's been statistically proven that equipment does not improve performance? Which types? Anecdotally, I am convinced my use of fins & monofin has improved my dolphin kick, and I can live with my non-empirical instincts on this one.
I am anti trainForOneMeetAYear, especially for us masters and for sprinters. I do drop tapers for every meet. Why race fatigued?
If swimming wasn't interesting, the # of masters would decline (and age groupers would choose other sports). We do not all have your tolerance for boredom. I was just discussing with His Geekity that masters swimmers are enthralled with patterns, though they likely have no intrinsic value.
