Hi All
My name is Darian Townsend, I am an Olympic Gold Medalist from South Africa
( ). I am a 3 time Olympian (2004, 2008 and 2012). I held the SCM 200 IM world record in 2009/2010
and I currently hold 24 Masters world records.
Just thought I would introduce myself before I got into what I wanted to say today :)
I am going to be blogging about once a week or so on various swimming topics I am interested in or if any of you have topics you would like my opinion on, please feel free to message me and I will respond with a blog.
With the Championship season fast approaching (I assume you all are tapering for a meet last November/early December) I wanted to hear from you on what your expectations are and where you feel you are in your training? Do you feel confident that best times are coming? What makes this season different from last year, what have you done differently? Has a new piece of equipment you bought really made a big difference to your training?
From me personally, this season has been great so far. Firstly I am now American, and able to represent the US internationally. This is a huge deal for me and I feel very proud to call myself an American. After living here for over 10 years now, it feels great to wear the Red, White and Blue on my cap!
After a summer of trying a new form a training called USRPT (Ultra Short Race Pace Training) I decided to go back to the more traditional way of training, and I am really enjoying it! There is nothing quite like doing a long kick set and getting out the water afterwards and having your legs feel like jelly! (Kick sets are one thing that USRPT doesn't involve). I enjoy swimming, fast and slow in practice, so to be able to vary my efforts again is really making me happy once again to be in the water working hard!
So how is your season going? What meets are you doing? I am always looking for a meet to swim in a new place I haven't visited before?
Cheers
Hi guys, I appreciate the replies! It has been a crazy last couple months for me, but very exciting at the same time!
Gdanner I am sorry for knocking you out the top 10, keep at it! Hopefully we'll meet up sometime to race!
I trained one season under a strictly USRPT program. What I mean by this is that all we did was USRPT, nothing else. I think it has it's pro's but unfortunately I think it has more cons. I felt my 100 free definitely got better, although I didn't go a best time I could feel the benefit from the training coming into my racing. I swam fast during hard training in the 100's and 50's but sadly not in any 200's. I couldn't imagine trying anything longer than a 200 on that type of training.
USRPT does not address the feeling you get in a race when you have swam a 50 and then have to turn and go another 50 and so on for a 200 or 400. This is where I felt it let me down the most, I just didn't have anything after the 100. Because USRPT focuses mainly on doing repeat 50's in practice trying to hit your pace, it doesn't factor in what it feel like to swim a 200 or more without resting. Turns if done at race pace will fatigue you and this is something that I didn't train under USRPT.
Another thing USRPT hurt me in was the taper. Swimming at race pace all the time is tiring, and your body needs rest from this. The program I was under didn't give me the rest my body needed and so come my main competition of the season I was still fatigued, physically and neurologically. A USRPT taper isn't as long as a normal taper, because your aerobic base isn't as big as it would be from doing normal training and therefore your taper can't be too long. Taper for me is about feeling goof in the water, USRPT is about hitting your speed everyday. Us swimmers are all mental, we like to feel good and when we feel good we swim fast. If you aren't feeling good, then your times won't be what you want them to be. USRPT took the feeling away from me and replaced it with numbers and I lost confidence in those numbers and myself when I didn't hit them. It's hard to come in every day to workout and hit speeds you want to race at!
I understand the need for swimmers to train at pace, and I believe there should be sets done in practice that will mimic a USRPT set, but it's my belief that swimmers still need to swim longer sets at an aerobic speed, do kick sets, do pull sets, do weights, dryland training, etc.
Swimmers have trained the traditional way for so long, I don't believe a theory like USRPT can come in and disprove all that the traditional training method has produced. I believe a mix of the 2 ways is the way forward.
let me know your thoughts....
Hi guys, I appreciate the replies! It has been a crazy last couple months for me, but very exciting at the same time!
Gdanner I am sorry for knocking you out the top 10, keep at it! Hopefully we'll meet up sometime to race!
I trained one season under a strictly USRPT program. What I mean by this is that all we did was USRPT, nothing else. I think it has it's pro's but unfortunately I think it has more cons. I felt my 100 free definitely got better, although I didn't go a best time I could feel the benefit from the training coming into my racing. I swam fast during hard training in the 100's and 50's but sadly not in any 200's. I couldn't imagine trying anything longer than a 200 on that type of training.
USRPT does not address the feeling you get in a race when you have swam a 50 and then have to turn and go another 50 and so on for a 200 or 400. This is where I felt it let me down the most, I just didn't have anything after the 100. Because USRPT focuses mainly on doing repeat 50's in practice trying to hit your pace, it doesn't factor in what it feel like to swim a 200 or more without resting. Turns if done at race pace will fatigue you and this is something that I didn't train under USRPT.
Another thing USRPT hurt me in was the taper. Swimming at race pace all the time is tiring, and your body needs rest from this. The program I was under didn't give me the rest my body needed and so come my main competition of the season I was still fatigued, physically and neurologically. A USRPT taper isn't as long as a normal taper, because your aerobic base isn't as big as it would be from doing normal training and therefore your taper can't be too long. Taper for me is about feeling goof in the water, USRPT is about hitting your speed everyday. Us swimmers are all mental, we like to feel good and when we feel good we swim fast. If you aren't feeling good, then your times won't be what you want them to be. USRPT took the feeling away from me and replaced it with numbers and I lost confidence in those numbers and myself when I didn't hit them. It's hard to come in every day to workout and hit speeds you want to race at!
I understand the need for swimmers to train at pace, and I believe there should be sets done in practice that will mimic a USRPT set, but it's my belief that swimmers still need to swim longer sets at an aerobic speed, do kick sets, do pull sets, do weights, dryland training, etc.
Swimmers have trained the traditional way for so long, I don't believe a theory like USRPT can come in and disprove all that the traditional training method has produced. I believe a mix of the 2 ways is the way forward.
let me know your thoughts....
