How many here are sprinters and how many long distance swimmers?

Hi Jim, Here is a website that I found after a fairly quick search - there is probably a lot more out there: www.lactate.com/.../swtstres.htm Anyway, the test is for something called 'lactate' which has some relationship to the 'lactic acid' that swimmers talk about. Lactate is created by muscle activity, the more intense the activity, the more lactate. The better your body is at removing lactate, the less you will have. If you have a lot of it your muscles stop working so well or as efficiently - you lose strength and feel bad. I know that at the end of a 200 fly race I have a lot of lactate (one of my favorite racing stories - I swam my first 200 fly as a master, and went out in a nice 58+ sec. I came back in 1:10+. I could not turn my arms over when I reached the last flag (more accurately, my arms would not turn over), so I kicked the rest of the way to the wall. I had a *lot* of lactate. (and the timer said "you would have done much better if you had taken a couple more strokes.")) Anyway, it is physiologically impossible to operate for any length of time with a lot of lactate in you body. The critical amount is said to be (though the actual number looks somewhat arbitrary to me) 4 milli mole per (liter, I think) of blood. Below that level, you are fine, above that your performance will degrade, until your muscle activity is low enough so that your body can clear the excess amount out. On the other hand, large concentrations can be tolerated for a short amount of time, particularly if the peak occurs at the *end* of a race, when the finish corresponds to when your body needs to rest. So distance swimmers and sprint swimmers will train for different lactate profiles during their swim. Distance swimmers will want to swim at a sustainable pace, one that does not force their lactate to get too high. Sprinters will want to swim such that their lactate peaks at the end of their race, and the larger concentration they can tolerate before their muscles shut down, the better. In really short races it does not matter so much - there is little time for the lactate to build up, so the more power you can apply the better. This also has a lot to do with how to pace a 200 - if your lactate reaches its maximum concentration at the 100, you are in trouble. So in the test I took, the person tested swims a 200 free at an easy pace. the swimmer notes his/her time and heart rate, and someone else pricks an ear and takes a small blood sample. There is a neato device that displays your lactate concentrations in only a few seconds. This is repeated 4 more times, with each swim being faster than the one before, until the last one which is as fast as you can go. five minutes after the last swim, the lactate is taken for the last time. At the end the lactate concentration is plotted against the swim velocity. This curve is critical. The velocity at which the lactate concentration equals 4 mmole is called the swimmers 'threshold', the speed that can be maintained almost indefinitely. (and until now I thought 'threshold' was the threshold for tossing ones cookies - no wonder I thought threshold sets were so hard. Now I know, at least now that I am resigned to being a sprinter, that it is that pace that leaves one feeling good about the world after the workout (it hasn't happened very often to me)). (Have I really typed so much?) Anyway, the curves of sprinters and distance swimmers can be very different. A distance swimmer's lactate will stay low throughout most of the descending set. Once it gets past threshold, however, it does not get much higher and the swimmer quickly tires and can not go much faster. Think of a pretty flat, horizontal curve with a little upward curve at the end. However, the high lactate level quickly falls with rest after the last swim. A sprinter, however, can easily get his/her lactate above threshold and swim considerably faster than threshold velocity. Think of a curve that heads off at a 45 degree angle. Often the peak lactate will be considerably higher than that of a distance swimmer. The lactate may not clear as quickly with rest as it does with a distance swimmer. I think ones curve is influenced both by talent (type of muscle?) and by training. A swimmers threshold has a significant influence on how one trains - swimming at threshold is good for training the body to remove lactate and improving the cardiovascular system in certain ways, swimming faster than threshold less so. In my test my lactate went above threshold very soon, and my peak of 16 mmoles caused a lot of discussion among the experienced testers. It may be fairly high for 45 year-old masters swimmers, but is similar to that of more elite and younger swimmers (but happened *way* to the left (that is, slower velocity.) Most of the other people I talked to about their test managed to get to 10 mmoles, but some less than that, and few more. I've written enough, but this explains a lot about how distance and sprint swimmers swim workouts differently. It also makes it clear that the mild contempt that gull80 has for sprinters may not be appropriate. I mean, who works out at their pain threshold more often?

Hi Jim, Here is a website that I found after a fairly quick search - there is probably a lot more out there: www.lactate.com/.../swtstres.htm Anyway, the test is for something called 'lactate' which has some relationship to the 'lactic acid' that swimmers talk about. Lactate is created by muscle activity, the more intense the activity, the more lactate. The better your body is at removing lactate, the less you will have. If you have a lot of it your muscles stop working so well or as efficiently - you lose strength and feel bad. I know that at the end of a 200 fly race I have a lot of lactate (one of my favorite racing stories - I swam my first 200 fly as a master, and went out in a nice 58+ sec. I came back in 1:10+. I could not turn my arms over when I reached the last flag (more accurately, my arms would not turn over), so I kicked the rest of the way to the wall. I had a *lot* of lactate. (and the timer said "you would have done much better if you had taken a couple more strokes.")) Anyway, it is physiologically impossible to operate for any length of time with a lot of lactate in you body. The critical amount is said to be (though the actual number looks somewhat arbitrary to me) 4 milli mole per (liter, I think) of blood. Below that level, you are fine, above that your performance will degrade, until your muscle activity is low enough so that your body can clear the excess amount out. On the other hand, large concentrations can be tolerated for a short amount of time, particularly if the peak occurs at the *end* of a race, when the finish corresponds to when your body needs to rest. So distance swimmers and sprint swimmers will train for different lactate profiles during their swim. Distance swimmers will want to swim at a sustainable pace, one that does not force their lactate to get too high. Sprinters will want to swim such that their lactate peaks at the end of their race, and the larger concentration they can tolerate before their muscles shut down, the better. In really short races it does not matter so much - there is little time for the lactate to build up, so the more power you can apply the better. This also has a lot to do with how to pace a 200 - if your lactate reaches its maximum concentration at the 100, you are in trouble. So in the test I took, the person tested swims a 200 free at an easy pace. the swimmer notes his/her time and heart rate, and someone else pricks an ear and takes a small blood sample. There is a neato device that displays your lactate concentrations in only a few seconds. This is repeated 4 more times, with each swim being faster than the one before, until the last one which is as fast as you can go. five minutes after the last swim, the lactate is taken for the last time. At the end the lactate concentration is plotted against the swim velocity. This curve is critical. The velocity at which the lactate concentration equals 4 mmole is called the swimmers 'threshold', the speed that can be maintained almost indefinitely. (and until now I thought 'threshold' was the threshold for tossing ones cookies - no wonder I thought threshold sets were so hard. Now I know, at least now that I am resigned to being a sprinter, that it is that pace that leaves one feeling good about the world after the workout (it hasn't happened very often to me)). (Have I really typed so much?) Anyway, the curves of sprinters and distance swimmers can be very different. A distance swimmer's lactate will stay low throughout most of the descending set. Once it gets past threshold, however, it does not get much higher and the swimmer quickly tires and can not go much faster. Think of a pretty flat, horizontal curve with a little upward curve at the end. However, the high lactate level quickly falls with rest after the last swim. A sprinter, however, can easily get his/her lactate above threshold and swim considerably faster than threshold velocity. Think of a curve that heads off at a 45 degree angle. Often the peak lactate will be considerably higher than that of a distance swimmer. The lactate may not clear as quickly with rest as it does with a distance swimmer. I think ones curve is influenced both by talent (type of muscle?) and by training. A swimmers threshold has a significant influence on how one trains - swimming at threshold is good for training the body to remove lactate and improving the cardiovascular system in certain ways, swimming faster than threshold less so. In my test my lactate went above threshold very soon, and my peak of 16 mmoles caused a lot of discussion among the experienced testers. It may be fairly high for 45 year-old masters swimmers, but is similar to that of more elite and younger swimmers (but happened *way* to the left (that is, slower velocity.) Most of the other people I talked to about their test managed to get to 10 mmoles, but some less than that, and few more. I've written enough, but this explains a lot about how distance and sprint swimmers swim workouts differently. It also makes it clear that the mild contempt that gull80 has for sprinters may not be appropriate. I mean, who works out at their pain threshold more often?