Workout design - race pace sets

Lindsay - I think it's going todepend on exactly what you want to get out of a particualr set... As you get faster and you want to train more at an aerobic pace, you may just want to lengthen the set (N) with no change in pace. Eventually, you will still get tired doing this. If you should get to a point where you could do something like 60 on :50, and feel like you could do at least 20 more, then you may want to consider dropping the interval back to something like 47.5 or 45. If you want to benefit more anaerobically, you should drop the interval and keep the count the same. This will force you to work harder, but challenge you more just to make the time, whereas before, the challenge would be to keep going for a longer duration. This is often known as training at anaerobic threshold, or VO2 Max work, if done correctly. For a real kicker, you could shorten the set dramatically (like to between 6 and 12 on lots of rest (say 1:20 to 2:00)) and sprint them all. THis would be more of a pain/lactic acid tolerance set and benefits the 100/200 quite well. For a 200 swimmer, you really sould be hitting all of these areas since this race needs each one for the best possible race. Rob

This is all good advice- take it...BUT...on the hairier sets where you are really suffering, you need someone to tell you if your stroke is falling apart (& I don't mean just on the last couple of meters). Sometimes when when focus on transcending the pain of a really tough set (especially when we really aren't quite ready for it), we let our technique suffer too much & not only 'imprint' bad habits but flirt with injury. Having said that, the 'negative motivation rule' (already mentioned) does really work: if you really don't want to do it, you probably need to (still doesn't mean I'm going to do butterfly though...)

I agree with the tips on pace to evaluate conditioning.I read once that a good set for improving 200 speed is 100s with twice as much rest as swim.I do this once a week trying to pace at my goal time as the second 100 of the 200.I find this helps both conditioning & pace but I can only do a few before lactic acid messes up my technique & then I do stroke drills.

Thanks Rob, you bring up another interesting question, is there a way to determine whether I need more aerobic or anaerobic conditioning? My goal of course is to complete the race distance at the race pace, whether I get there by better aerobic or anaerobic conditioning doesn't really matter to me. Probably the answer is to work on both, but it would be interesting to have a way to evaluate if I am weaker in one or the other.

Originally posted by LindsayNB T is there a way to determine whether I need more aerobic or anaerobic conditioning? My rule of thumb, that I used to apply when coaching racewalkers, but find also applies to swimming is: "The workout you need to do is the workout you don't want to do." In other words, we tend to do the workouts we like (and plays to our strengths) and somewhat negelect the workouts that play to our weaknesses. Example: I LOVE long freestyle swims, including longer intervals, and hate short intervals (

Sometimes, that can be VERY tough cmoparison to make. In a lot of cases it's not very obvious. The real telling may come from the race itself and how you pace it. If you pace it very even or perhaps even negative split, you may have a stonger tendency towards endurance. This would be especially true if you try to be slightly faster in the first 100 and it just wrecks the overall time. This would be an indication that your body does not deal well with a higher build-up of lactic acid and hence, you need to tone down the front end of a 200 to get a better time. Of course, there is a matter of stupidity here.. If you go out and swim 23/25/27/29, this is just plain dumb swimming. But.. If you go out in 24/25/25/27, this would be more of a need for anaerobic training since you have gone out at a better pace, maintained it in the middle, but not closed the race well. Look at the splits of the 200 free for both elite USMS swimmers and USS international caliber swimmers and see how they pace. This gives a good reading on what may be considered the "norm". You may also be able to gauge from practices by seeing how you do in longer (2000+) sets vs. shorter and faster sets. If you seem to always fall off after the middle of a longer set, then the problem is obvious. need more arerobic/anerobic sets. If you are feeling like you don't get near as much challenge out of a 2000+ set vs a set like 10 X 100's sprint on 4:00, you may be ok on the aerobic end, and need more VO2 and lactate/pain tolerance swimming. For what it's worth... Rob

Pace kills me. Read swimming Fastest. Just to design a good workout to improve pace is almost more than my mind can deal with. Endurance versus speed can be a terrible mindgame to get caught up in

Thanks to everyone for the excellent responses! I signed out Swimming Fastest from the library yesterday and in hopes of contributing something back here are some quotes from the section on race pace training: Guidelines for Constructing Race-Pace Repeat Sets Rest Intervals The rest interval between repeats should be long enough to allow athletes to repeat at race speed, but no longer. Experimentation and experience is the best way to determine rest intervals for athletes of various ages and abilities. Table 14.7 provides some suggestions based on personal experience. Set Length The number of repeats in a set should also be determined through experimentation and experience. Table 14.7 offers suggestions for set length. Here is the 200 event section of Table 14.7: Repeat Distance: Number of Repeats, Rest Interval 25: 3 to 5 sets of 12-20 repeats, 5-10 sec between repeats; 3-5 minutes between sets 50: 2 to 4 sets of 8-10 repeats, 20-30 sec between repeats; 3-5 minutes between sets 100: 8-12 repeats, 45-90 sec between repeats. In the Season Planning section I found: "swimmers should do race-pace training infrequently in the first half of the season. After the emphasis in training changes from improving speed and aerobic capacity to improving anaerobic metabolism, swimmers can do race-pace training more frequently. The best plan is to emphasize race-pace training for only 4 to 6 weeks during the latter half of the season." I guess I am probably jumping the gun then... :) We did some race pace training at the end of last season and I found it really motivating, but right now I should probably be concentrating on technique and aerobic capacity. The "negative motivation rule" is probably telling me I should be doing more kicking... :) Thanks again everyone!