I'm just wondering if anyone can explain the trade-offs and considerations when deciding the number of repeats and amount of rest for a race pace set? If one is training for, say, a 200m race and want to do a set like:
N x 50 on interval I
how do you decide on appropriate N and I? How does the training effect differ if you do more repeats with more rest versus fewer repeats with shorter rest? Are there any guidelines relating the target race distance to an appropriate total distance in the set?
Another way of phrasing the question is: if I determine that I can currently complete N repeats on a time interval I, as I get better how do I decide whether to do more repeats or to take less rest?
Thanks,
Lindsay
Parents
Former Member
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
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
