I've only been swimming (competitive) for a little over 2 years. I've discovered through my coach and through experience over the last couple of years that I'm a definite sprinter. Is there any benefit for me to train at race pace for longer distances than I plan on racing or is this just a waste of time? Should I avoid swimming longer sets and concentrate more on sprints? I've read articles that swimming long yardage may even hamper fast twitch muscle fibers. For you sprinters (and non-sprinters) - what is the best method of training for short distances?
If you are talking about swimming lap-after-lap at half pace, then I guess that would be "garbage yardage" for a sprinter. If you are talking about training for a 200 (even if you are only going to swim the 100 in a meet), then that is another matter. I suggest doing some more research, to find what is right for you.
I bought some of the Cecil Colwin books a while ago. The section I'm looking at right is from Swimming Dynamics, page 238. He is interviewing George Haines after the 1996 Olympic Trials.
"I can reel off name after name of great short distance swimmers who started by swimming distance events, and then swam down from these longer distances. The examples go right back to Duke Kahanamoku and Johnny Weissmuller in the 1920s, then in the 1930s and '40s, to Jack Medica, Clar Scholes, Wally Ris, and Alan Ford, and then more recently to Tom Jager, Rick de Mont, Don Schollander, Mark Spitz, and Matt Biondi, who all started as distance and middle-distance swimmers. You have only to look back in history to see the number of swimmers who were good at distances and became great at the shorter distances."
Haines added, "The moment Matt Biondi stopped training for the 400 and 200 in training, his 100 and 50 ceased getting better. Here, at these trials, you could tell by the falloff in time between the first and second half of a swimmer's race that many swimmers had an insufficient background of distance work in their preparation. Amanda Beard had a falloff of 3.48 seconds in her second 100 of her 200. Almost all the other breaststroke swimmers had a difference of 5 seconds or more. ...
It really has nothing to do with training, garbage yards, etc.
We all know that the overriding reason behind swimmers muscles is the age at which you started swimming. For me, who started around 5, I sprouted an extra aorta or two which made my fast twitch double in size. This, coupled with my endless supply of Ellison V02Max, makes me an uber swimmer.
So, it's probably best to realize you can get no better than you were at 5, the age at which extra artery growth is most pronounced in swimmers.
On a serious note....I believe you need to vary your workouts. You can burn yourself out, physically and mentally, doing sprint workouts every day! You do need to do some longer swims to build your endurance. Mix in some variable speed sets. A good example would be 5x200's easy/fast by 50's. This way you get the endurance building yardage and the sprinting all at once! Have at least one day a week that is a "LSD" day=long slow distance. You can get some great workouts from this site. If you are trying to peak for a specific meet, you can do less yardage and more speed work with lots of rest for a week or two leading into the meet. This is what works for most people. Everyone is different though! You really have to experiment and see what works for you.
