I have been swimming for 50 years - highly competitive at all levels of swimming - and yet I have never ever done a real SPRINT workout. What am I trying to say when I say Sprint workout ? Its actually very simple - first of all it has to be an actual workout - not a taper session - resting and taper is different than a sprint workout - why ? Because in a workout you are building sth - in taper you are resting your body to recover from all the work you did building...
Imagine you are a sprint coach for runners and you have to give a workout for a 100/ 200 dash runner - swimming and running I always use 4x for distance vs time - 50 Free = 200 dash run..
Proper warm-up - for a runner - we do need to warm up -- but can you imagine the look of the runners if you give them an "easy 4k" warm up run ? Then have them do the preset of another 3-5k running -- or 10 sets of 50 jumps compare to kicking. Then the main "speed" set is 200 max speed run with 800 easy run in between - do that 8 times. And then the warm down is another easy 4k jog ...
So what would I consider a real sprint workout ? Here are my rules:
Rule 1 - Fast twitch VS Slow Twitch. Your body and muscles - fast twitch and slow twitch are different !! We all have both and many muscle fibers that can be recruited or are in between - often people have different levels - but all training will influence both groups and they don't "like" each other.
Rule 2 - never ever count total workout yardage if you want to get FAST !!! BUT do count how much yardage of max speed you do.
Rule 3 - Max speed ain't easy and you can only keep it for 6-8 seconds everything else is less than max !!
Rule 4 - It takes real rest to be ready for maximum speed. Swimming or running or cycling for 1, 2, or 5 or 10 minutes at an easy pace does not give you rest.
Rule 5 - "toys" only when you are ready for them ... paddles, pull cords, parachutes, fins ...
Rule 6 - SPEED yes but slow increase in intensity and volume is better... this is where endurance experience does work.
So - how why am I thinking this - and maybe challenging the current system ? We don't use things... we lose them and I don't think its a good idea to lose strength, power and ability to have max performance. Sure - be cautious and all but have a reason to be cautious which means do challenge your body. I can't reach much above 150 max Heart rate right now - why ? Because I didn't use it for 14 years - and just plain health and longevity - we need to give our body challenges - you don't use it you lose it.
Besides posting this - I am also doing this in the pool - will it work ? Too early to tell ... I am using Rule 6 -- since I have never trained like this - how fast can I get ?
Life time best in 50y Free - funny thing and part of my new belief - I was a 200 swimmer and I never did a 50 Free for "real" ... I think about 21.0 in college ... early 40s - my second round of swimming -- had some assistance from the full body suits for sure 50 Free 21.0 ... interesting - able to match my college time in 50 Free when I was 40 years old ....hmm - so how close can I get to that now ? I give myself one more year to get to full ability and hopefully my body will keep up but part of my approach is also that there isn't a rush to get there... One year to what ? My goal is to reach the leveling field - where I workout for 3 months and my speed stays about the same ...
