aerobic sets which makes sprinters puny and weak

Ande, Would you explain "correct splitting" for the 50? I "get it" for the 100; but I thought the 50 was about 100% effort, all the way.

Crocker was recovering from an illness and was off his "A" game plus he had to redeem himself from his slow lead off on the 4 x 100 free relay. It's a shame he didn't get to go 2nd or 3rd on that relay, perhaps swapping places with Phelps. Ande Originally posted by Draconis Oh yes, I remember the 2004 Men's 100 Fly. Crocker was taking it out and leading all the way power his strokes until about the last 10m when he started to die up. Phelps and Serdinov started to move forward and they were all together, Crocker in 3, Phelps in 4, Serdinov in 5, when they were in their last 2 or 3 meters. You could hear the commentator screaming it's gonna all depend on who's "on stroke" and Phelps was on stroke during the touch, when his arms extended he touched the wall. Crocker and Serdinov both had bad touches and got silver and bronze.

I would like some advice from you more experienced sprinters. I swim 50, 100, and 200 back and fly, and occasional medium distance freestyle (because my sprint free sucks.) I have been swimming Masters for about 5 years, and I am a somewhat regular top ten (but not top five) swimmer in my 6 events. To date I have done no weights or out of pool work at all - I swim for an hour an average of 5 or 6 times a week. I would like to improve my stroke sprints. It will be very difficult for me to add more workout times to my week. Should I keep up the swim workouts that I do, or should I exchange a couple of them for a weight workout? If I do that, will my 200's get hurt? Would I be better off adding 10 minutes of abdominal work instead?

I don't know what I want, I am looking for advice.

Originally posted by Phil Arcuni I would like to improve my stroke sprints. It will be very difficult for me to add more workout times to my week. Should I keep up the swim workouts that I do, or should I exchange a couple of them for a weight workout? If I do that, will my 200's get hurt? Would I be better off adding 10 minutes of abdominal work instead? What sort of weight workout did you have in mind? You could go high weight/low reps, low weight/high reps, or a circuit of weight stations with only moderate rest in between. The last one would add an aerobic component to your weight training.

Phil core strength, which many people equate to ab work, can't hurt either your sprinting or middle distance, but it can help both. Fly is very dependent on back muscles - the "opposites" to your abs - so I would include back and lat muscle weight work outs, too. If you could add 10 minutes per day for core strength, it may be a simple as a couple typical ab crunch/transverse ab sets and some "flys" and lat pulls with handweights. Maybe, if you were to dedicate 4 days per week to core work, on opposite days you could focus on abs/transverse abs and back/lateral (side) muscles. I have been amazed at what a minimal amount of REGULAR core work has done to my swimming, running, and soccer skills...

When I first started weights regularly the first event I got significant improvement was the 200 Br. I think it"s because it helped my DPS. If you want to sprint you should add some dry land stuff. Twice a week I lift and do core body work on the SwissBall for about 45 min and then swim about 45min for a 90 min workout. Two other days I just do the ball work for 15min and then swim an hour. That seems to work for me,your results may vary.

Phil, I typically train more aerobic based training with a focus on the 200.......in 2004 evil goodsmith pushed me to change my ways and train for the 50 and be part of the 200 free relay he had coaxed Rowdy to join. Basically the training was exactly as he and Ande have decsribed.....lots of short distance/high rest speed work and heavy on the weights......and technique, technique, technique (changing turnover ratio, higher elbows, lots of turn/start training. Bottom line is I dropped to 20.9 & 45.9 in the freestyles and 50.2 in the fly. the interesting part was didn't lose a lot of my base.....I was able to drop to 1:57 in the IM. So my "challenge" to all the so called aerobic animals out there is step up and do some speed work......try a 6-8 beat kick for once in your life!!

can I get an amen? be sure to include splitting in your training plans If you study the Real Smith's 100 splits, you'll discover they were impressively close, like only a 0.50 to 0.7 difference. Part of the training comes from getting fast and part comes from holding back just the right amount. When you dive in and go all out from the start it's hard to keep your splits within 2.0 and you're likely to land above 2.5 You gotta have speed to get out fast and easy and you gotta have gas in your tank to get home fast. Ironically you don't have to do aerobic work to improve your splitting and race finishing ability. You do need to get strong, be relaxed and swim fast with perfect form. It's all about learning where to set your throttle and saving your legs a little for the end. ande Originally posted by Paul Smith Phil, I typically train more aerobic based training with a focus on the 200.......in 2004 evil goodsmith pushed me to change my ways and train for the 50 and be part of the 200 free relay he had coaxed Rowdy to join. Basically the training was exactly as he and Ande have decsribed.....lots of short distance/high rest speed work and heavy on the weights......and technique, technique, technique (changing turnover ratio, higher elbows, lots of turn/start training. Bottom line is I dropped to 20.9 & 45.9 in the freestyles and 50.2 in the fly. the interesting part was didn't lose a lot of my base.....I was able to drop to 1:57 in the IM. So my "challenge" to all the so called aerobic animals out there is step up and do some speed work......try a 6-8 beat kick for once in your life!!

Maybe one day there will be a world class sprinter who was trained , from age grouper to collegiate swimmer, purely on short distances (25, 50, max 100's), short workouts, lots of rest, super tech, and hugh amounts of strength training, then we will all know if this truely works... Does anyone know of any age groups teams out there training this way? I would love to see how their swimmers are doing.