Matt,
If you want to race you have to practice "racing". Not only to develop your bodies ability to swim thru/with pain but also to nail down the basic of starts, turns, stremlines, etc.
The most common mistake I see masters swimmers make is they rarely get on the blocks or practice quality sets during the season. Rather, they start getting ready two weeks before their meet. I think the opposite works, get on the blocks and practice quality/race sets 1-2 times a week, two weeks before the meet stay OFF the blocks and rest your body.
This all has to come together however in a seasonal program; base building early on, hard interval work, speed work, rest (periodization).
I was talking with evil-smith last week about how the "new" training of high level USS swimmers allows them to swim very fast and multilple meets all year without a full taper/shave. Case in point is Nic Brunelli who just went to the Austin meet and had awesome swims without tapering. Its something that neither John or I have followed but maybe worth trying down the road.
One last thing Chris Carmichael has written extensively about this type of training and more importantly the importance of rest days....even more so as we get older. I see tons of masters swimmers who "bail" on their rest days or don't really understand how long they need to fully taper to nail it.
Matt,
If you want to race you have to practice "racing". Not only to develop your bodies ability to swim thru/with pain but also to nail down the basic of starts, turns, stremlines, etc.
The most common mistake I see masters swimmers make is they rarely get on the blocks or practice quality sets during the season. Rather, they start getting ready two weeks before their meet. I think the opposite works, get on the blocks and practice quality/race sets 1-2 times a week, two weeks before the meet stay OFF the blocks and rest your body.
This all has to come together however in a seasonal program; base building early on, hard interval work, speed work, rest (periodization).
I was talking with evil-smith last week about how the "new" training of high level USS swimmers allows them to swim very fast and multilple meets all year without a full taper/shave. Case in point is Nic Brunelli who just went to the Austin meet and had awesome swims without tapering. Its something that neither John or I have followed but maybe worth trying down the road.
One last thing Chris Carmichael has written extensively about this type of training and more importantly the importance of rest days....even more so as we get older. I see tons of masters swimmers who "bail" on their rest days or don't really understand how long they need to fully taper to nail it.
