Race Club Article

Recently the New York Times magazine had an article on Emiy Hughes, Sarah's sister and claimed that ice skating had the largest imbalance between practice times and performance time. I thought immediately that this author is not familar with most swim training programs. Eddie Reese is a great swim coach. So is Dave Salo. They have both produced great swimmers. They take a very different approach to training. So who's right? Without some kind of peer reviewed papers on training yardage and performance that is data based we'll not really know the answer to this question. Otherwise, these discussion quickly devolve into conjecture-based arguements. So where do I stand? I do support that part of Gary Hall's letter that urges young swimmers, and their parents, not to specialize in the sport too soon (is it 11, 12, 13, 15 ?) and once they elected swimming to train "smart" AND "hard" (see Dave Salo for another definition of hard). Yes, if you are a 1500 swimmer you'll need to put in those yards but how much do you really need to train to be the "best you can be" at the other distances? One final, somewhat related comment. I greatly respect Gary Hall as a swimmer. He swims with great technique and, in the most mental of all races, great toughness. Based on everything I seen in swimming over the past four decades this technique comes with lots of hard work. One swimmer does not make a thesis true but it does speak to his dedication to our sport in his own way.

Recently the New York Times magazine had an article on Emiy Hughes, Sarah's sister and claimed that ice skating had the largest imbalance between practice times and performance time. I thought immediately that this author is not familar with most swim training programs. Eddie Reese is a great swim coach. So is Dave Salo. They have both produced great swimmers. They take a very different approach to training. So who's right? Without some kind of peer reviewed papers on training yardage and performance that is data based we'll not really know the answer to this question. Otherwise, these discussion quickly devolve into conjecture-based arguements. So where do I stand? I do support that part of Gary Hall's letter that urges young swimmers, and their parents, not to specialize in the sport too soon (is it 11, 12, 13, 15 ?) and once they elected swimming to train "smart" AND "hard" (see Dave Salo for another definition of hard). Yes, if you are a 1500 swimmer you'll need to put in those yards but how much do you really need to train to be the "best you can be" at the other distances? One final, somewhat related comment. I greatly respect Gary Hall as a swimmer. He swims with great technique and, in the most mental of all races, great toughness. Based on everything I seen in swimming over the past four decades this technique comes with lots of hard work. One swimmer does not make a thesis true but it does speak to his dedication to our sport in his own way.