I've been reading a great book about swim training. It devotes a chapter to each of the four strokes and one to IM. It was suggesting that IM should be tought of as an entirely different event. That IM swimmers shouldn't train actual IMs until 5 weeks before their meet. The should train the strokes, swimming 800-1000 meters/yards EVERY practice (either swim, drill, kick, pull, ect).
It has an entire plan laid out for what the focus of every practice is. Basically, that each practice should be devoted to a different stroke.
I've always assumed that IMmers should swim IM all the time.
THOUGHTS?
The best description I've heard of IM was from Attila Czene (1996 Gold Medalist in the 200IM) who calls IM the "5th stroke".
Training for this in his opinion did involve a lot of IM work throughout the season, not just for conditioning and fluidness in the swimming part but especially in the turns/transitions.
He also described the race strategy for him as a "build" through each stroke/length (wether 200 or 400).
Not sure why avoiding IM swims till 5 weeks out would make any sense?
The best description I've heard of IM was from Attila Czene (1996 Gold Medalist in the 200IM) who calls IM the "5th stroke".
Training for this in his opinion did involve a lot of IM work throughout the season, not just for conditioning and fluidness in the swimming part but especially in the turns/transitions.
He also described the race strategy for him as a "build" through each stroke/length (wether 200 or 400).
Not sure why avoiding IM swims till 5 weeks out would make any sense?
