when I swim at a middle distance race pace, like if im doing 5 x 100 on a quick interval my muscles get tired faster than my heart. I wont even be breathing hard but my arms are tired and causes my stroke techinque to go bad quick. Does anyone else have this problem.
The original question was about muscular endurance. I'd like to take a different approach to answer Warren other than stroke technique. People's muscular endurance is very individualized, but in general natural sprinters will have much lower muscular endurance than distance types.
An aquaintance who is a college strength and conditioning coach recently did this experiment. He tested everyone on the team for maximum bench press (one rep). The sprinters, on average, could lift substantially more weight than the distance swimmers. On another day, when everyone was rested, he asked all his swimmers to see how many reps they could do at 70% of their maximum. No sprinter could do over 10 reps, while the distance folks averaged over 20 reps.
This tells me that there is a large component to muscular endurance that is somewhat predetermined by your natural physiology. I feel a lot of it cannot be overcome by adjusting your technique or training. Maybe I'm just rationalizing my own pathetic workout performances, but I cannot stay anywhere near swimmers in workout who I am much faster than in a one time race. This is not for lack of trying, focusing on technique, etc.
So Warren, based on some earlier posts where you mentioned some of your times, I'm afraid you may have to suffer through many a workout and have your confidence shaken by those who can come within 10% of their PR's while doing 10 X 100 with 10 seconds rest. All will be redeemed on race day... assuming you don't do anything stupid like race a 200 or, heaven forbid, a 500.
Rich
The original question was about muscular endurance. I'd like to take a different approach to answer Warren other than stroke technique. People's muscular endurance is very individualized, but in general natural sprinters will have much lower muscular endurance than distance types.
An aquaintance who is a college strength and conditioning coach recently did this experiment. He tested everyone on the team for maximum bench press (one rep). The sprinters, on average, could lift substantially more weight than the distance swimmers. On another day, when everyone was rested, he asked all his swimmers to see how many reps they could do at 70% of their maximum. No sprinter could do over 10 reps, while the distance folks averaged over 20 reps.
This tells me that there is a large component to muscular endurance that is somewhat predetermined by your natural physiology. I feel a lot of it cannot be overcome by adjusting your technique or training. Maybe I'm just rationalizing my own pathetic workout performances, but I cannot stay anywhere near swimmers in workout who I am much faster than in a one time race. This is not for lack of trying, focusing on technique, etc.
So Warren, based on some earlier posts where you mentioned some of your times, I'm afraid you may have to suffer through many a workout and have your confidence shaken by those who can come within 10% of their PR's while doing 10 X 100 with 10 seconds rest. All will be redeemed on race day... assuming you don't do anything stupid like race a 200 or, heaven forbid, a 500.
Rich
