Once upon a time--say the better part of three decades ago--I could sprint fairly fast. I went 22.8 and 50 flat in the 50 and 100. I have resumed swimming and begun to compete, and I have noticed that I seem to have a governor blade of some sort on my speed. Just swam my first meet and went 28 and 1:02. I know I will improve, but I sense that I may not be able to improve dramatically. Has anyone seen big jumps of improvements for short races? If so, how?
The good news is that I felt really strong coming home in the 100, and it made me think that maybe I should try the 200 and even the 500. In the former case, how do people approach splitting a 200, and what sort of training do you do? Thinking about this in the context of a zone meet in 3 to 4 weeks.
Look forward to your thoughts.
Parents
Former Member
Posted by Paul Smith: Although there are a number of people that have posted studies here against the benefits of breath control/hypoxic work.....the fact that every top tier college and USS team uses it works for me.....basically use a breathing pattern of something like 3/5/7/9 by 50 on a longer swim....
Paul, I am in agreement on hypoxic sets and I don't think they are a psychological factor as someone else mentioned. The reason I say this is I have definitely benefitted from training my body to swim with less oxygen and I do the 3/5/7/9 sets, as well as 4/9/13 sets (short duration). I find when I am then racing I am able to do so for longer because my muscles are accustomed to training with less oxygen. If I had never benefitted from doing hypoxic sets, then I would have looked for another training tool, but it has benefitted me greatly over years of swimming. Just had to pipe in on this one, sorry if I got off topic.....
donna
Posted by Paul Smith: Although there are a number of people that have posted studies here against the benefits of breath control/hypoxic work.....the fact that every top tier college and USS team uses it works for me.....basically use a breathing pattern of something like 3/5/7/9 by 50 on a longer swim....
Paul, I am in agreement on hypoxic sets and I don't think they are a psychological factor as someone else mentioned. The reason I say this is I have definitely benefitted from training my body to swim with less oxygen and I do the 3/5/7/9 sets, as well as 4/9/13 sets (short duration). I find when I am then racing I am able to do so for longer because my muscles are accustomed to training with less oxygen. If I had never benefitted from doing hypoxic sets, then I would have looked for another training tool, but it has benefitted me greatly over years of swimming. Just had to pipe in on this one, sorry if I got off topic.....
donna
