In swimming, how is it that one can excel in both sprints and long distance? Is it because the distance games in swimming are only "relatively" distance games but are not really distance games from a physiologic perspective?
In the world of tracks, for example, an athlete cannot excel at both sprints and distance. Even the athletes from the two areas look different - much leaner for the distance runners and muscular for the sprinters.
I am wondering about this because whether I should focus on either the sprint or the distance as I plan to participate in the masters meet, or whether I don't have to sacrifice one for the other.
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Former Member
As earlier posts mentioned, workouts should be a variety of distances, stokes and speeds. I am a distance swimmer and mainly train for open water races. Until 2 years ago, I was adamant about swimming freestyle in workouts and grumbled anytime we did IMs.
I read an article about Janet Evans training routine and she did lots of 200 and 400 IM repeats, claiming that the various strokes strengthened some opposing muscles and worked the core more than just doing free.
It made me appreciate my age group swimming days when our coach forced us to swim all disciplines.
Tree
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Former Member
As earlier posts mentioned, workouts should be a variety of distances, stokes and speeds. I am a distance swimmer and mainly train for open water races. Until 2 years ago, I was adamant about swimming freestyle in workouts and grumbled anytime we did IMs.
I read an article about Janet Evans training routine and she did lots of 200 and 400 IM repeats, claiming that the various strokes strengthened some opposing muscles and worked the core more than just doing free.
It made me appreciate my age group swimming days when our coach forced us to swim all disciplines.
Tree
