As I crawled back into the pool today fat and out of shape, I wondered: Don't sprinters need some minimal aerobic work? I see that Ande is doing none whatsoever and Paul advises not "fighting fat" in the pool. I do a lot of race pace training and cross training. But still, is just a little aerobic work called for? I can tell I don't need any for 50s, but my 100s could use a little something. I don't think I have the substantial swimming aerobic base that people like Ande have because I was out of the pool for so many years .. So I'm either taking my 100s out too slow for fear of dying or actually dying. Does aerobic work help counter this? Or do I need more lactate work such as doing 100s with huge amounts of rest?
But, Kirk, why would you think aerobic work would make you faster than race pace/lacate work? Certainly, on its own it wouldn't. Did you just mean in combination?
Right, a combination. It seems like the original question you posed was should you do zero aerobic work, or a small amount of aerobic work? My position is that even sprinters should do some aerobic work. I don't think there's any question you should be doing lots of race pace stuff, too.
That's what I was asking Stacy. She says she did lots of race pace stuff in college and swam fast, but does this mean she did exclusively fast swimming without aerobic work? I just can't imagine there are many college programs out there that have their sprinters doing zero aerobic training.
This reminds me, has anyone else gotten the latest issue of USMS Swimmer? I got mine yesterday and looked through it. In the "my favorite practice" segment the practice is by Darcy La Fountain. Ms. La Fountain is an open water specialist and says "my passion is training." She currently sits in third place in the Go The Distance challenge as of the end of April with 547 miles swum (I was at 175 miles, to put this in perspective. The leader is at a jaw-dropping 760 miles!). Anyway, here's the practice she submitted:
warm-up: 1000 kick with fins, choice
main set:
swim/pull 20x100 free on 1:45
kick 1000 with fins, choice
swim/pull 20x100 free, 10 swim, 10 pull on 1:45
kick 1000 with fins, choice
swim 10x100 free on 1:45 swim, pull or swim with fins
8,000 total
That's a lot of long kicking. I think kicking 200 at a time is boring, I can't imagine 1000s kicking!
But, Kirk, why would you think aerobic work would make you faster than race pace/lacate work? Certainly, on its own it wouldn't. Did you just mean in combination?
Right, a combination. It seems like the original question you posed was should you do zero aerobic work, or a small amount of aerobic work? My position is that even sprinters should do some aerobic work. I don't think there's any question you should be doing lots of race pace stuff, too.
That's what I was asking Stacy. She says she did lots of race pace stuff in college and swam fast, but does this mean she did exclusively fast swimming without aerobic work? I just can't imagine there are many college programs out there that have their sprinters doing zero aerobic training.
This reminds me, has anyone else gotten the latest issue of USMS Swimmer? I got mine yesterday and looked through it. In the "my favorite practice" segment the practice is by Darcy La Fountain. Ms. La Fountain is an open water specialist and says "my passion is training." She currently sits in third place in the Go The Distance challenge as of the end of April with 547 miles swum (I was at 175 miles, to put this in perspective. The leader is at a jaw-dropping 760 miles!). Anyway, here's the practice she submitted:
warm-up: 1000 kick with fins, choice
main set:
swim/pull 20x100 free on 1:45
kick 1000 with fins, choice
swim/pull 20x100 free, 10 swim, 10 pull on 1:45
kick 1000 with fins, choice
swim 10x100 free on 1:45 swim, pull or swim with fins
8,000 total
That's a lot of long kicking. I think kicking 200 at a time is boring, I can't imagine 1000s kicking!
