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?
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Rich thanks
Ande did explain more thouroughly and I did not see his post before I posted. Your explanation is very complete and it is what I thought you meant. I am happy you did come foreward and put your own thoughts here.
George, et al,
Ande has interpreted what I meant correctly. If the intention is to swim slowly, e.g. warm up, recovery, drill, or low level aerobic work, go slow. Don't even look at the clock. These types of swims help to set up the fast swimming in practice which should be focused more on acheiving race pace.
Personally, I like to work on all the different energy systems, although not at the same workout. Since I sometimes (foolishly) compete in the 200 free, I do some high level aerobic work once or twice a week, but the sets are never more than 1,000 meters. An example would be 4 X 50's with 10 seconds rest (i.e. broken 200's) X 5 with about 2 minutes rest between the broken swims. I subtract the 30 seconds of rest intervals to get my cumulative time and try to be within 5 seconds of my best 200 time. Like tall Paul, I also like to get in high level aerobics while cross training. Nothing like climbing 2,500 feet on your mountain bike when the starting elevation is 10,000'.
I love low level aerobic work, especially long course outdoors. I find it meditative and restorative. Probably half my total yardage is in this category.
I have to be careful with the amount of high level sprint stuff I do because I tend to get stale and lose that truly explosive feeling. It's also much more tiring psychologically. This actually may just be a function of my age. Jazz Hands may be able to do it every workout.
Hope this helps,
Rich
Rich thanks
Ande did explain more thouroughly and I did not see his post before I posted. Your explanation is very complete and it is what I thought you meant. I am happy you did come foreward and put your own thoughts here.
George, et al,
Ande has interpreted what I meant correctly. If the intention is to swim slowly, e.g. warm up, recovery, drill, or low level aerobic work, go slow. Don't even look at the clock. These types of swims help to set up the fast swimming in practice which should be focused more on acheiving race pace.
Personally, I like to work on all the different energy systems, although not at the same workout. Since I sometimes (foolishly) compete in the 200 free, I do some high level aerobic work once or twice a week, but the sets are never more than 1,000 meters. An example would be 4 X 50's with 10 seconds rest (i.e. broken 200's) X 5 with about 2 minutes rest between the broken swims. I subtract the 30 seconds of rest intervals to get my cumulative time and try to be within 5 seconds of my best 200 time. Like tall Paul, I also like to get in high level aerobics while cross training. Nothing like climbing 2,500 feet on your mountain bike when the starting elevation is 10,000'.
I love low level aerobic work, especially long course outdoors. I find it meditative and restorative. Probably half my total yardage is in this category.
I have to be careful with the amount of high level sprint stuff I do because I tend to get stale and lose that truly explosive feeling. It's also much more tiring psychologically. This actually may just be a function of my age. Jazz Hands may be able to do it every workout.
Hope this helps,
Rich
