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?
I've read through this thread pretty quickly, and I think there are some good opinions throughout.... HOWEVER, I don't think that one specific opinion on how to train works best for every swimmer every year. Don't get me wrong: I'm a big advocate of a higher percentage of speed work at speed, especially for sprinters, with recovery built into the process.
I also think that in order to make progress and maintain some kind of aerobic base for something longer than a 50, even sprinters should step back once every 4 or 5 training cycles and do something with an aerobic kind of goal in mind. This not only provides some variation in the training and prevents boredom, but it also gives the muscle groups that are pushed by high volumes of speed work some time to recover for the long term.
At Bullets, we face a different kind of challenge: a low ratio of sprinters to distance swimmers makes it hard to design a program for the "drop-dead" sprinter. Since a large percentage of swimmers in my current group are Ironman-distance triathletes, we've found that striking a balance between aerobic and speed/sprint work for everyone tends to change up the training a little, and helps to balance out the all-around swimming throughout the year. I know the "drop-dead" (50s only) swimmers think I'm crazy, but this kind of balance tends to help them as much as it does the distance swimmers to learn how to swim their respective events faster for longer periods of time with less injury and more consistent performance through the season.
Almost to a person, even the most consistent sprinters in my program find themselves with something left in the tank come taper time to pop off some peak performances at Nationals :-)
So, to quote Pat Morita, in many cases "balance is the key, Daniel-san."
I've read through this thread pretty quickly, and I think there are some good opinions throughout.... HOWEVER, I don't think that one specific opinion on how to train works best for every swimmer every year. Don't get me wrong: I'm a big advocate of a higher percentage of speed work at speed, especially for sprinters, with recovery built into the process.
I also think that in order to make progress and maintain some kind of aerobic base for something longer than a 50, even sprinters should step back once every 4 or 5 training cycles and do something with an aerobic kind of goal in mind. This not only provides some variation in the training and prevents boredom, but it also gives the muscle groups that are pushed by high volumes of speed work some time to recover for the long term.
At Bullets, we face a different kind of challenge: a low ratio of sprinters to distance swimmers makes it hard to design a program for the "drop-dead" sprinter. Since a large percentage of swimmers in my current group are Ironman-distance triathletes, we've found that striking a balance between aerobic and speed/sprint work for everyone tends to change up the training a little, and helps to balance out the all-around swimming throughout the year. I know the "drop-dead" (50s only) swimmers think I'm crazy, but this kind of balance tends to help them as much as it does the distance swimmers to learn how to swim their respective events faster for longer periods of time with less injury and more consistent performance through the season.
Almost to a person, even the most consistent sprinters in my program find themselves with something left in the tank come taper time to pop off some peak performances at Nationals :-)
So, to quote Pat Morita, in many cases "balance is the key, Daniel-san."
