How much aerobic work for sprinters?

Hi there, Here is a bunch of thoughts from Sweden, probably without any connection.. In the early 90's while I was still active I started to train all by myself, because I believed a sprinter should only do sprint stuff, which our team did not. After sometime I did however move back a bit and started doing some light aerobic traing again, every week. This helped me during competition when there were many races and not so much rest in between, but also made me feel stronger. Being a 100% sprinter is good when you only do ONE race. But sometimes there are prelims, semi-finals etc and then same basic endurance will probably not hurt you. As it has been mentioned in prevoius replys there is also a diffecrence in only doing 50s and also including 100s, and also in LCM. When I was young I used to compete with one of the best sprinters from UK. My fly was ok at that time and everytime I was behind him with less than 1m at the 25 turn I would kick his ass. Because he never managed the whole 50, but I could do a descent 100 as well. Then there are also other aspects to look at. Are you a sprinter? Or do you just WANT to be a sprinter? We all have different fiber-set-up and maybe that will effect how we train? My coach used to say: "Jan, you have a perfect stroke for the 400m, but want to practice like a sprinter". Maybe a true sprinter needs one kind trayining and a wanna-be sprinter with more slow fibers need another kind of training? For me swimming nowdays is not only about swimming one or two distances at a meet, but also to stay in shape. And staying in shape for me means working on strength, flexibility and anaerobic/aerobic capacity. It was an interesting thread from Auburn. Why do they want the guys to drink so much? I would puke from drinking that stuff all the time! Seems like the whole idea is to make them feel bad. And that leads me to lactate training. For me there are two ways to look at fast training: a) Focus on swimming fast b) focus on getting tired For me it is never a goal to only get tired. If I can do a fast 50 without getting too tired that is ok with me. Sometimes you see series with lots of all out and almost no rest. Just to make people really, really tired. But will this make them practice fast swims? No, more focus on getting really really tired. Some years ago I did a "hobby-comeback" at the swedish Nationals. I did some good aerobic training, lots of sprints and techniqe but almost no lactate training. I just focused on swimmimg fast.Was I nervous at the meet? Yes I was. But.. I set a personal best in the 100m by almost 0.5 sec. So by focusing on swimming fast and lots of techinque I improved. Not by neccessarily focusing on getting tired (=means probably slower speeds and worse technique). And what is endurance training? Even though I just cruise the pool, do some nice sprints, starts, turns and technique training, this also has an effect on the heart rate. It would still probably be considered light endurance traing.. as the pulse will rise to 120 in average or where ever it ends up.. But again... we are all different and there are many ways to succeed..

Hi there, Here is a bunch of thoughts from Sweden, probably without any connection.. In the early 90's while I was still active I started to train all by myself, because I believed a sprinter should only do sprint stuff, which our team did not. After sometime I did however move back a bit and started doing some light aerobic traing again, every week. This helped me during competition when there were many races and not so much rest in between, but also made me feel stronger. Being a 100% sprinter is good when you only do ONE race. But sometimes there are prelims, semi-finals etc and then same basic endurance will probably not hurt you. As it has been mentioned in prevoius replys there is also a diffecrence in only doing 50s and also including 100s, and also in LCM. When I was young I used to compete with one of the best sprinters from UK. My fly was ok at that time and everytime I was behind him with less than 1m at the 25 turn I would kick his ass. Because he never managed the whole 50, but I could do a descent 100 as well. Then there are also other aspects to look at. Are you a sprinter? Or do you just WANT to be a sprinter? We all have different fiber-set-up and maybe that will effect how we train? My coach used to say: "Jan, you have a perfect stroke for the 400m, but want to practice like a sprinter". Maybe a true sprinter needs one kind trayining and a wanna-be sprinter with more slow fibers need another kind of training? For me swimming nowdays is not only about swimming one or two distances at a meet, but also to stay in shape. And staying in shape for me means working on strength, flexibility and anaerobic/aerobic capacity. It was an interesting thread from Auburn. Why do they want the guys to drink so much? I would puke from drinking that stuff all the time! Seems like the whole idea is to make them feel bad. And that leads me to lactate training. For me there are two ways to look at fast training: a) Focus on swimming fast b) focus on getting tired For me it is never a goal to only get tired. If I can do a fast 50 without getting too tired that is ok with me. Sometimes you see series with lots of all out and almost no rest. Just to make people really, really tired. But will this make them practice fast swims? No, more focus on getting really really tired. Some years ago I did a "hobby-comeback" at the swedish Nationals. I did some good aerobic training, lots of sprints and techniqe but almost no lactate training. I just focused on swimmimg fast.Was I nervous at the meet? Yes I was. But.. I set a personal best in the 100m by almost 0.5 sec. So by focusing on swimming fast and lots of techinque I improved. Not by neccessarily focusing on getting tired (=means probably slower speeds and worse technique). And what is endurance training? Even though I just cruise the pool, do some nice sprints, starts, turns and technique training, this also has an effect on the heart rate. It would still probably be considered light endurance traing.. as the pulse will rise to 120 in average or where ever it ends up.. But again... we are all different and there are many ways to succeed..