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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Look, the 200 is all about sprint endurance, it doesn't qualify as a "true" distance event. Most people shy away from that event because it can feel terrible if you're not prepared properly for the race.
My 50 speed is okay, but the SCM 100 and 200 free I did recently converts to 46.02, and 1:42.82 short course yards, does that make me a distance swimmer? No, I've learned how to simulate the effects of a 100-200 race, without over-training in the pool.
Even an 800 warm-up and some DPS work in the pool is more aerobic than many other sports. It's pretty much impossible to swim, even easy, without gaining an aerobic benefit. Perhaps this discussion is purely semantics, because many people say aerobic training, and what they really mean is pushing the thresholds for middle-distance speed.
The program that I've designed may in fact only work for people with similar body types, but it is also a reflection of time management as well. With my busy work/life schedule I can only commit a certain amount of time to training, so I want the best result possible without excessive outputs of energy.
That is why 60-80 reps in the gym has been the solution that is working for me. All I can say is, how I feel at the end of 100-200 race far exceeds anything I've tried in the past, even when I did swim mass-meters as an age-grouper.
With times like those, you could probably fake a pretty good distance race.
Look, the 200 is all about sprint endurance, it doesn't qualify as a "true" distance event. Most people shy away from that event because it can feel terrible if you're not prepared properly for the race.
My 50 speed is okay, but the SCM 100 and 200 free I did recently converts to 46.02, and 1:42.82 short course yards, does that make me a distance swimmer? No, I've learned how to simulate the effects of a 100-200 race, without over-training in the pool.
Even an 800 warm-up and some DPS work in the pool is more aerobic than many other sports. It's pretty much impossible to swim, even easy, without gaining an aerobic benefit. Perhaps this discussion is purely semantics, because many people say aerobic training, and what they really mean is pushing the thresholds for middle-distance speed.
The program that I've designed may in fact only work for people with similar body types, but it is also a reflection of time management as well. With my busy work/life schedule I can only commit a certain amount of time to training, so I want the best result possible without excessive outputs of energy.
That is why 60-80 reps in the gym has been the solution that is working for me. All I can say is, how I feel at the end of 100-200 race far exceeds anything I've tried in the past, even when I did swim mass-meters as an age-grouper.
With times like those, you could probably fake a pretty good distance race.
