Let's look at Paul's training. What purposes do weights and spinning serve? They are not recovery and they are not race-pace training. He has said that he is not interested in fitness for its own sake, he wants to swim fast. So he must think these things help him do that. (Paul, I don't want to misrepresent you, pls correct me if I'm mistaken.)
As I've said elsewhere, I am a believer in spending time in all the training zones. There are good guides out there, mostly based on heartrate, but my quick and dirty guides are:
Zone 1: warmup, easy recovery
Zone 2: long pace work (eg 1st half of a 10k race), well below lactate threshold.
Zone 3: at or near lactate threshold (maybe a little above, maybe a little below)
Zone 4: well above lactate threshold, very very close to race pace. An example would be a 5 x 100 test set on 4:00 (we did just that set this morning)
Zone 5: all out sprints
The problem with "less is more" is that it's too much of a slogan and somewhat deceptive. If all you do is swim 3x a week, 95% chance you won't be tearing up the pool. You have to do "more" -- whether it's spinning, weights, running, core work, etc, to be competitive and race at a high level.
Plus, working out only 3x a week is not the best for weight control, especially as you age. I know Paul said he doesn't care about his weight, but I guarantee most other people do and would prefer to be lean and trim than the alternative. I don't know about the men's locker room, but I haven't found or seen a single fegirl who isn't checking out how her butt looks in her fastskin.
The other thing of note in the article is that Paul adopted this type of training partially in response to two shoulder surgeries. Anyone with shoulder issues might be better served opting for "less is more" in the pool. Oh, I did see Paul admit he swims for "fitness" in that article too!!
I hate zone 2, Chris. I do zone 2 stuff on the running trail or bike. I don't know whether this is really effective or not. Plus, if you're only swimming 4x a week, it's very hard to hit all those different zones and sub-zones in the pool!
Let's look at Paul's training. What purposes do weights and spinning serve? They are not recovery and they are not race-pace training. He has said that he is not interested in fitness for its own sake, he wants to swim fast. So he must think these things help him do that. (Paul, I don't want to misrepresent you, pls correct me if I'm mistaken.)
As I've said elsewhere, I am a believer in spending time in all the training zones. There are good guides out there, mostly based on heartrate, but my quick and dirty guides are:
Zone 1: warmup, easy recovery
Zone 2: long pace work (eg 1st half of a 10k race), well below lactate threshold.
Zone 3: at or near lactate threshold (maybe a little above, maybe a little below)
Zone 4: well above lactate threshold, very very close to race pace. An example would be a 5 x 100 test set on 4:00 (we did just that set this morning)
Zone 5: all out sprints
The problem with "less is more" is that it's too much of a slogan and somewhat deceptive. If all you do is swim 3x a week, 95% chance you won't be tearing up the pool. You have to do "more" -- whether it's spinning, weights, running, core work, etc, to be competitive and race at a high level.
Plus, working out only 3x a week is not the best for weight control, especially as you age. I know Paul said he doesn't care about his weight, but I guarantee most other people do and would prefer to be lean and trim than the alternative. I don't know about the men's locker room, but I haven't found or seen a single fegirl who isn't checking out how her butt looks in her fastskin.
The other thing of note in the article is that Paul adopted this type of training partially in response to two shoulder surgeries. Anyone with shoulder issues might be better served opting for "less is more" in the pool. Oh, I did see Paul admit he swims for "fitness" in that article too!!
I hate zone 2, Chris. I do zone 2 stuff on the running trail or bike. I don't know whether this is really effective or not. Plus, if you're only swimming 4x a week, it's very hard to hit all those different zones and sub-zones in the pool!
