-- The pendulum seems to be swinging against over-training/over-distance, which IMO is mostly a good thing, but this method has produced a lot of very very fast swimmers (as well as a lot of shoulder injuries and burned out swimmers). It isn't complete junk.
It's also worth noting that most of the swimmers who have success with low-yardage training put in some serious yardage when they were younger. I know Paul Smith did. I'm doing very short workouts now, but I built most of my speed in high school, when I was swimming a lot of slow 200s every day.
I think it's pretty incredible that he understands swimming and his body well enough to have such incredible results with such little pool time.
Kudos to Mr. Smith.
My main goal is to not swim hurt. Meaning no hurt back, no dull achy pain, and certainly no sharp stabbing pain! No interest to "feel the burn" of aerobic sets soo...I never do 'em!
No kidding! Injuries are the worst. If my shoulder is happy, I'm happy. More than 4x a week or mega-yardage and I won't be happy. I feel the same way about aerobic work for the most part; I'd just rather do fast stuff.
5000 yards of "recovery"?!?! Huh? Blech.
Perhaps the Evil Smith should apply his "less is more" philosophy to his Wendy's lunch orders or his 3rd glass of vino in the evenings.
Remember the cardinal rule of masters swimming - It's not how fast you go.... it's how good you look.
John Smith
"Quantity has a quality all its own," huh? It works for some.
Chris,
you have to be very careful about how much credence you give to anything I post: my first comment was AT LEAST a 3/4 dig at my buddy Paul. I do that every chance I get.
That said, for me (as you point out each of us is different) working longer and harder has been the key I believe (please note that I have no way of proving this belief) to swimming success. I put in far more yards in the pool than ever before but don't swim one single junk yard. As I have posted on other threads my time is swum at very slow pace trying to get exactly the stroke mechanics I want. The remainder of the time is very high intensity, not paying attention to the details but hoping that the slow training has caught on. I like my results: going from an occasional Top Ten performance to more than 20 per year and breaking one national record all in the last 5 years. Most swimmers won't train with me because of the slow swimming aspect. The only other swimmer I've ever met who is willing to do what I do is my wife who has made extraordinary strides in her swim performances over the last 5 years. Last SCM season she had more Top Ten times than I did.
We have a training philosophy called by one former coach of mine 'Train until you can't, rest until you can.' This means do the Jack Lalanne thing (train until exhaustion) and go home to rest. Next day do it again. When you reach a point where you can't do a particular performance test (lifting, biking, swimming, speed walking all have different test parameters) you quit. Take a day off. After your day off quiz yourself on how you feel. If the answer to your question is that you'd rather not train then don't. Take another day off. Continue this pattern until all systems are again ready for hard training. I can't tell you how many times I've suited up when I'm at the limit and just couldn't persuade myself to get into the water (i.e. the mental attitude was not there). I changed back into street clothes and went home. How many swimmers do you know who will do that?
I have two bad shoulders and one bad knee from too many years of playing English Football. After 25 years, all is re-habbed (no operations). Since starting with the current training program I've never had an injury (been with it now for 7 years). Everything about me seems to be getting stronger. I can lift more than I could as a teenager. I swim faster now than I did in college.
So, the 1/4 of my first post responding to Paul was very serious. I'm now up to about 120 minutes a day of HARD training (no wimpy Leslie stuff...) - that's over 700 hours per year. For me, more is more.
I see this all different -- I would not even call Paul's approach "less is more". Sure yardage will vary from a 50 sprinter to a Miler --- but the only thing I care about is how much yardage are you able to do AT OR ABOVE RACE PACE. I would guess that Paul is doing quite a bit of that in his 3 or 4 workouts a week. Even if you swim every day for 6K - I bet that you can only go fast 2-3 sets per week - even for a 200 swimmer that may be a total of 2000 yards at race pace (and that's high) - the rest is made up of kicking / pulling and garbage yards. So Paul chooses to leave out the 5,000 yard "recovery workout" the day after pounding out some broken 200s.
One of my first coaches explained it best - the only reason to do long sets in the beginning of the season is to be able to do MORE quality towards the end. The problem is that many coaches used to destroy the swimmers so badly early on, they could never recover to do the quality work - or the coaches did not even do those quality sets in the later part of the season.
I think he is to tall and should'nt be allowed to swim in USMS events. Height limit should be 6ft. 3 inchs.
Wait a minute, Bob. There probably should be a size limit on your guns as well. I don't think my 6-foot tape will go around your upper arms.
Mel...sadly the digs have been almost exclusively via forums and not nearly as often sitting at a bar or in the pool...are you and your lovely Mrs. joining Team AZ in Portland?
Not going to Portland. We are closing on a new condo in downtown Denver next week and need all our free cash to buy wine and swim at Lowry...
