Interesting article Paul, I agree with most of what you said. Also, pretty good replies so far;
Although, when it comes to swimming specific core training, I think this is one of THE best methods to train.:D
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Less is More for Paul Smith
What is really less about this, pool time or yardage only? The article implies about 3 days a week of swimming and then 2-3 days more of other fitness activities. It's still a lot of training, which is very admirable. There are many weeks where I will swim only 3 days but will also spend the other 3 or 4 doing other stuff. End result is much better fitness, much better swimming. Sometimes less is really a whole lot more.
That's a bit less than our program, but pretty typical, I think. Is that in an hour?
That is what we are currently swimming, long course, in a little over an hour. Some days our main set is closer to 2000.
but the only thing I care about is how much yardage are you able to do AT OR ABOVE RACE PACE.
um, how can you do that? If Hulk can practice faster than Hulk's race pace then Hulk must be swimming too slow in races. :drown:
Hulk confused
If Hulk can practice faster than Hulk's race pace then Hulk must be swimming too slow in races.
A swimmer's standard response to a coach's call to swim at race pace..."which race?"
I do most of my swimmer faster than my 10k race pace...
I swim a little over 8000/wk with a 1:3 ratio of race pace to recovery swims swimming 4X/wk.On 2 of those days I also spin(but not as much as Paul,I never seem to have time for more than 30 min,usually less) and lift(and balance ball and I do RC exercises every workout.)(The race pace work starts 15 wk before a taper meet,but with 3 taper meets/yr that is most of the year,the other time is long/slow swims,drills and rest my shoulders and knees.)
the only thing I care about is how much yardage are you able to do AT OR ABOVE RACE PACE.
This is oversimplifying a bit. I think race-pace training is the MOST important aspect of a training regimen, but not the ONLY important aspect.
Even if you count things like drills or hypoxic work as "recovery," there are still lots of other important things in training besides warming up to do race pace, doing race pace, and recovering from it.
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
In addition, I like to do pace work at target paces. For example, broken 200s with 10-20 seconds rest at each 50, not necessarily (or even primarily) for the conditioning aspect but to get a good sense for what it feels like to swim at the desired speed. This sort of thing can help you take out your races at the appropriate pace.
Too many masters swimmers spend excessive time in zone 3 (or lower) and don't hit the upper zones. Basically, what I'm saying is that I believe a good training program is more than just Zones 1 and 4/5, though obviously different types of swimmers (sprinters, distance types) may choose to allocate their time differently.
There are other, finer distinctions out there (eg dividing each zone into "A" and "B"). There are other terms, too; the U of Richmond coach uses terms like "sprint endurance" and "anaerobic power" and the like. I join his team once a week this summer so he sent me his training plan for a typical week.
Monday a.m. : aerobic endurance and short sprints (15 m)
Monday p.m. : intense aerobic endurance and excessive drills
Tuesday a.m. : anaerobic endurance (this week 4 x )
Tuesday p.m. : lift
Wednesday a.m. : speed (this week: Lauren = 4 x ; Katie = 6 x )
Wednesday p.m. : low intensity aerobic and drills
Thursday a.m. : intense aerobic endurance
Thursday p.m. : lift
Friday a.m. : anaerobic power
Saturday a.m. : Speed, lift, and more
He is an excellent coach -- we have OT qualifiers and all-americans, pretty good for a small school -- and has all his swimmers (a women's team) wear HR monitors, and hits all the zones. A typical morning practice is 5500-6500, depending on the day, so he doesn't kill them with distance.
This is just an example of what I mean, of course, not meant to be a blueprint. And I can't always decipher all his phrases, so don't ask...obviously typical masters won't do doubles like this.
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!
I like your zone example
I do most of my training in zone 1, but it's the training I do in
zone 4 and 5 that makes the difference.
"An example would be a 5 x 100 test set on 4:00 (we did just that set this morning)"
hey chris how did it go?
ande
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
Hulk,
I don't know about Paul or Erik's specific training habits, but I assume they mean that they do 50s in practice at or above their normal race pace for a 100 or 200 in a meet. Not even Ande can swim his meet times in practice although he seems to get close.
I find this "less is more" discussion interesting because it seems like almost all masters swimmers that are somewhat serious have pretty much the same training patterns - Paul's training doesn't seem unique unless you are comparing him with much younger swimmers. I swim 10 to 14k per week depending on the time of year and it sounds like just most everyone swims between 8 to 15k per week. Ande seems to swim almost every week day so I bet even Ande swims at least 10k per week even though he does a lot more sprints than most of us and he does a lot of weights too. What makes us different is, perhaps, the quality of the yards that we put in during that time. It seems like Paul's training time is probably about average for a masters swimmer especially given how much he does outside the pool. Obviously, he is more fit than most of us given his ability to take a 200 out fast and hold that pace which means he must have genetic attributes that are better than average or he trains with more intensity than average (probably both).
My questions to everyone are -
Does anyone here train substantially more than 15k per week or significantly under 10k per week and why? I am sure there are masters swimmers out there that must swim a lot of yards, but I just haven't run across many. Maybe I just don't know the training habits of many masters swimmers and everyone is doing 20k or more per week.
What percentage of your yards do you spend swimming at a pace that would equal or better your second half splits in a 100 or 200 free?
I think I probably only do 200 to 400 yards per week at a time that I would consider equal to my second 50 in my 100 Free race and probably 400 to 800 yards at or better than my last 100 in my 200 (these yards are almost all 50s). Anyway, I am well under 10% and probably in the 2 to 3% range for quality yards. Sometimes during the year (like now) when my next meet is 6 or more months away these intense yards are very low. I do virtually no work on 25s or 50s trying to get as close to my meet 50 times as I can like Ande does, but I should some. When I first started back in swimming 4 years ago my quality yardage were less than half (maybe zero that first year) of what I currently do and my goal each year is to increase those intense yards and I also increase the intensity as I get closer to a meet (I usually only swim competitively in the spring).
I definitely agree with Erik and Paul that if you can increase your quality yards at 100 and 200 race pace, you will consistently improve your race times. The difficult part is actually doing it. I don't like pain or even mild suffering much.
I am sure Hulk likes pain so you should do all your yardage as close to race pace as possible, but no one expects Hulk to go as fast or faster than your meet times in practice.
Tim
