Greetings
I have been studying the use of blood lactate levels as they relate to swim training for a number of months now. Jan Olbrechts book has been a great resource for understanding the values and utilizing the data. My question is directed to any coach or athlete that could provide me with a formal testing protocol that they have used in the past as well as advice on starting and maintaining a program for our senior age group swimmers.
Thanks in advance for any comments or direction on this topic.
Regards
Spudfin
Former Member
The Kansas City Blazers do it several times per year. You can contact their coaches through their web site, www.kcblazers.com
There are 2 tests that the German National team (WEST) used in the 80s.
300s long-course:
Startet at 1:30 pace = 4:30 and then dropped 15 seconds on each round - you can start slower - the first 2-3 rounds should be super slow and easy. 30 seconds rest where they took heartrate and lactate from the ear. go until failure or max . Some places had a lightband at the bottom of the pool that they could set up to the exact pace for each round - but the pacing was not too difficult. After a base test we would repeat every 4 weeks. You get a nice chart and you can see the curve moving to the right (hopefully).
We would get very precise pacing instructions for threshold sets based on the results.
Max Test long-course (did that test much later but on the same day) : 100 Free trying to go 1:02 (for Men) -- not sure why they picked that time - maybe just to get a baseline of going fast but not all-out. Take HR and Lactate on 1 min, 3 min, 5 and 7 --- then do the same with an All-out 100.
I would recommend to get some sort of heart rate measuring device for the breaks - the finger + counting is just too unreliable.
Just a word of warning - be ready to get questioned by your swimmers if they train for 2 month and do not improve - I believe that is the reason many coaches don't do standard sets as test sets.
