Much has been discussed on this topic but i wanted to revisit it after watching the track & field championships and remembering debates about how much pool training time swimmers put in relative to a runner competing in the equivalent event (a 400m runner to 100m swimmer).
What got my attention on this again was a recent article in Men's Fitness about Jeremy Wariner, specifically his training week during mid-season:
M= 200's: 8 x 200's two minutes followed by 40 yd sprints w/20 seconds rest
T= 350m: 2 x 350's followed by 1 x 300, one minute rest then a 100m to simulate the end of the race
W= 450m: 2 x 450's each under 1:00 with 9 minutes rest between each
Th= 90m: Recovery day each run in an "X" pattern
F= 100m: last run of the week is multiple 100m sprints
That's an insanely lower amount of training time than even i put in....Ande & Jazz come to mind.
More of this in an excellent article:
"Elite coaching special - Clyde Hart coach to Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner"
Here's are a couple of excerpt:
Clyde believes the principles of training are the same for many events: "I trained Michael Johnson like I trained a four minute miler. A four minute miler was doing a lot of the same things Michael Johnson was - a lot of the same things in training but more of them.
"The longest workout we have ever done - not counting warm up and warm down - would be under 20min, I think we have never worked more than 20min. That's not counting the Fall phase.”
So here's my challenge...I'm going to pick one of the next seasons (either SCM this fall or SCY in the spring) and try and adapt to this regime...anyone else game?
That sounds brutal. I feel like I need a day off after more than about four consecutive days.
Kirk..good point about wether track is something we should want to emulate. I just think we (swimmers) are far to much into routine and more importantly so many people (especially middle distance-distance) won't do quality speed work. i can't tell you how tired i get coaching of hearing someone say "I only have one speed"!!
As for the 16+5.... cycling is far less "stressful" on the body in general than swimming and running. Also, remember that I said and the article explains in detail that these 16 days encompass 1ll 5 zones...which include recovery rides for 30 minutes in zone 1 (or even day off) for example...when you get to the 5 days of recovery however its 1 day off, 1 day recovery ride, 1 day off, 1 day zone 1 w/optional cadence spin ups and finally 1 day off....then repeat.
The key to me and relating to swimming is that you really need to change things up almost daily in your effort level and that means recovery is a regular part of training as is speed work.
That sounds brutal. I feel like I need a day off after more than about four consecutive days.
Kirk..good point about wether track is something we should want to emulate. I just think we (swimmers) are far to much into routine and more importantly so many people (especially middle distance-distance) won't do quality speed work. i can't tell you how tired i get coaching of hearing someone say "I only have one speed"!!
As for the 16+5.... cycling is far less "stressful" on the body in general than swimming and running. Also, remember that I said and the article explains in detail that these 16 days encompass 1ll 5 zones...which include recovery rides for 30 minutes in zone 1 (or even day off) for example...when you get to the 5 days of recovery however its 1 day off, 1 day recovery ride, 1 day off, 1 day zone 1 w/optional cadence spin ups and finally 1 day off....then repeat.
The key to me and relating to swimming is that you really need to change things up almost daily in your effort level and that means recovery is a regular part of training as is speed work.
