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?
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Former Member
The more I look into this the more I have questions. Are masters swimmers and triathletes the most overtrained obsessive athletes out there?
As a former track coach, I've said this before: Too much of swim training is based on myth and old habits and it is only the fact that swimming is more forgiving in terms of injury than running that has allowed this to continue. The key rule is that if you can't answer the question "Why am I doing this workout and how does it fit into reaching my racing goal?", you need to rethink your training. (The answer "Because it will help" or some such is a non-answer.)
For example, even though I am not a sprinter and not a swim coach, I'm going to put myself up in the cross-hairs and look at sprint swimming. If I had to train someone in sprint swimming, here is how I'd pick it apart. First of all: The goal is not "to swim fast" - the goal is to maximize the component skills (i.e. local optimization) that constitute fast swimming and then put them together in a whole (i.e. global optimization). Fast swimming is a result of this, not the other way around. (Some of) the skills you need to sprint:
1) Explosive start. How do you get this? Probably, the average sprinter would say, "Get up on the blocks and do some starts." Better: Do plyometrics and/or weights and "do some starts" as confirmation of the progress that the other work has made and to fine tune the feel and control.
2) Clean entry. A "dirty" entry causes loss of momentum. This is a practice-by-doing skill. If you can enter the water consistently with the same kind of hole that a top diver makes, you have it. A cheap video camera is your best friend. (I also might ask a diving coach to watch a sprinter and make suggestions.)
3) SDK - This has clearly become a critical skill for swimmers. It takes tremendous strength, flexibility and explosive power. To get this you need to work on weights/resistance exercises (esp exercises that develop explosive core and leg power) and dynamic types of stretching (Dara Torres, anyone?). Then you need to devote a decent proportion of your in-water training time to this.
4) Actual swimming: Speed is a result of minimizing the water's resistance while maximizing your ability to apply force to the water. Minimizing resistance means obsessive attention to every stroke you take, your body position, and the kinesthetic "feel" of the water. Maximizing force production is a function of strength, flexibility, stroke rate, stroke length and kinesthetic "feel". We know about the first two already. Stroke rate - You need to work on this, but not always as a function of body speed - in other words, there are time when the goal is just to turn your arms over very fast, even if it means shortening your stroke to do so. Over time, as you get stronger, your stroke at that rate will be longer. Stroke length - This is somewhat related to minimizing the water's resistance, but it also is a goal in and of itself. The ability to hold length for a given stroke rate is a function of stength and flexibilty - you know about these already. Since speed=rate * length, you will be playing a balancing game between rate and length. One of your goals is to actually find that optimal combination. (Suggestion: Pick a time that is a bit slower than all-out for a 50 M long course. Do a 50 M a number of times at this speed and play with the stroke rate and length, while recording on video. Make a subjective assessment at the end of each as to how each component felt (rate and length and any other observation) and then review the video later, counting stokes, etc.
5) Turns: A fast and strong turn is a function of flexibility and the same kind of explosive strength used in the start. We already know how to deal with those. This is also a skill that will be practiced obsessively in the water with video tape support.
6) There are other abilities/skills needed for sprint swimming, but I'm just giving a sample analysis here.
You need to locally optimize these things - i.e make each one as good as you can. You also need to then begin to globally optimize them by combining skills. For example, explosive start, clean entry and powerful SDK. Later: Explosive start, clean entry, powerful SDK, optimal swimming going into an explosive turn.
Etc, etc, etc.
Any of this must be done with the idea of "mastery learning" in mind. In other words, the first time you do something correctly, you have not mastered it. It's only the nth time, when you can do it at will, that you can move to the next level of that skill.
Notice that I didn't really mention things like "5 X 50 very fast" or 5 X 100 dolphin kicks on back", which are typically set as training "goals". Those are not goals - they are a means to the real goals, which I (partially) listed above. I also didn't mention total yardage or anything like that. Yardage is a function of the time and repetition that you need to reach your training goals. It is NOT a goal in and of itself. Your training sets should always answer "why am I doing this relative to the skills/physiological conditioning that I need for my event."
OK - sorry for the ramble, but at least that's how I'd (partially) train a sprinter.
-LBJ
The more I look into this the more I have questions. Are masters swimmers and triathletes the most overtrained obsessive athletes out there?
As a former track coach, I've said this before: Too much of swim training is based on myth and old habits and it is only the fact that swimming is more forgiving in terms of injury than running that has allowed this to continue. The key rule is that if you can't answer the question "Why am I doing this workout and how does it fit into reaching my racing goal?", you need to rethink your training. (The answer "Because it will help" or some such is a non-answer.)
For example, even though I am not a sprinter and not a swim coach, I'm going to put myself up in the cross-hairs and look at sprint swimming. If I had to train someone in sprint swimming, here is how I'd pick it apart. First of all: The goal is not "to swim fast" - the goal is to maximize the component skills (i.e. local optimization) that constitute fast swimming and then put them together in a whole (i.e. global optimization). Fast swimming is a result of this, not the other way around. (Some of) the skills you need to sprint:
1) Explosive start. How do you get this? Probably, the average sprinter would say, "Get up on the blocks and do some starts." Better: Do plyometrics and/or weights and "do some starts" as confirmation of the progress that the other work has made and to fine tune the feel and control.
2) Clean entry. A "dirty" entry causes loss of momentum. This is a practice-by-doing skill. If you can enter the water consistently with the same kind of hole that a top diver makes, you have it. A cheap video camera is your best friend. (I also might ask a diving coach to watch a sprinter and make suggestions.)
3) SDK - This has clearly become a critical skill for swimmers. It takes tremendous strength, flexibility and explosive power. To get this you need to work on weights/resistance exercises (esp exercises that develop explosive core and leg power) and dynamic types of stretching (Dara Torres, anyone?). Then you need to devote a decent proportion of your in-water training time to this.
4) Actual swimming: Speed is a result of minimizing the water's resistance while maximizing your ability to apply force to the water. Minimizing resistance means obsessive attention to every stroke you take, your body position, and the kinesthetic "feel" of the water. Maximizing force production is a function of strength, flexibility, stroke rate, stroke length and kinesthetic "feel". We know about the first two already. Stroke rate - You need to work on this, but not always as a function of body speed - in other words, there are time when the goal is just to turn your arms over very fast, even if it means shortening your stroke to do so. Over time, as you get stronger, your stroke at that rate will be longer. Stroke length - This is somewhat related to minimizing the water's resistance, but it also is a goal in and of itself. The ability to hold length for a given stroke rate is a function of stength and flexibilty - you know about these already. Since speed=rate * length, you will be playing a balancing game between rate and length. One of your goals is to actually find that optimal combination. (Suggestion: Pick a time that is a bit slower than all-out for a 50 M long course. Do a 50 M a number of times at this speed and play with the stroke rate and length, while recording on video. Make a subjective assessment at the end of each as to how each component felt (rate and length and any other observation) and then review the video later, counting stokes, etc.
5) Turns: A fast and strong turn is a function of flexibility and the same kind of explosive strength used in the start. We already know how to deal with those. This is also a skill that will be practiced obsessively in the water with video tape support.
6) There are other abilities/skills needed for sprint swimming, but I'm just giving a sample analysis here.
You need to locally optimize these things - i.e make each one as good as you can. You also need to then begin to globally optimize them by combining skills. For example, explosive start, clean entry and powerful SDK. Later: Explosive start, clean entry, powerful SDK, optimal swimming going into an explosive turn.
Etc, etc, etc.
Any of this must be done with the idea of "mastery learning" in mind. In other words, the first time you do something correctly, you have not mastered it. It's only the nth time, when you can do it at will, that you can move to the next level of that skill.
Notice that I didn't really mention things like "5 X 50 very fast" or 5 X 100 dolphin kicks on back", which are typically set as training "goals". Those are not goals - they are a means to the real goals, which I (partially) listed above. I also didn't mention total yardage or anything like that. Yardage is a function of the time and repetition that you need to reach your training goals. It is NOT a goal in and of itself. Your training sets should always answer "why am I doing this relative to the skills/physiological conditioning that I need for my event."
OK - sorry for the ramble, but at least that's how I'd (partially) train a sprinter.
-LBJ
