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?
I put in a max of about 10,000m a week..usually closer to 6000-8000m. However I have not gone to this level of "quality" work...and this experiment would mean stopping weights/cycling.
I would do something like;
6 weeks of base training = more of the 10,000m weeks but lower intensity.
7 weeks low volume/high intensity training ala Wariner
3 week "taper"
Only cross-training/dry land would be yoga 3x a week
Nice summary LBJ!
I do about the same yardage as you, Paul, maybe a bit more for LC. But I need a lot of easy warm up and recovery swimming to do speed work. I did 3000 today (missing sun and surf to swim with the tris at the local Y); only about 700 was high intensity.
Would you cross train or lift during your base period? In the middle period, you're just substituting increased high intensity swimming for cross training and pure aerobic work? So the test is whether the benefit of high intensity swimming specific work exceeds the benefit of cross training/weights/garbage yards? And your theory is that you can't do both without interfering with the quality/intensity of your swimming? If its really only a 7 week experiment, that wouldn't be nearly so hard as four months.
Sorry about the weight crack, Jazz. Don't love it yet, although I reluctantly must agree that (with my body type) it seems to help my swimming. I'm waiting to see how zones goes to further assess it. Although I'm thinking weights would probably be more beneficial to short course than long course?
I put in a max of about 10,000m a week..usually closer to 6000-8000m. However I have not gone to this level of "quality" work...and this experiment would mean stopping weights/cycling.
I would do something like;
6 weeks of base training = more of the 10,000m weeks but lower intensity.
7 weeks low volume/high intensity training ala Wariner
3 week "taper"
Only cross-training/dry land would be yoga 3x a week
Nice summary LBJ!
I do about the same yardage as you, Paul, maybe a bit more for LC. But I need a lot of easy warm up and recovery swimming to do speed work. I did 3000 today (missing sun and surf to swim with the tris at the local Y); only about 700 was high intensity.
Would you cross train or lift during your base period? In the middle period, you're just substituting increased high intensity swimming for cross training and pure aerobic work? So the test is whether the benefit of high intensity swimming specific work exceeds the benefit of cross training/weights/garbage yards? And your theory is that you can't do both without interfering with the quality/intensity of your swimming? If its really only a 7 week experiment, that wouldn't be nearly so hard as four months.
Sorry about the weight crack, Jazz. Don't love it yet, although I reluctantly must agree that (with my body type) it seems to help my swimming. I'm waiting to see how zones goes to further assess it. Although I'm thinking weights would probably be more beneficial to short course than long course?
