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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I am not sure I am really that far away from training like this. My last all-out swim longer than 100 yards was my last meet about 8 weeks ago.
In a typical week since Nationals, I can do one race pace set of 3-5 swims. But, usually they are in a fast descend. I have 2 sprint days with the parachute - that's 7-10 sprints of 20sec or less. Then I have one pace day where I swim 50-100s at 200 to 800 pace - but not all out.
Other than that - I do swim more yardage, but all very easy. I can't remember the last time I have lead the entire main set for one of our workouts, and I am quite a bit faster.
My biggest problem with changing this even more is that I would have to train by myself (even more) + I think you need somebody to time you and give you feedback on stroke rates + technique.
I am not sure I am really that far away from training like this. My last all-out swim longer than 100 yards was my last meet about 8 weeks ago.
In a typical week since Nationals, I can do one race pace set of 3-5 swims. But, usually they are in a fast descend. I have 2 sprint days with the parachute - that's 7-10 sprints of 20sec or less. Then I have one pace day where I swim 50-100s at 200 to 800 pace - but not all out.
Other than that - I do swim more yardage, but all very easy. I can't remember the last time I have lead the entire main set for one of our workouts, and I am quite a bit faster.
My biggest problem with changing this even more is that I would have to train by myself (even more) + I think you need somebody to time you and give you feedback on stroke rates + technique.
