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
How do you define "quality?" I'm thinking it can't be 100% true since there are many good self-coached masters swimmers.
I agree in that there are a lot of good self-coached masters swimmers out there. But how many *greats* are out there? I may be wrong, but let's say I qualify as a "good" swimmer. Well, after today's practice and being shown all the errors and such that I make, my thoughts were, "What a mess!"
So, I felt I was performing "quality" but not according to my coach - and she was right b/c I could make the corrections and I saw/ felt a difference. I've also had a world record holder point out lots of errors that I make throughout practices. So, I'm not swimming quality to him.
You are right in that it's all relative. For me, I feel that a good way to look at it is that when you are feeling like you've gotten to a decent level, get some additional/ new feedback if possible and then you'll realize you can hold yourself to an even higher standard.
When I think "quality," I think of Paul Smith as he does bring that term up quite a bit. So, I think of someone who is performing skills (again, not even thinking about speed or distance yet) during practice at an ex-NCAA Div I level or a masters World Record holder level. Now that's some quality.
And it's :rant3::rant3: challenging to swim that way! And let me clarify, I'm still not there yet.
Leslie, this quote of yours stood out for me:
I'm well aware that my breaststroke is stuck in the gutter without some big time assistance.
First, I'm in the same boat with my back AND ***. :laugh2: But here's where it gets interesting. Take my (our) beloved fly - something that I think is pretty good. Well, turns out there are TONS of specific things I need to continue to fix. Woa! :eek:
Anyway, what I thought was quality was not. I think that's what one of my coaches was referring to when he said I had a "limited swimming background."
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Former Member
How do you define "quality?" I'm thinking it can't be 100% true since there are many good self-coached masters swimmers.
I agree in that there are a lot of good self-coached masters swimmers out there. But how many *greats* are out there? I may be wrong, but let's say I qualify as a "good" swimmer. Well, after today's practice and being shown all the errors and such that I make, my thoughts were, "What a mess!"
So, I felt I was performing "quality" but not according to my coach - and she was right b/c I could make the corrections and I saw/ felt a difference. I've also had a world record holder point out lots of errors that I make throughout practices. So, I'm not swimming quality to him.
You are right in that it's all relative. For me, I feel that a good way to look at it is that when you are feeling like you've gotten to a decent level, get some additional/ new feedback if possible and then you'll realize you can hold yourself to an even higher standard.
When I think "quality," I think of Paul Smith as he does bring that term up quite a bit. So, I think of someone who is performing skills (again, not even thinking about speed or distance yet) during practice at an ex-NCAA Div I level or a masters World Record holder level. Now that's some quality.
And it's :rant3::rant3: challenging to swim that way! And let me clarify, I'm still not there yet.
Leslie, this quote of yours stood out for me:
I'm well aware that my breaststroke is stuck in the gutter without some big time assistance.
First, I'm in the same boat with my back AND ***. :laugh2: But here's where it gets interesting. Take my (our) beloved fly - something that I think is pretty good. Well, turns out there are TONS of specific things I need to continue to fix. Woa! :eek:
Anyway, what I thought was quality was not. I think that's what one of my coaches was referring to when he said I had a "limited swimming background."
