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 only sort of agree with this. It's awesome to have a good eye watching you swim and giving you the right focus points and drills. I assume it is, anyway, because I've never really been coached that way. I've always been coached as part of a team, so corrections were rare and they usually seemed like guesses. "I think you might be spinning, maybe slow the stroke rate?"
Swimming by yourself can work if you go more by how things feel than by how they look. If you know what a good swim feels like, you can alter your workout to try to capture that feeling. For me, it's like "That wasn't quite it, it needs more X. Drill/set/equipment Y gives me X sometimes. I'll try Y."
Some things you know you're doing wrong and can attempt to self-correct and possibly succeed. Other fine points, you need a coach or educated observer, I agree. I've had several people point out things I'm doing wrong in fly that I never really realized, for example.
Kirk and Paul: Good point on quality applying to distance. I've got some distance geeks on my team that definitely are in zones 4-5 on some sets or parts of sets. They're animals.
I dunno about the snorkel, Paul. I know you and others love it. I've tried it a few times, can't get the hang of it and feel like I'm suffocating. Maybe this fall when I don't have many meets.
I only sort of agree with this. It's awesome to have a good eye watching you swim and giving you the right focus points and drills. I assume it is, anyway, because I've never really been coached that way. I've always been coached as part of a team, so corrections were rare and they usually seemed like guesses. "I think you might be spinning, maybe slow the stroke rate?"
Swimming by yourself can work if you go more by how things feel than by how they look. If you know what a good swim feels like, you can alter your workout to try to capture that feeling. For me, it's like "That wasn't quite it, it needs more X. Drill/set/equipment Y gives me X sometimes. I'll try Y."
Some things you know you're doing wrong and can attempt to self-correct and possibly succeed. Other fine points, you need a coach or educated observer, I agree. I've had several people point out things I'm doing wrong in fly that I never really realized, for example.
Kirk and Paul: Good point on quality applying to distance. I've got some distance geeks on my team that definitely are in zones 4-5 on some sets or parts of sets. They're animals.
I dunno about the snorkel, Paul. I know you and others love it. I've tried it a few times, can't get the hang of it and feel like I'm suffocating. Maybe this fall when I don't have many meets.
