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?
Parents
Former Member
First let me begin by saying, I’m in. I will evaluate what I would call the “Increased Stress through quality vs., quantity workouts) at our state meet in about nine months. If you follow basic baseline training, your workout times will dictate if you’re adapting to stress. When stress adaptation is realized (times not improving) you’ll need to find ways to add effective stress (stress that produces positive gains) to your workouts. Dara Torres won both the 100 and 50 while decreasing the yardage she did during her peak training decades ago, by half. I think Torres proves that there’s more ways to skin (adding stress and improving performance) a cat than simply adding yardage to a workout.
There’s an interesting article (on this subject) by Genadijus Sokolovas, Ph.D. USA Swimming Coaches Quarterly, The Science and Art of Coaching USA Swimming, The article doesn’t answer your question but does bring up an important note about the importance of stress adaptation. The article simply states that increasing workloads are necessary for improvement. I think coaches and swimmers who only use yardage as a stress gaining tool are missing the boat.
I think athleticism is a tough card to trump and should become a swimmer and coach’s main focal point. Increasing general athleticism and specific (swimming) athleticism are two different things. Core strength and symmetrical strength (fourteen concentric and eccentric muscle exercises) is what I can general strength. Isometric and resistance exercises that improve EVF, streamlining, kicking and pulling are what I call specific strength.
Like Dara Torres, I will concentrate on becoming a better athlete with general strength and specific strength. I will also add a little running and biking to help the cardio. I will get in the water in the second week in September and try to get three swim workouts a week and each session will be no more than 1500 yards. I injured my rotator-cuff in February and haven't been in the water since.
First let me begin by saying, I’m in. I will evaluate what I would call the “Increased Stress through quality vs., quantity workouts) at our state meet in about nine months. If you follow basic baseline training, your workout times will dictate if you’re adapting to stress. When stress adaptation is realized (times not improving) you’ll need to find ways to add effective stress (stress that produces positive gains) to your workouts. Dara Torres won both the 100 and 50 while decreasing the yardage she did during her peak training decades ago, by half. I think Torres proves that there’s more ways to skin (adding stress and improving performance) a cat than simply adding yardage to a workout.
There’s an interesting article (on this subject) by Genadijus Sokolovas, Ph.D. USA Swimming Coaches Quarterly, The Science and Art of Coaching USA Swimming, The article doesn’t answer your question but does bring up an important note about the importance of stress adaptation. The article simply states that increasing workloads are necessary for improvement. I think coaches and swimmers who only use yardage as a stress gaining tool are missing the boat.
I think athleticism is a tough card to trump and should become a swimmer and coach’s main focal point. Increasing general athleticism and specific (swimming) athleticism are two different things. Core strength and symmetrical strength (fourteen concentric and eccentric muscle exercises) is what I can general strength. Isometric and resistance exercises that improve EVF, streamlining, kicking and pulling are what I call specific strength.
Like Dara Torres, I will concentrate on becoming a better athlete with general strength and specific strength. I will also add a little running and biking to help the cardio. I will get in the water in the second week in September and try to get three swim workouts a week and each session will be no more than 1500 yards. I injured my rotator-cuff in February and haven't been in the water since.
