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?
Just read an article in Mens Journal (it had a cover of Phelps and Lochte on the front). In the health & fitness section was an article entitled "Cardio is Bunk." Essentially, from what I recall, it was suggesting that aerobic work doesn't make you terribly fit unless your main goal is to fight fat or be able to go skiing for a day. It discussed the "Reyes" workout which advocates high intensity training such as sprints, circuit training, explosive weights, martial arts, etc. in lieu of aerobic work, which is described as an inefficient waste of time. There seemed to be a caveat for training for a long road race or triathlon, but, even there, it said you could train for those with anaerobic work. But, bottom line, it suggested that all out efforts were the way to become and stay most fit. And that muscle is additionally more important for longevity
It is amazing what is promoted with little or no research.Of course that is the same way it is in swimming,people tend to do what works for someone else.Swimming does seem to go in fads.Doc Councilman's genius was to say"this is what the top swimmers do,lets see what they have in common and try to explain it."This was a great step forward,but led to some blind alleys(the whole lift vs drag mish mash.)
My point of view(also really anecdotal) is that to swim fast you must swim at race pace and that for most Masters that will mean shorter yardage as we can't swim much at race pace with good form and not getting hurt(and not have our families feel totally abandoned.)
It wasn't all mega yardage in the 70s - a lot depended on the coaching. Our little swim team in Midland, Texas had some very good coaching. We had 4 groups in the practice, each with separate workouts: Sprinters, Stroke, Mid-distance, and the animal lanes. AM workouts were more aerobic, long slow distance, and then the evenings were much more focused on intervals and there were the dreaded stress days.
Yes the animals did get a few 20 K days during the long course season, they grooved on demont series and other demented swims, but there were other torture sets as well. I seem to remember 3 x 300m br decend by 100's desend the set, with 400 IM chasers.
We probably did more damage to ourselves from the high school dryland exercise program. Most swam AAU and the High School Coaches waived their work outs if we swam for the club. They did require us to do the dry land work and carrying a swimmer piggy back up stadium stairs probably did more damage to my knees than all the years of *** stroke.
In the early 90s, I was on one masters team that had switched to a sprint philosphy and focused on the 50s and 100s. This was frustrating for my 200 *** & 200 IM. Workouts were in the 2500 yard range.
Now this older fat man is just now back into the pool (7/2) after many years of sloth and glad to be able to drag myself through the warm, country club pool (no lane lines, but very few swimmers) while I work on rebuilding a base to 2500 yards per workout 4x. Adapting Paul's work outs have almost got me there. Unfortunately, I have log books and a memory of what times and distance used to be (last competed in the 30-35 bracket many years and several speedo sizes ago).
I don't forsee ever going back to 2 x days or swimming more than 4 x per week. The goal is to a build to 3500 yard workouts perhaps find a team, and get well adjusted to current times before I consider competing in the 50 -55 bracket that I just aged into.
Don
Former Member
As a victim of the mega-yardage trend in the 70s, I have no doubt that it wrecked/suppressed some of my potential as a swimmer when young. In the summer, I recall doing doubles at two different pools with weights and drylands inbetween from 7:00 am-12:30 pm and then biking 4 miles home to sleep all afternoon. Blech.
...up hilll...in the snow... :D
It discussed the "Reyes" workout which advocates high intensity training such as sprints, circuit training, explosive weights, martial arts, etc. in lieu of aerobic work, which is described as an inefficient waste of time.
Just the latest flavor of the month, IMO. Seriously, these magazines have to keep convincing everyone that "everything you learned before about working out is wrong..." or else they wouldn't be able to keep people buying them.
Speaking of research, consider this:
www.nytimes.com/.../01muscle.html
Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego reported that they had found two drugs that did wonders for the athletic endurance of couch potato mice. One drug, known as Aicar, increased the mice’s endurance on a treadmill by 44 percent after just four weeks of treatment.
A second drug, GW1516, supercharged the mice to a 75 percent increase in endurance but had to be combined with exercise to have any effect.
Maybe some day, with the right pills, you won't even have to do short yardage.
I propose that it is impossible to perform a quality workout without having an experienced coach (college or Trials/ Olympic background) correct you throughout the entire workout. I'm not even thinking about distance or speed although I'm sure they fall into the equation somewhere. I just came from a workout today and I was corrected on just about everything from stroke issues in free and fly to SDK and breathing. I felt fortunate to be able to make several significant changes (and to have a talented, patient coach point all these things out to me). I also felt that had I not been in darn good shape beforehand, that I could not have made the corrections. Swimming consistently and fast with the new corrections is a whole other can of worms. Good luck!
100% agree....but sadly something that is to often not available in masters swimming.
Former Member
I propose that it is impossible to perform a quality workout without having an experienced coach (college or Trials/ Olympic background) correct you throughout the entire workout. I'm not even thinking about distance or speed although I'm sure they fall into the equation somewhere. I just came from a workout today and I was corrected on just about everything from stroke issues in free and fly to SDK and breathing. I felt fortunate to be able to make several significant changes (and to have a talented, patient coach point all these things out to me). I also felt that had I not been in darn good shape beforehand, that I could not have made the corrections. Swimming consistently and fast with the new corrections is a whole other can of worms. Good luck!
How do you define "quality?" I'm thinking it can't be 100% true since there are many good self-coached masters swimmers.
Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
Train all the quality you want but if your doing it with improper technique although you may be "fast" and see "improvement" its very doubtful you'll ever know just how could you have been or could be.
Don it actually wasn't all mega yardage in the 70's...at least one coach was doing some insanely different stuff; Sam Freas.
Also I found it very interesting that although I've brought it up several times so many people here still equate "speed" work with "sprinting". What I'm trying to get people to do here is to realize that even if your focus is in the distance events you can and should look at more quality speed work...Grant Hackett being a very good example of how someone who's best event is the 1500m but he can still go 49+ 100m...easy speed is a crucial element for everyone and just baning out max yardage every workout and avoiding speed work (IMO) is a mistake if you want to improve.
