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?
Heart rate? Aerobic system? If you really want to swim the 50, swim the 50. Allow your body to figure what "systems" are needed for the task.
I won't make specific recommendations beyond the obvious. "Practice your races" is the obvious. Different people can handle different workloads.
Swimming injuries tend to be overuse injuries. You see them coming from a mile away, and if they get you, it's because you ignored the pain. So what's the problem with sprinting? It's a lot less reptetitive motion than distance training. If hurts, stop.
If you are saying that almost all swimming injuries tend to come from overuse, I may have to somewhat disagree. I agree that you need to train the 50. One of my swimmers who ended up swimming for Tennessee was a sprinter. I used to give him the following set twice a week -
4 x 50 free on 1.30 - starting in the water -no breathing on first length and only two breaths allowed coming back - all efforts had to be within 3 seconds of best 50.
I don't really know what you're talking about then. I've never seen somebody hurt themselves from swimming too fast, unless you're talking about running into walls and lane lines. I've done that.
It depends on how you define overuse and I think of it as too much, too soon. This can translate into too much yardage too soon or too much speed too soon. Think about running injuries- some get stress fractures from too much mileage and some get hamstring pulls from sudden, fast movements when the body is not prepared or too tired.
I may have to disagree with you that all injuries come from overuse.
Except that JH's comment was "Swimming injuries tend to be overuse injuries", sorry, I don't read where that says all injuries. And I agree with JH's statement. Too much too soon is pretty much a classic 'over-use' injury. If you're body's not ready for an activity, and you do too much, then you have 'over-used' your body, i.e exceeded it's ability to cope with that movement, action or activity.
Except that JH's comment was "Swimming injuries tend to be overuse injuries", sorry, I don't read where that says all injuries. And I agree with JH's statement. Too much too soon is pretty much a classic 'over-use' injury. If you're body's not ready for an activity, and you do too much, then you have 'over-used' your body, i.e exceeded it's ability to cope with that movement, action or activity.
pwolf66 - Thanks for bringing that up. You are correct and I have edited my post to say how I read it. I would agree with your definition of overuse and say that it squares with what I say in my later post. My point is that I think we have to be as careful with speed as we do with training lots of yardage.
If I had the balls for it, I'd join Paul Smith on this trial to see how it works for someone without a long term swimming pedigree.
I tend to feel that I have yards to make up for in my experience, and laying off too much would be detrimental as good swim behaviours are not so deeply ingrained.
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'm in. I've been wanting to ask about this approach for awhile, but didn't want to seem ignorant. My thought is that in running marathons and ultras I have the aerobic system pretty much in place. And although I love distance running and hate sprint running, when it comes to the pool I am just the opposite. I'm not a good sprinter in the pool, but it is so much more fun!
Are there any training plans out there? I was thinking of converting the training plan for the 800 in Daniel's Running Formula book, but if there is something specific for swimming, that would be even better.
Have things changed that much since Richard Quick trained Dara for the 2000 Olympics? According to Dara in an article at www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../200005-01swim_art.asp Quick coached Dara using primarily stroke work and recovery work. According to the article, she kept her HR get under 150. I doubt most people that age could do race-pace efforts and keep the HR under 150.
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?
If you post your workots and planned events I'll do my best to follow the progam and see if I get any "WOW" results...
