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?
So if a 100/200 track sprinters main set is say 10x200 (exculding say a 1 mile warm up and drills) and you take the 4:1 ratio, should a swimmer do four 50's and go home?
So if a 100/200 track sprinters main set is say 10x200 (exculding say a 1 mile warm up and drills) and you take the 4:1 ratio, should a swimmer do four 50's and go home?
That was one days workout in the week....and for a 50/100 specialist it makes sense. On that same designated day a swimmer who specializes in the 1650 would do two 800's fast with long recovery between each followed by fast 100's w/20 seconds rest.
Curious if Mr. Abraham's will weigh in here...he trains along these lines.
Also, I still maintain that you need to throw some aerobic training in there since Benardot asserts that 20% of the energy source for an event under 30 seconds is aerobic.
This makes no sense. It very nearly makes the opposite of sense. If X amount of energy for a sprint comes from aerobic metabolism, then in training the very same sprint will stimulate aerobic adaptation at the level of X. So, really, X doesn't matter. If it's low, then you don't get much aerobic work from sprinting and you don't need it. If it's high, then you need aerobic power for sprinting but you are also training yourself to produce a lot of aerobic power every time you sprint.
Conclusion: If you want to do anything well in competition, practice it! Energy systems are extremely overrated in swimming.
I realize that technique is part of sprint running but it's so much more important to swim with great technique - or rather harder. It's easy to have your technique fall apart when racing which I believe is far more of a concern in a 50/100 in swimming than in a 400 on the track.
So are you saying that after a warm-up, one should just practice the 50 over and over again as if one were racing?
One should at least do that. As you said, technique work is necessary. That usually means shorter distances, slower speeds, and drills.
Oh, and increase muscle size with weight training and diet. No one wants to actually do that, though.
A great discussion we have going here...but so many of you keep going of track. My point in bringing Wariner up and the training article by his coach is that ALL distances fall back on the same basic principles for track...I did not intend this to be a discussion of "sprint" training but one of "speed" work for all distances.
So although the 400m in track is roughly the equivalent of the 100m in swimming, and the 1500m is akin to the 400/500....the basic plan includes 3 phases and far more emphasis on quality over quantity in mid-season.
Go back to my first post if your interested, read the article I linked and then adapt Wariner's weekly mid-season routine to your swimming....this is m question. Can ALL of us benefit from more focused, higher quality, lower volumne training?
I know the answer for myself...I train far less than the masters swimmers I know/train with. However I have never gone all the way so to speak to this level of "quality"...and the prospect of a 4 month test is very intriguing.
So if a 100/200 track sprinters main set is say 10x200 (exculding say a 1 mile warm up and drills) and you take the 4:1 ratio, should a swimmer do four 50's and go home?
I wouldn't think so, as in that case you're dividing both the distance (200 -> 50) and the number (10 -> 4) so you're reducing it by much more than a factor of 4.
At any rate I have a few theories on why some people may benefit from a 'less is more' approach:
1) It's more event-specific. After all, if my events are 50's and 100's, why do I spend hours training? If my cumulative race times in a meet are sub 2:30 (two and a half minutes), isn't it odd that I would spend hours training a day? Since intensity and duration are diametrically opposed, you can't go really really really fast for very long. So if I'm training thousands of meters a week, I'm probably spending very little time training the energy system that I rely on most during my events. However, if I concentrate on some really really really fast swims during a practice session, then my mileage for the hour-long session is really low as I spend so much time recovering.
2) Even if it's not permanent, it would probably be beneficial to most as it 'shakes things up'. The human body is extraordinarily adaptable - way more than we give it credit for. It adapts well to diet and exercise patterns - both physiologically and mentally. This is exactly the thing that Rich is talking about when he says that we don't swim hard/fast enough during the tough workouts, and we don't swim easy/slow enough during the light workouts. If all our workouts converge in the middle (moderate intensity), then we're too tired to go all out for the tough ones and we're never satisfied with our progress and accomplishments so we go too hard on the easy days. The end result is that all workouts are alike, and mentally and physically our bodies adapt in order to get by with the least amount of effort and impact. We don't stress it enough and don't let it recuperate enough, so it's in a gradual state of decline.
3) Many swimmers are currently over trained. Therefore, spending some time doing less mileage will automatically benefit them as it gives them a chance to heal and recover. Complete recovery takes more and more time as we age, and many of us have probably forgotten what that even feels like!
4) Lastly, every body is different and some really do well with short bouts of intense exercise. Not everybody needs to do double digits when it comes to hours/week in the pool. I'm sure it would benefit distance swimmers, but as a sprinter I don't know much about that sort of thing!
Nick
Is it good for the body to do race-pace 50s each time we work out or should there be a day or two a week devoted just to that? On the days you don't do race-pace 50s, isn't it worth it to keep the HR in the mid-zone of what would be considered aerobic? In other words, for the 50, you do have to keep the aerobic system in shape. I don't know if it is good to do this day in and day out with race-pace efforts. It seems like a good way to get injured.
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 repetitive motion than distance training. If it hurts, stop.
I may have to disagree with you that all injuries come from overuse.
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.
A great discussion we have going here...but so many of you keep going of track. My point in bringing Wariner up and the training article by his coach is that ALL distances fall back on the same basic principles for track...I did not intend this to be a discussion of "sprint" training but one of "speed" work for all distances.
So although the 400m in track is roughly the equivalent of the 100m in swimming, and the 1500m is akin to the 400/500....the basic plan includes 3 phases and far more emphasis on quality over quantity in mid-season.
Go back to my first post if your interested, read the article I linked and then adapt Wariner's weekly mid-season routine to your swimming....this is m question. Can ALL of us benefit from more focused, higher quality, lower volumne training?
I know the answer for myself...I train far less than the masters swimmers I know/train with. However I have never gone all the way so to speak to this level of "quality"...and the prospect of a 4 month test is very intriguing.
I'm willing to test it out. Can we talk you into posting some swim workouts to follow on this?
