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?
When and where did we start going wrong in swimming? My mother swam back in the 1950s and said that her coach had them practice what they were racing at race pace. Was he unique or did we take a wrong path in the seventies? When did the mega-yardage trend come into play? It obviously did somewhere, but where and when?
many swimmers overtrain especially sprinters
here's the law of training
We become what we do
which means if you want to get better at swimming the 50 free
you should figure out what the critical factors are and work to improve in each area
one of them is to swim FAST swim 15's, 25's & 50 frees with plenty of rest
if you you don't allow enough rest between top efforts
you're actually training for a longer event
ironically the training many sprinters do makes them better at middle distance
one reason track athletes do less is to lower the risk of injury
I think it helps athletes to establish great technique and an excellent aerobic base in their younger years
you wrote:
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
give it a try I bet you'll have great results
I've gotten my best sprints results from doing this type of training
I did it 1990 - 92, 1995 & 96, and in 2008 preparing for SCY Nationals in May
One funny thing about longer harder training is swimmers work hard
so they believe they deserve to swim fast.
I swim fast in practice so I expect to swim fast in meets.
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 put in a max of about 10,000m a week..usually closer to 6000-8000m. However I have not gone to this level of "quality" work...and this experiment would mean stopping weights/cycling.
I would do something like;
6 weeks of base training = more of the 10,000m weeks but lower intensity.
7 weeks low volume/high intensity training ala Wariner
3 week "taper"
Only cross-training/dry land would be yoga 3x a week
Nice summary LBJ!
I do about the same yardage as you, Paul, maybe a bit more for LC. But I need a lot of easy warm up and recovery swimming to do speed work. I did 3000 today (missing sun and surf to swim with the tris at the local Y); only about 700 was high intensity.
Would you cross train or lift during your base period? In the middle period, you're just substituting increased high intensity swimming for cross training and pure aerobic work? So the test is whether the benefit of high intensity swimming specific work exceeds the benefit of cross training/weights/garbage yards? And your theory is that you can't do both without interfering with the quality/intensity of your swimming? If its really only a 7 week experiment, that wouldn't be nearly so hard as four months.
Sorry about the weight crack, Jazz. Don't love it yet, although I reluctantly must agree that (with my body type) it seems to help my swimming. I'm waiting to see how zones goes to further assess it. Although I'm thinking weights would probably be more beneficial to short course than long course?
more training would get your 500 time more in line with your 50 time
there's skinny little 12 year old girls who can barely go 26 in a 50 yard free that can go 5:11 in a 500
you should at least go under 5:00
I'm thinking about switching to longer events in the middle year of each age group
45 sprint
46 sprint
47 longer stuff
48 sprint
49 sprint
I'd really like to pop a decent 100 scy free
I'm leaning towards the paul smith trick
go for a 100 time while doing the 1,000
Of course. I'm thinking about the 200/500 combo at SCY nats next year. I've always kind liked those distances, and they suit me in one way because I'm not a terribly strong kicker.
Believe it or not, I went a lifetime best in the 500 (5:11) a couple years ago on less than 10,000 yards a week.
The more I look into this the more I have questions. Are masters swimmers and triathletes the most overtrained obsessive athletes out there?
As a former track coach, I've said this before: Too much of swim training is based on myth and old habits and it is only the fact that swimming is more forgiving in terms of injury than running that has allowed this to continue. The key rule is that if you can't answer the question "Why am I doing this workout and how does it fit into reaching my racing goal?", you need to rethink your training. (The answer "Because it will help" or some such is a non-answer.)
For example, even though I am not a sprinter and not a swim coach, I'm going to put myself up in the cross-hairs and look at sprint swimming. If I had to train someone in sprint swimming, here is how I'd pick it apart. First of all: The goal is not "to swim fast" - the goal is to maximize the component skills (i.e. local optimization) that constitute fast swimming and then put them together in a whole (i.e. global optimization). Fast swimming is a result of this, not the other way around. (Some of) the skills you need to sprint:
1) Explosive start. How do you get this? Probably, the average sprinter would say, "Get up on the blocks and do some starts." Better: Do plyometrics and/or weights and "do some starts" as confirmation of the progress that the other work has made and to fine tune the feel and control.
2) Clean entry. A "dirty" entry causes loss of momentum. This is a practice-by-doing skill. If you can enter the water consistently with the same kind of hole that a top diver makes, you have it. A cheap video camera is your best friend. (I also might ask a diving coach to watch a sprinter and make suggestions.)
3) SDK - This has clearly become a critical skill for swimmers. It takes tremendous strength, flexibility and explosive power. To get this you need to work on weights/resistance exercises (esp exercises that develop explosive core and leg power) and dynamic types of stretching (Dara Torres, anyone?). Then you need to devote a decent proportion of your in-water training time to this.
4) Actual swimming: Speed is a result of minimizing the water's resistance while maximizing your ability to apply force to the water. Minimizing resistance means obsessive attention to every stroke you take, your body position, and the kinesthetic "feel" of the water. Maximizing force production is a function of strength, flexibility, stroke rate, stroke length and kinesthetic "feel". We know about the first two already. Stroke rate - You need to work on this, but not always as a function of body speed - in other words, there are time when the goal is just to turn your arms over very fast, even if it means shortening your stroke to do so. Over time, as you get stronger, your stroke at that rate will be longer. Stroke length - This is somewhat related to minimizing the water's resistance, but it also is a goal in and of itself. The ability to hold length for a given stroke rate is a function of stength and flexibilty - you know about these already. Since speed=rate * length, you will be playing a balancing game between rate and length. One of your goals is to actually find that optimal combination. (Suggestion: Pick a time that is a bit slower than all-out for a 50 M long course. Do a 50 M a number of times at this speed and play with the stroke rate and length, while recording on video. Make a subjective assessment at the end of each as to how each component felt (rate and length and any other observation) and then review the video later, counting stokes, etc.
5) Turns: A fast and strong turn is a function of flexibility and the same kind of explosive strength used in the start. We already know how to deal with those. This is also a skill that will be practiced obsessively in the water with video tape support.
6) There are other abilities/skills needed for sprint swimming, but I'm just giving a sample analysis here.
You need to locally optimize these things - i.e make each one as good as you can. You also need to then begin to globally optimize them by combining skills. For example, explosive start, clean entry and powerful SDK. Later: Explosive start, clean entry, powerful SDK, optimal swimming going into an explosive turn.
Etc, etc, etc.
Any of this must be done with the idea of "mastery learning" in mind. In other words, the first time you do something correctly, you have not mastered it. It's only the nth time, when you can do it at will, that you can move to the next level of that skill.
Notice that I didn't really mention things like "5 X 50 very fast" or 5 X 100 dolphin kicks on back", which are typically set as training "goals". Those are not goals - they are a means to the real goals, which I (partially) listed above. I also didn't mention total yardage or anything like that. Yardage is a function of the time and repetition that you need to reach your training goals. It is NOT a goal in and of itself. Your training sets should always answer "why am I doing this relative to the skills/physiological conditioning that I need for my event."
OK - sorry for the ramble, but at least that's how I'd (partially) train a sprinter.
-LBJ
I am not sure I am really that far away from training like this. My last all-out swim longer than 100 yards was my last meet about 8 weeks ago.
In a typical week since Nationals, I can do one race pace set of 3-5 swims. But, usually they are in a fast descend. I have 2 sprint days with the parachute - that's 7-10 sprints of 20sec or less. Then I have one pace day where I swim 50-100s at 200 to 800 pace - but not all out.
Other than that - I do swim more yardage, but all very easy. I can't remember the last time I have lead the entire main set for one of our workouts, and I am quite a bit faster.
My biggest problem with changing this even more is that I would have to train by myself (even more) + I think you need somebody to time you and give you feedback on stroke rates + technique.
I'm thinking about switching to longer events in the middle year of each age group
Ande, that 5:09 400 IM was pretty damn impressive, especially considering the way you've been training.
I'm just too much of an endorphin addict. ...
Bowman was taking his swimmers to 70 practices in 24 days before the Olympics. Yardage isn't mentioned, but it is a pretty good bet to be much more than the amount is being discussed here.
From an article on nbcolympics.com:
The full details of the regimen remain a Bowman secret. But he was glad to share, for instance, the details of what one day might be like: 6:30 a.m.: 4,000-meter swim. 11:30 a.m.: 6,000-meter swim. 4 p.m.: weight room or pilates, 45 minutes 5 p.m.: 4,000-meter swim Total in the pool that day: 14,000 meters, or about eight miles.
I'm kind of with you Chris on the endorphin addiction. I would almost like to try training like this just to see how my overall fitness (and physique) changed over its course. And to see if I could survive it.
I agree with Ande that if I want to improve my speed, I should train for that. But I really love the fact that I've lost 30+ pounds in the year and a half since I started swimming. And, even with all of our aerobic workouts, my speed is SLOWLY improving.
