Speed and endurance-question about practice pattens
Former Member
I have a question about practicing for speed and endurance. Consider two practice patterns:
a. You focus on improving speed in 25m swims; i.e. you don't swim consecutive laps, but pause for seconds/minutes after each length. After some months you will have increased your speed for very short distance (25m), but you don't know your speed for longer distance.
b. You focus on endurance by swimming non-stop for as long as you can, without regard to speed. So after some months, you will be able to swim some 1000s, in moderate or low speed.
What I am interested to know is, which practice pattern will likely help achieve the other practice goal more? In other words, will (a) help improve endurance more, or will (b) help improve speed more?
Parents
Former Member
Swimming like most sports is very specific. If you want to get faster you need to reduce your 25 time (from a push-off). If you have a specific distance you want to improve on then you need to train with distance in mind. In my opinion, swimmers should train like the world class runners train. If you want to train for a marathon then get you'd better get some yardage under your belt. If you want to improve your sprinting, then do a lot of it.
I believe speed is the most elusive swimming trait that is rarely over-emphasized by swimming coaches. A one second drop from a push-off can relate to great drops in a 100 or 200. You need to rest a lot between bouts if you're going to get faster.
If you want to improve you cardio, you should try keeping your target HR
(220 minus your age) in that zone for periodically longer periods of time.
Experiment for a time to see what training regime gets you the results you're looking for. Don't forget to train smarter and that means improving the technical aspects of your swimming.
Good luck!
Swimming like most sports is very specific. If you want to get faster you need to reduce your 25 time (from a push-off). If you have a specific distance you want to improve on then you need to train with distance in mind. In my opinion, swimmers should train like the world class runners train. If you want to train for a marathon then get you'd better get some yardage under your belt. If you want to improve your sprinting, then do a lot of it.
I believe speed is the most elusive swimming trait that is rarely over-emphasized by swimming coaches. A one second drop from a push-off can relate to great drops in a 100 or 200. You need to rest a lot between bouts if you're going to get faster.
If you want to improve you cardio, you should try keeping your target HR
(220 minus your age) in that zone for periodically longer periods of time.
Experiment for a time to see what training regime gets you the results you're looking for. Don't forget to train smarter and that means improving the technical aspects of your swimming.
Good luck!
