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?
My own answer: I personally tend to choose (a), because I think in the process of improving speed you will have increased endurance, too, even though your new endurance capacity has not been tested by actual long distance swimming (suppose some day you suddenly need to swim long distance, you may be surprised to find that you can swim much longer than months ago). On the other hand, simply swimming long distance is not going to improve your speed much.
(I know my question sounds a little odd, so please bear with me :))
Well, first of all, I don't know why this is an either/or question. Mjgold talks about how he would get bored with distance swims...I would be bored to tears with only one type of training, particularly if it consisted of all 25s.
But to get to your question: while doing 25 repeats can help your endurance some, it is not good training for longer events. As others have said, you get good at the things you practice...if you want to have a good mile or OW swim, that's the kind of training you should do.
And besides the physiological aspects of training, in order to have a good sense of pacing, you need to do longer swims at fast pace. You need to learn how hard you can push your body and still stay at lactate threshold. If all you do is 25s, I guarantee you'll be terrible at pacing no matter how much endurance you think you've gained. (How much endurace you DO gain depends on how much rest you take between 25s, and how many you do.)
Bottom line: if you want to be good at sprinting 25s and 50s, go for A. If you want to be a well-rounded, versatlie swimer, vary your training a little more than either plan.
My own answer: I personally tend to choose (a), because I think in the process of improving speed you will have increased endurance, too, even though your new endurance capacity has not been tested by actual long distance swimming (suppose some day you suddenly need to swim long distance, you may be surprised to find that you can swim much longer than months ago). On the other hand, simply swimming long distance is not going to improve your speed much.
(I know my question sounds a little odd, so please bear with me :))
Well, first of all, I don't know why this is an either/or question. Mjgold talks about how he would get bored with distance swims...I would be bored to tears with only one type of training, particularly if it consisted of all 25s.
But to get to your question: while doing 25 repeats can help your endurance some, it is not good training for longer events. As others have said, you get good at the things you practice...if you want to have a good mile or OW swim, that's the kind of training you should do.
And besides the physiological aspects of training, in order to have a good sense of pacing, you need to do longer swims at fast pace. You need to learn how hard you can push your body and still stay at lactate threshold. If all you do is 25s, I guarantee you'll be terrible at pacing no matter how much endurance you think you've gained. (How much endurace you DO gain depends on how much rest you take between 25s, and how many you do.)
Bottom line: if you want to be good at sprinting 25s and 50s, go for A. If you want to be a well-rounded, versatlie swimer, vary your training a little more than either plan.
