I have heard that some Masters coaches are more interested in general fitness than speed.What is your experience? Do you feel that your coach prepares you to swim 50s and 100s?Is sprinting a regular part of practice at least once a week and if so do you do it as a main set or as an add on at the end?Do you do lactic acid sets?How much do you work on starts and turns?
True sprint training is extremely hard and takes tremendous dedication and focus. It is very easy to simply go through the motions, resulting in a so-so workout. Much more difficult to slack off doing 12x100's on the 1:15 or some such aerobic set.
Fortunately, I have a program that allows me to adapt workouts to my sprinting (i.e. in the 10x100 example I might do 6x100's on the 2:30 easy/hard.
Jason Lezak is famous for self-training as a sprinter. IMHO, it's not just the masters programs that don't train sprinting correctly. Take out Auburn, Michigan, Arizona and a handful of others and the yardage is too high.
Most masters programs aren't for sprinters. The good programs do include the kind of variety Ahelee listed above. However, that is still not usually the kind of training pure sprinters will benefit from most. It's the kind of program that will improve a mid D swimmer's performance in mid-D events and sprints. So sprinters must either adapt the workout, like Ande, or train alone some.
I agree with Chris. Most masters swimmer don't seem to like lactate or sprint work much or grudgingly do it. It's more common to hear a masters swimmer want to decrease a workout interval than to increase it.
True sprint training is extremely hard and takes tremendous dedication and focus. It is very easy to simply go through the motions, resulting in a so-so workout. Much more difficult to slack off doing 12x100's on the 1:15 or some such aerobic set.
Fortunately, I have a program that allows me to adapt workouts to my sprinting (i.e. in the 10x100 example I might do 6x100's on the 2:30 easy/hard.
Jason Lezak is famous for self-training as a sprinter. IMHO, it's not just the masters programs that don't train sprinting correctly. Take out Auburn, Michigan, Arizona and a handful of others and the yardage is too high.
Most masters programs aren't for sprinters. The good programs do include the kind of variety Ahelee listed above. However, that is still not usually the kind of training pure sprinters will benefit from most. It's the kind of program that will improve a mid D swimmer's performance in mid-D events and sprints. So sprinters must either adapt the workout, like Ande, or train alone some.
I agree with Chris. Most masters swimmer don't seem to like lactate or sprint work much or grudgingly do it. It's more common to hear a masters swimmer want to decrease a workout interval than to increase it.
