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?
They were totally into it, and it was a change from what we usually do. They were really tired after doing the set but didn't hate it. I think all the swimmers on the team I coach like to see their progression and have benchmarks, so I think doing this sort of set every now and again is a good idea.
Exactly! The coach has to sell the idea, too: get fired up, push the swimmers in a positive way, encourage trash-talk and some racing, joke about (in a nice way!) the Sammy Save-ups. We have a good time on test-set day even though it is painful.
Sometimes we have age-groupers practice with us for one reason or another. One time we had a 14-year-old girl, quite shy, who was initially taken aback by the banter. She was doing 200 IMs next to a masters swimmer and with each rep, he was getting closer and closer to beating her (she was holding pace, he was getting faster). When the coach noticed and asked, "Are you going to let the old guy beat you," she fired right back with "he wouldn't be able to win if he hadn't been loafing on the early ones!" Everyone cracked up.
These are hard sets but fun too. Newer swimmers can chart their improvement. Old hands can try to hold times that they did when younger. We have plenty of non-competing swimmers who do the sets, and they must not mind too much b/c they keep coming back.
They were totally into it, and it was a change from what we usually do. They were really tired after doing the set but didn't hate it. I think all the swimmers on the team I coach like to see their progression and have benchmarks, so I think doing this sort of set every now and again is a good idea.
Exactly! The coach has to sell the idea, too: get fired up, push the swimmers in a positive way, encourage trash-talk and some racing, joke about (in a nice way!) the Sammy Save-ups. We have a good time on test-set day even though it is painful.
Sometimes we have age-groupers practice with us for one reason or another. One time we had a 14-year-old girl, quite shy, who was initially taken aback by the banter. She was doing 200 IMs next to a masters swimmer and with each rep, he was getting closer and closer to beating her (she was holding pace, he was getting faster). When the coach noticed and asked, "Are you going to let the old guy beat you," she fired right back with "he wouldn't be able to win if he hadn't been loafing on the early ones!" Everyone cracked up.
These are hard sets but fun too. Newer swimmers can chart their improvement. Old hands can try to hold times that they did when younger. We have plenty of non-competing swimmers who do the sets, and they must not mind too much b/c they keep coming back.
