Coaches and Sprinting

Ian, Would love to hear more about how your coach manages the spinters. I am always trying to find new ways to get faster. Does your coach have sprinters off by themselves every day? Once a week? What was your taper like? Greg Greg, Perhaps I'm lucky in that I go last in a lane with three (max 4) others who are younger and are middle/long distance, all-strokes swimmers. They are slower than me in a 50m but miles faster in anything over 100m. i.e. I need more rest than them in practice even (especially!) for 25m or 50m reps. It is easy for the coach to manage me since I am the only ‘sprinter’ he tracks and I am going last in the lane, so can stay out of the way of the others. I can sit out 50s or leave 10 or 15 seconds behind them if I want to speed up, without interfering. They are used to me and know what I'm doing so that helps. Here is one example using some of our typical SCM times (Hey, we’re not that fast!! this just shows the principle) ……..if there is a set of say 6 x 100 on 1:45 (a tightish interval for me if I'm swimming all on 1:20 – I would not be able to speed up much if some reps had to be faster than others) The others can swim all 6 in 1:15 but the coach might ask for the 3rd and 6th one to be hard. I can get those down to 1:10-1:13 as do the others. i.e. I come down from 1:20 to 1:11 say, and they come down from 1:15 to maybe 1:09. And he plays with the intervals, squeezing and/or relaxing them depending on where we are with respect to target meets. This uses 100s as an example but he does this sort of thing with all distances 25, 50, 75, 125 etc and with different strokes & kicking, pull, skulling etc. The result is that closer to race time 1:45 does not seem as tight anymore and you can crank up the speed when needed. There is some speed work at every workout, even during the aerobic build-up phase early in the season. He intersperses the fast, shorter stuff (as in the 6x100 above) with "active recovery", longer "stretching out" 200s free or choice. While the others all do the 200’s, the coach has me do 150’s (more rest for me allowing to be faster on short stuff) and in taper sets, maybe only very easy 100’s. (more rest yet) The taper is pretty standard – shorter and shorter with higher intensity and longer rest (+ active EZ recovery) as you approach the meet. My lane mates get antsy when we do 50’s on 1:30 so in the interspersed longer distances they can swim harder for longer – this keeps them happy (but makes them stale in my opinion, but what do I know about over 100m) To help me figure out fly I may do free/fly in some 25m combinations when others do IM or back (they are fast enough). Although, I almost never do more than 25m fly at a time but usually a brisk pace. Again, I can do speed while they are working hard on evil stokes & the like. Prior to the current coach, it was pretty well fitness/triathlon type training but what he does here with me may not be manageable in other programs. Per week, I have two coached sessions of 1 ¼ hours and one uncoached with a triathlon group where I make my own mods to their workout with the same strategy as above. I hope this helps (BTW, Ande has good stuff on sprinter training in his SFF series), Ian Ian

Ian, Would love to hear more about how your coach manages the spinters. I am always trying to find new ways to get faster. Does your coach have sprinters off by themselves every day? Once a week? What was your taper like? Greg Greg, Perhaps I'm lucky in that I go last in a lane with three (max 4) others who are younger and are middle/long distance, all-strokes swimmers. They are slower than me in a 50m but miles faster in anything over 100m. i.e. I need more rest than them in practice even (especially!) for 25m or 50m reps. It is easy for the coach to manage me since I am the only ‘sprinter’ he tracks and I am going last in the lane, so can stay out of the way of the others. I can sit out 50s or leave 10 or 15 seconds behind them if I want to speed up, without interfering. They are used to me and know what I'm doing so that helps. Here is one example using some of our typical SCM times (Hey, we’re not that fast!! this just shows the principle) ……..if there is a set of say 6 x 100 on 1:45 (a tightish interval for me if I'm swimming all on 1:20 – I would not be able to speed up much if some reps had to be faster than others) The others can swim all 6 in 1:15 but the coach might ask for the 3rd and 6th one to be hard. I can get those down to 1:10-1:13 as do the others. i.e. I come down from 1:20 to 1:11 say, and they come down from 1:15 to maybe 1:09. And he plays with the intervals, squeezing and/or relaxing them depending on where we are with respect to target meets. This uses 100s as an example but he does this sort of thing with all distances 25, 50, 75, 125 etc and with different strokes & kicking, pull, skulling etc. The result is that closer to race time 1:45 does not seem as tight anymore and you can crank up the speed when needed. There is some speed work at every workout, even during the aerobic build-up phase early in the season. He intersperses the fast, shorter stuff (as in the 6x100 above) with "active recovery", longer "stretching out" 200s free or choice. While the others all do the 200’s, the coach has me do 150’s (more rest for me allowing to be faster on short stuff) and in taper sets, maybe only very easy 100’s. (more rest yet) The taper is pretty standard – shorter and shorter with higher intensity and longer rest (+ active EZ recovery) as you approach the meet. My lane mates get antsy when we do 50’s on 1:30 so in the interspersed longer distances they can swim harder for longer – this keeps them happy (but makes them stale in my opinion, but what do I know about over 100m) To help me figure out fly I may do free/fly in some 25m combinations when others do IM or back (they are fast enough). Although, I almost never do more than 25m fly at a time but usually a brisk pace. Again, I can do speed while they are working hard on evil stokes & the like. Prior to the current coach, it was pretty well fitness/triathlon type training but what he does here with me may not be manageable in other programs. Per week, I have two coached sessions of 1 ¼ hours and one uncoached with a triathlon group where I make my own mods to their workout with the same strategy as above. I hope this helps (BTW, Ande has good stuff on sprinter training in his SFF series), Ian Ian