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?
We follow a rotation and have a sprint day once a week. We also do some other sprinting during the week, depending on the time of season. We are working more now on race pace swimming. In December, it was more pace work in preparation for the hour swim.
--mj
The masters coach is in a tough position. You have to please a wide variety of grown-ups who know what they want out of a workout. Sprinting a 50 or 100 is pretty specialized thing to do, compared to general fitness/muscle tone goals or the long-distance requirements of triathaletes (which I think a lot of masters swimmers are).
I feel for a masters coach; you cant please eveyone all of the time...
As a long time masters swimming coach my favorite workouts to coach are race centric practices. I was fortunately able to coach two last week. We share the pool with the College team, an age group team and us. The college team is winding down with a few going to the show next week, the age group team is at the sectional Zone championships which allowed our group to have lane choice (very rare), access to the starting blocks and use of the starting equipment etc.
I don't want this to sound like a bunch of excuses but as, el desmadre, pointed out it is very difficult to be all things to all people in a masters swim program. In general to support membership numbers, which make aquatic directors happy, most workouts tend be general aerobic to anaerobic threshold type practices. We try to have a one or two stroke oriented workout, and one sprint focused workout a week. Over my years of coaching I've noticed when we pre-publish the type of workout we get less swimmers on stroke & sprint days.
Also, we masters coaches don't always communicate the sprint concept well to our swimmers. Sometimes coaches confuse short sets with sprint sets and don't necessarily understand the amount of rest/active recovery (very generous) that they must provide in that type of workout for the swimmer to go full speed and get the benefit.
Finally in my experience the average pool manager/administrator thinks of masters swimming like a buzzing mosquito that just annoys them. They tend to make it difficult to offer a rich offering and allow coaches to lead. And surprise some members will express there discontent over certain types of workouts to them. Instead of trying to set expectations, directing them back to the coach and pointing out the workout type was published, they tend to come back to us and ask for adjustments etc.
In my experience -- I've been on several teams, but I can't say if it is a good sampling -- it is unusual for masters teams to do lactic acid work.
I don't believe this is necessarily the coach's fault; many masters swimmers are only interested in total yardage, getting in the maximum distance in the minimum time.
Of course, it is the coach's job to try to sell the concept that quality work is also good for fitness, but we masters people are mighty stubborn...
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.
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.
I coach in a really small pool, with a huge range of swimmers crammed into two and a half lanes. Distance is hard, because people get run over, but I still do it with them. We also do a lot of stroke. Sprints are hard because not everyone wants to race, and people want to get those yards in. However, I occasionally do sprint sets, but it is hard when for half the lane swimmers get tons of rest, and for the other half of the lane, they are kind of cheated out of really getting to sprint. We only have three practices a week, an hour for each (the limits of our Y).
It's hard to find the balance. I'm working on it. One of our previous coaches, much more experienced than I am, regularly would have us do a sprint at the end of practice for time, and regularly had us do what for me was continuous threshold training. Since I am not a sprinter, that helped me with my pace for distance.
What is a good amount of rest for a sprint of 100? Of 50? Of 200 (based on my group: most swimmers sprint a 100 free on 1:20 or 1:35, but a few sprint on 1:05 or 1:15? The 1:20, 1:15, and 1:05 sprinters are all in the same lane. The 1:25, 1:30, 1:35 sprinters are all in the next lane. The 1:45, 1:50 sprinters are in the next lane.)?
We have an exuberantly enthusiastic team that likes to go to meets, just not superfast swimmers except for a very few.
2:30 for the 100 for the fastest group? 2:45 for the next fastest? 3:00 for the last group?
Still learning; appreciate feedback.
If you want to do 100 sprints 3 min intervals are too fast,allow at least 5.Better for sprint work is 25s or even 12.5s on the min.
I hate lactic acid sets as they really hurt,but if one is going to swim a fast 100 they are really useful and my 2009 resolution was to do at least 1 set/wk mid-season(now).My current set is 50s all out on the minute until my stroke breaks down(which now is about 6,but I have been forcing myself to do them just a couple of weeks(started "mid-season"Mar 1st.)
My team (Sun Devil Masters) typically has at least 2 sets most days, a longer and a shorter. Generally, the faster people do the longer, and the slower do the shorter. I usually just don't want to move, so I do whatever set the lane decides (usually the distance option). When I have done the shorter, it doesn't seem like a true sprint to me, but simply a shorter version of a workout.
However, as a general rule, Fridays are designated, "Fast Fridays." Usually shorter (no more than 200), usually more rest (such as 100 on 3+ min). Of course the coach does occasionally throw a wrench in the madness. A few weeks ago we had the option to do whatever distance on a 6 min interval--Some did 50s, and some did 400s, some did a mix of different things.
I do try to swim with other teams when I travel, and not many do much sprinting, although it could just be the days I'm there didn't match to their sprint days.
It seems to me that speed work and stroke work are easily mixed with fitness training. Different lanes have different send off times. Pick your posion.
I try to limit lactic acid levels, and elevated heartbeats. You have a finite number, why waste them?
