Coaches and Sprinting

Thank god, Chris. Finally you are talking sense! I hadn't thought about the sniffing of the suit, but I now plan to sleep the night before with the B70 wrapped tight as a sleep hat around my head, mouth, and nostrils. Just as the magic shoes helped that clod footed ballerina dance as if inspired by the gods themselves, look for a slightly less mediocre than usual performance from this aging Zonesman this weekend! Unlike Mohammad Ali, I will not predict exactly what round my old PR for the 200 freestyle will fall. But you might want to look at me at the 137 yard point in the race, at which point I can virtually guarantee that the elapsed time will be less than my lifetime best final time for the 200!

For the first time I have recently had an ex-competitive sprinter (NCAA from the early 90's) as a Masters coach. He 'manages' the reps and sets I swim (or don't swim) in a lane with mostly fast 30 & 40-something middle/long distance women. (FINA masters top 10'ers or equivalent). I go last in the lane so don’t get in the way. After my first serious meet of the year, I can report that it makes a huge difference to follow a 'coach-managed sprinter program' within a standard master's set-up. As has been said here often, the 'managing' has to do with how much to sit out (rest) and which reps to do at what pace (mostly when to go easy or really fast). Especially important was how he managed the taper period (two weeks in this case) – no thinking required; just follow the coach's orders. Anyway it worked well - at age 68, this weekend I did an LCM 50 free in 27.50, LCM 100 in 1:02.81 & LCM 50fly of 30.68 – improvements over my times two years ago of 27.90, 1:04 something & 31.02 respectively. The right coach can indeed delay the ravages of aging - except for fly swims. I'm still trying to figure out fly; maybe I should get a monofin…. A spin-off benefit of a coach who knows what he is doing is that I have been more consistent in attending practice (3 x /week) and dragging myself off once a week to the weight room (not coached). I know I should do more, especially weights – it does help. 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

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