I was reading up on training, and I came across a training methodology that goes like this.
Take your target event, for me the 200 free. Training speeds are dictated by your times two distances lower, for me the 50 and the 100, and two distances higher, 400/500 and the 800/1000. Warm up and cool down fall outside of this.
Compared to traditional training, this would be low yardage, high rest for most people.
Has anyone played around with this? Using my 100 split from my 1000 as my endurance pace would be much faster than what I am currently doing.
I like the concept because it gives so much guidance for training efforts, and retesting the levels is trivial.
That's it, I don't have much more detail than that. I can't find the article I read this in, but apparently this is a common training method for track.
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Instead of doing a T500 and T1000 fly, you could do a timed 30 minute fly to get your threshold pace as Maglischo suggests, and base your training around that :) It's exactly what I do, and it works fine. I train for 200 butterfly, I do a lot of base mileage at this stroke.
Let me tell you though, you don't need complex testing protocol. Energy expenditure can be so great while swimming butterfly that you very quickly get to know what your critical swim speed (threshold pace) is. Currently, I can swim forever (1k, 2k, whatever) on a 2min per 100m pace, I can hold a 1:45 per 100m pace for 200-400m. My high range threshold speed is around 1:55/100m pace. At this speed, given that I am well rested, I could perform a T1000 test.
Instead of doing a T500 and T1000 fly, you could do a timed 30 minute fly to get your threshold pace as Maglischo suggests, and base your training around that :) It's exactly what I do, and it works fine. I train for 200 butterfly, I do a lot of base mileage at this stroke.
Let me tell you though, you don't need complex testing protocol. Energy expenditure can be so great while swimming butterfly that you very quickly get to know what your critical swim speed (threshold pace) is. Currently, I can swim forever (1k, 2k, whatever) on a 2min per 100m pace, I can hold a 1:45 per 100m pace for 200-400m. My high range threshold speed is around 1:55/100m pace. At this speed, given that I am well rested, I could perform a T1000 test.
