Performance or Pace-time?

at some point you need to have a good aerobic base, which equates to more yards in my book. I do my fair share of aerobic work; there are even times I'll jump in with the age-groupers and do a 7k-8k workout. I think it is valuable, but generally I think of aerobic work as mostly important for (active) recovery. I certainly do not think of these types of workouts as "building my base." My aerobic base is just fine for the races I swim, and even longer races. As proof, I never have trouble making even the most challenging long AG workouts, which in my mind proves that my aerobic base is just fine. (I'd have more trouble doing them 10X a week...but I think that ability is almost meaningless for pool races). If I were training for something like 10K open water swims, maybe I would think differently. Bottom line: doing high-intensity repeats up to the distance of your chosen race DOES improve your aerobic base. There have been all sorts of studies to show that. It isn't like doing (say) race-pace 100s stresses ONLY your anaerobic system, even though you are well above lactate threshold. To address the OPs question, I think there are basically two reasons to do "race-pace" or "race-intensity" sets (the difference between these two is subtle). -- To work on your technique at the speeds you will be using in a race. You want to make sure that your efficiency doesn't drop as (say) turnover increases. Also you need to do things like turns and breakouts at race speeds. Working on these things at slower speeds is good when making a change and building "muscle memory" but eventually you need to do them at race speeds. -- To spur physiological adaptations to high lactate levels. (There may be other adaptations but I don't know enough about this field to say.) For the first reason, you need to take as much rest as needed to achieve race pace. You don't necessarily need to do it over the whole race distance (if you can do a race at goal race-pace in practce...you need to set new goals!). For the second reason, though, you could theoretically produce LA levels similar to what you get in a race without quite getting at race-pace; I call this "race intensity." I'll give you an example: in our practice we will often do the following two sets: -- 10 x 100 on 2:00 from a push, go for best average; work:rest ratio is about 1:1 -- 5 x 100 on 4:00 from the blocks, go for best average; work:rest is about 1:3 Certainly I can hold a significantly better avg on the second set. But by the end of the first set I am hurting pretty badly, and I am sure that my LA levels are as high as they get in races even though I wasn't going quite race-pace. If you plotted LA profiles over the course of the sets, I bet you would find greater spikes in the second set but that the overall levels were pretty similar. Both sets have similar (tho not identical IMO) phsyiological effects in producing LA-tolerance. One caveat: the less rest you get, and the longer the set, the harder it is to push yourself well beyond lactate threshold. At some point you are no longer training for 100s & 200s but for longer races (400IM, 500 free, and longer). Anyway, all this is my :2cents:. Ignore as you see fit!

When you are doing race pace work definitely adjust the rest to maintain the pace,otherwise you are just training yourself to swim slow and/or sloppy.My solution to the"aerobic base" problem is to do long slow stuff in Jan and Feb and never take significant time off to decondition.

I am not really sure I am sold on this concept, but what I just read says that high-intensity training is better for us then higher volume (longer yards/meters). www.pponline.co.uk/.../0952.htm I am not sure I buy into it 100%. I do. And it works well for me. That said, I am a sprinter. For me, medium paced aerobic sets are largely worthless. I do them on occasion as part of a recovery workout or with my team. Right now, my workouts consist almost exclusively of AFAP sprints w/mega rest, recovery swimming and some hypoxic/SDK work. I also do a large percentage of kicking. Very thoughtful post, Chris.

I'm in week 2 of a new routine that I think might take hold. I do high aerobic, but just shy of sprinting, shorter sets 2-3X/week. 3X a week I do a more traditional Masters workout which is longer yardage and diversity of stroke/speed/pace, etc. As of right now I'm digging the diversity. We'll see if it sticks, hope so. My two favorite, or hated, sets are 10 X 300 on a tight interval for high pace and 5 X 100 on 5:00. Both hurt like the mother scratcher but seem to be good for me. It's pretty hard to top 5 @ 5:00 for a quality set. My philosophy - do what you hate and you are bound to improve.

Fatigue is the most overrated element of training. Suffering is not the thing that makes you faster. I'm with those who prefer to call it "practice" rather than "workout" to emphasize the primary goal of training. Take more rest. I actually agree with this. If you can't give it a good effort due to fatigue you should back down to something manageable. A fatigued workout is just misery.

Splashy is the hands making this not the under water pull!

I am not really sure I am sold on this concept, but what I just read says that high-intensity training is better for us then higher volume (longer yards/meters). www.pponline.co.uk/.../0952.htm I am not sure I buy into it 100%. I am willing to try more sprint work on my off days rather than just rack up yards like I have been doing. It does make sense that, "if you want to swim faster in meets, you need to swim faster in practice," but at some point you need to have a good aerobic base, which equates to more yards in my book.

I get more out of continuing to build up my aerobic base more and more because that is what I feel like I need. This is what every master reflexively seems to think ... I'm not sure why ... 80s hangover? Train all the energy systems, but if you don't step up the race pace work, it's difficult to get faster at your distances. Ehoch, You do race pace throughout the season, right? Not just the last 6-8 weeks out? I think we all agree that Chris is not necessarily humanoid in the pool ...

I wasn't saying you just swim 10 100's, it was an example of one type of set that you should mix up. You need to train your muscles aerobically, anaerobically and then push them to anaerobic threshold (race pace). That way you are training your fast and slow twitch muscles. I read that Jason Lezak swam 2000 yards/meters a day to get ready for Beijing; Pure quality race sets. It doesn't make any sense at all for a sprinter or a stroke specialist to swim endless slow yards. I believe that's what we did in the 80's. Intensity is more important than yardage. That is what our youth was for, developing our aerobic base.

...70s hangover. In all the years and countless yards of age group swimming (the last time I swam competitively), I don't know if I ever did any true sprint sets. I had a 70s hangover as well ... But I love masters because I got to rid of that hangover/distance mentality, train completely differently now and really mix it up. So much more fun and varied than endless sets of 10 x 200 fly. And much more bang for the buck.