Performance or Pace-time?

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:20:48 GMT

There is a time and place for everything. The 100m free workout I posted is really one geared to swimming a fast 100 freestyle in a race about four to eight weeks out. Distance and Technique work is very important in the off season, good quality sets of 200s or 150s, even 4-6 x 400, all focusing on form rather than burn out speed is essential for building base for the 100 free along with weights, dips, pullups and core exercises for strength. Then when you become strong, say able to do 6-10 x 200 with quality, then in phase II you can start doing the 50s and 100s at distinct intervals and gradually begin to reduce the rest and build the speed from week to week. Finally as the event approaches, more and more speed work, both hard interval and well rested explosive swims, go for PRs in the 25, 50, 75 and the 100. You should do more sessions with fewer reps and longer rests but at faster quality speeds, essentially at race pace intensity. As the event or season approaches for the 100, if the swimmer has had an adequate base season, there becomes less benefit for anything above 150 for the 100 swimmer, except perhaps an occasional 200 or 400 on an off day or as a warmup, only speed and interval from six or eight weeks out, all depending on the swimmer of course. Even taking a rest day after 2 or 3 very hard days is more beneficial than a day of long slow yardage, because rest is more important for better quality sets and the focus of the 100 is speed. One good rest day is 20x25 rested untimed sprint drills with total emphasis on stroke efficiency to attain higher speeds, focusing on catch, pull, rotation, cadence, experimentation, etc, all starting slow and building to a cresendo of speed at the end, essentially having fun with speed without over exhaustion. Take a look at the comparative efforts of 400m sprinters in track, they rarely run a full mile except to warm up or cool down, it is all repeats of high speed 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s and sometimes interval 600s for endurance. Sometimes they will slow down a notch to focus on all important form, but rarely do they ever run an 800 time trial and a mile TT is totally out of the question, although there are certainly exceptions for elite runners. That is not to say that a slow five mile a day base season during the early winter off season might benefit some 400 sprinters when the spring workout season arrives, but any mileage above that is very questionable. One final note to the self trained: Have fun, if you are getting tired, drained, fatiqued, grouchy, take a day or even two off, take it down a notch, raise the rest interval, lower the speed and make it fun again, speed will eventually come with patience and if you push too hard every day you will burn out. I am a proponent that 2 or 3 intense days followed by a day of total rest might be the best approach for many, especially the older masters. I am sometimes amazed at the results after a day or two of rest, just don't eat too much on your day off.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:37:09 GMT

Race Pace Intensity Training for 100 freestyle: Main Set 6 x 100 with 3 min rest (first 1 or 2 are 100 percent then add 5 secs) 6 x 75 with 2 min rest (these are 90 to 100 percent, or about race pace) 6 x 50 with 1 min rest (100 percent or a little beyond race pace intensity) 6 x 25 rested (100 percent) I usually do the first couple of hundreds all out before taking it down just a notch. Sometimes I will do only 4 of each depending on how tired I feel from the previous day. Also I usually go for full recovery between sets. The great part is that after the hundreds, you look forward to the 75s and 50s which seem to get easier and easier. As you go down the ladder you are gradually catching up to actual race pace and going beyond it in the 50s, but fatigue is also more intense simulating the lactic buildup in the last meters of a race. I always do the 25s with adequate recovery to work on speed form. The next day you can do the following to work on endurance and form, focusing on fluid stroke form throughout, here it is better to slow down a notch rather than getting sloppy and maintain a nice stroke form through the entire workout. You could add some 200s in as well. 4 x 150 (80 percent) 3 min rest 4 x 100 (80 percent) 3 min rest 4 x 75 (90 percent) 2min rest 4 x 50 (90-100 percent) 1 min rest 4-12 x 25 (100 percent) rested The third day take it easy and focus on drills and form, do some easy 200s and 400s and then start all over again the next day, or maybe even take a day off if you are as old as I am. Of course this is just the old basic ladder for starts, but it can be applied to almost any swimmer's level: certainly regulate the reps, intesity and rest interval depending on your prior conditioning. I cannot over emphasize repeat 75s for conditioning for the 100, many go just for the 50s, but the 75s take you just beyond the 40 sec sprint threshold to experince the lactic acid buildup without the total fatigue that a hard set of all out 100s can bring on and even linger for the next couple of days, however they are also no substitute for going the full 100 distance, but they will help you on the way to becoming more comfortable and faster in the 100.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:18:30 GMT

Related to this is the fact that there are still TONS of masters teams and ppl doing 3,500-5,000 yards/practice during "taper"!!! To say that we're still "hung-over" from the 70's and 80's doesn't address the reality that no... we're not hung-over. We're still drunk. In fact, massive yardage is more like a heroin addiction to the swimming world. Having said that, in Indianapolis I bombed the 400 IM and the 200 IM b/c of lack of base training. But I really didn't have a choice due to an injury through early May plus 3 weeks of travel in June. So there is something to be said about having a sufficient base.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:05:43 GMT

Congrats on your training wisdom - and for figuring out a way to function productively within your masters swim workouts. Presumably your coach is not a "control freak"!! If you only knew! Ask your friend Kelly (breaststroker in Miami)! I forgot to add that anything over 150 I automatically focus on technique or SDK. I have the luxury to do so b/c we only have 1 interval for the entire team and I'm much faster than the base interval. If that weren't the case, I would just go last in my lane and drop the last 50 so as to get 45-60 rest as opposed to 10-15. Swimming tired is detrimental to technique and feel for the water.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:02:54 GMT

I am in full agreement with everyone on race pace training. It is SO frustrating knowing this will help my swimming and get me closer to my goals, and then show up at workout day after day to sets with 10 secs rest no matter what the set is. Both the coaches and lane mates complain if they get too much rest! "oh you got 20 secs rest on that, we need to adjust the interval." I workout w/ a team (not FLAQ) whose stated mission is "mo' yards mo' yards mo' yards! No rest no rest no rest!" Whatever they are doing, I simply cut the yardage or sit out a rep or 2 or 3 or 4. I try not to get in the way, and I'm sure I might piss ppl off, but then again, I've never seen a team w/ so many ppl getting out to go to the bathroom, giving up completely for the last 25% of the set, getting out early for whatever reason, etc. In short, a huge % of the team does get the rest that their body wants and needs, just not at a regular interval. They're just conning themselves into thinking that they're doing 4200 yds/hr. The ones who do the entire workout have absolute crap technique by the end. Guys 5'11-6'4 pushing off the wall and having their head coming up at the flags!!!!!!!!!!

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

smontanaro — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:18:09 GMT

If that weren't the case, I would just go last in my lane and drop the last 50 so as to get 45-60 rest as opposed to 10-15. I am new to the team I've been swimming with and don't quite know where I fit in yet. Thursday I wound up swimming up a lane from my earlier practices (I just hopped in that lane because it was empty) and wound up leading on a set at a pace a bit faster than I should have been at. Today I swam with a group that was more my pace, but swam last in the lane and gave the person ahead of me 10-15 seconds head start. That way I could swim at my own pace and not run someone over but I still started early enough that the lane leader wasn't nipping at my heels at the end of a 200. Well, it worked for me... Skip

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:26:07 GMT

thanks for the suggestions about how to manage my lactic acid issues during training. I figured out this week what my ideal pace is. It is a bit slower than I was attempting. So I can't really add anything to my workouts just yet. Maybe in a few more weeks I can try to drop a second, or add a few more repetitions. But at least my arms aren't turning to mush too early in the set.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Ahelee Sue Osborn — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:03:50 GMT

I workout w/ a team (not FLAQ) whose stated mission is "mo' yards mo' yards mo' yards! No rest no rest no rest!" Whatever they are doing, I simply cut the yardage or sit out a rep or 2 or 3 or 4. I try not to get in the way, and I'm sure I might piss ppl off, but then again, I've never seen a team w/ so many ppl getting out to go to the bathroom, giving up completely for the last 25% of the set, getting out early for whatever reason, etc. In short, a huge % of the team does get the rest that their body wants and needs, just not at a regular interval. They're just conning themselves into thinking that they're doing 4200 yds/hr. The ones who do the entire workout have absolute crap technique by the end. Guys 5'11-6'4 pushing off the wall and having their head coming up at the flags!!!!!!!!!! Congrats on your training wisdom - and for figuring out a way to function productively within your masters swim workouts. Presumably your coach is not a "control freak"!! Your post just made my visit experience here this morning Carlos :) Hope to watch you rip it up in Atlanta!

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:21:12 GMT

This may be controversial, but... ...yet, I couldn't agree more.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:05:58 GMT

Should you consider relaxation and rhthym while pushing lactic chemistry? I think so. I have read several articles about Popov where they talked about the Russians not muscling through everything. If you think about how much strength it takes to recover AFAP, there could be a lot of wasted effort. Rhythm for sure. Without it, how does your kick match your stroke, and if you kick doesn't match your stroke, that messes up your rotation, which messes up ...

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

__steve__ — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:50:49 GMT

Should you consider relaxation and rhthym while pushing lactic chemistry?

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:28:19 GMT

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:43:31 GMT

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Chris Stevenson — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:57:37 GMT

The problem I am having right now is just learning how to swim through lactic acid burn on the higher speed/longer interval sets. The muscle strength is...mostly there but just not the mental strength to hold my stroke together. It's tempting to swim at a pace where I don't feel any burn, or to swim 50s/75s, but that's not really addressing the problem. This may be controversial, but...while some athletes are very driven, I think the "mental toughness" aspect is a little overrated. What is viewed as mental toughness -- so and so just "refuses to lose" at the end of a race -- is often just very good adaptations to high lactate production achieved through training. (Granted, that takes motivation.) Maglischo says as much, something to the effect that the mentally toughest athlete in the world simply cannot overcome muscle failure due to acidosis. If your competitor has much lower LA levels than you at the same point at the end of the race, s/he will beat you, period. Building the adaptations for lactate tolerance takes a lot of time. Yes, and desire...but don't beat yourself up over any perceived lack of mental toughness. Just keep at it and you'll make progress. (Then others will marvel at how tough YOU are.)

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:26:25 GMT

The main problem is if your attention wanders a little and you forget to count your strokes... Solution for this is to try to observe a reliable pattern. We always begin each length on the same arm (right arm for most). For me, when swimming the Free Style, if the last arm stroke before the flip is the right arm, then it's 15 strokes. Most of the time, I begin each rep on 14 stroke (that's left arm) and finish on 16 (which is also left arm). Distinguishing between 14 is 16 is relatively easy. 14 doesn't feel like 16 at all. This is how I manage to never count the stroke while yet being informed about my stroke count all the time.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:26:05 GMT

(A) Use the laneline color change instead of the flags. (B) Count your strokes over the whole lap, it is surprisingly effective. Once you're comfortable with the idea and you've settled into a reproducible stroke count, you may only need a quick glance at the laneline for confirmation that you are on target. The main problem is if your attention wanders a little and you forget to count your strokes... Just to give everyone a little "isn't that amazing" boost: one of the girls my daughter grew up with is legally blind. Her vision is just barely short of "white cane and a dog" blind, but she is renowned for drifting around vaguelly looking for her father after swim practice despite the fact he, a very tall and imposing man, is standing right in front of the changing room exits. Your solution for my backstroke issue is how she swims every length of every set and every race: counting all the time. The only time she gets a break is when she is racing: her divorced parents pair up to "touch" (more like smack) her head with a styrofoam ball on a pole to give her the heads up for the turn. You should see how mad that tiny little teenager gets when her mother misses the touch. Humorous story: at provincial championships four years back one of her team mates was having a hissy-fit right before her race because her goggles had self-destructed as she stepped toward the block. Young Jackie just laughed and told her that "blinkers" (her term for blind swimmers) had the solution: fifteen strokes to the length. The comment was unappreciated by the flustered (and able bodied) team mate, but the parents in the stands thought it was hilarious (her team mate happened to be one of the more...."outspoken" young women on the team). My daughter's friend had the great experience of going to the Beijing Olympics and did very well in her S12 competitor class. Her "no quit" attitude was always a joy to behold when I was training in the lap-lanes next to the team.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Chris Stevenson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:00:48 GMT

I do not have "flags" up most of the time (I only get those when the age-group team is in) and doing back with no flags just destroys my stroke as I google around looking for the wall. (A) Use the laneline color change instead of the flags. (B) Count your strokes over the whole lap, it is surprisingly effective. Once you're comfortable with the idea and you've settled into a reproducible stroke count, you may only need a quick glance at the laneline for confirmation that you are on target. The main problem is if your attention wanders a little and you forget to count your strokes...

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:53:38 GMT

Yes,they should be exhausting(take note of that you "maximize my distance" people) so don't do them 2 days in a row very often. So I trained again today (Sunday is a great day for me to train: I get to sleep in, not worry about work, and with snow on the ground up here, no lawn to mow either). I made it sort of a recovery day: 4700 meters at a moderate pace, half backstroke, half front crawl, and evenly split between kick, pull and swim. I was actually feeling pretty good in the water, so I interjected some full-out as fast as I can swim 25s of backstroke. I would do a short set of swim, kick or pull, then throw in just two fifties: sprint down, coast back. It felt really great. I could get addicted to this stuff. I ended up doing close to 500 meters swimming as fast as I believe I can, half of that backstroke (something I have not done for nearly thirty years) Back to harder work tomorrow. I kind of have a plan for tomorrow that goes something like this: 1200 warm-up: 4-4-4 swim kick pull. 4x100 on 2:00 going sub 1:15 (remember my goal is 4:50 or faster for the 400) 600 kick (or so) concentrating on streamline off the walls and maybe descending groups of 50s to speed. 3x100 on 2:15 going sub 1:12 600 pull (or so) concentrating on exact stroke placement, pull through and high elbow recovery. I used to work on breathing, but now I have given that up, realizing that once I get tired I am going to breath only on the right side and every time I can. Doing anything else destroys my stroke altogether. 2x100 on 2:30 going sub 1:10 600 stroke: backstroke used to be my "speciatlity", so I likely will work back. Doing this is somewhat questionable: I do not have "flags" up most of the time (I only get those when the age-group team is in) and doing back with no flags just destroys my stroke as I google around looking for the wall. 100 meters full out, hold nothing back. 200 warm-down, maybe with fins on so I can just cruise and work on stroke without any effort. Am I on the right track for the mid-distance freestyle events? (BTW: I really could care less about sprints, so I will likely never concentrate on them for front-crawl)

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:17:03 GMT

One observation: are these work-outs supposed to be so exhausting? I have been pretty much flat for the rest of the day. Is this common when you shift from typical meter heavy training to high intensity training? Yes, you should be some where between a really hard regular workout and a one day meet.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

dsyphers — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:04:06 GMT

I really liked this thread. It was quite useful to see the different replies/approaches. I am about as strong at freestyle sprints as I am at distances (I compare with the ratings calculator at www.egswim.com/ne ), with my 200 just a wee bit better than the other distances. Therefore, my workouts are a hybrid of sorts, with the centroid probably a middle distance workout. Ive had some big improvements in my 200, 500 and 1000 times during the past year, but was concerned about the slowing rate of improvement in the 50 and 100. Further, I seemed to be approaching an asymptotic limit to my 200 times, and the only room for improvement was to swim the shorter distances faster too. After checking with my coach about how to swim the shorter distances faster, I created a workout mix that included occasional (once or twice a week) race pace workouts for the shorter distances -- following the advice that swimming faster in practice leads to swimming faster in races. It was only after I started doing this that my 200 time plummeted, and both my 50 and 100 times once again saw real improvements. No races recently for the longer distances, but my workout times for the sets between 200 - 500 have also been falling. At the start of the summer I had a target of workout distances in the 3000-4000 yard range -- thinking that more yards was what I needed. After switching to include race pace work, most workouts are around 2500 yards (but take about the same time because of expanded recovery time). It helped to see all the different thoughts out there, and some of them will inform my future workout plans. I'm a convert, though, for the idea that without a faster 50, that 200 and 500 won't improve as much, or as quickly. Race pace work for the shorter distances, as one component of a workout plan, has definitely helped me get faster across the board.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Allen Stark — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:24:57 GMT

So I finally crossed my Rubicon this morning: I logged 1 million meters in the pool this year at the Canadian "Million Meter Challenge". Now. I have dedicated myself to actually swimming fast,especially in that darned 400 meters free. I did my first real speed work-out today: less meters, one dedicated race-pace set of fifties, then one set of pure as "fast as I can swim" fifties, all mixed with light aerobic sets to cool down. One observation: are these work-outs supposed to be so exhausting? I have been pretty much flat for the rest of the day. Is this common when you shift from typical meter heavy training to high intensity training? Yes,they should be exhausting(take note of that you "maximize my distance" people) so don't do them 2 days in a row very often.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Chris Stevenson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:52:51 GMT

Are these work-outs supposed to be so exhausting? I have been pretty much flat for the rest of the day. Yes. Don't do them every day. If you do two-day meets, then doubling up -- two days in a row --can be useful on occasion to simulate how the meet might feel.

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

smontanaro — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:32:34 GMT

Practice for the new season just started (first one was Tuesday evening) and I've been out of the water since mid-July. Today as the final set before warm down we did 5*100 on 3:00. We were supposed to hold as fast a pace as we thought we could. When my arms bagged out I couldn't make my legs kick either. I am pretty wiped. On the plus side I should sleep well tonight. Don't know if I'll be able to move tomorrow though... Skip

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:04:25 GMT

I think I concur with this possibly up to a 500 but it is absolutely no guarantee in a 1000 and certainly not a 1650 or longer OW races, in the least. when i first started swimming masters, i would enter all the freestyle events and was always distressed to get dusted in the 500 and 1000 by people who i beat handily in the 50 and 100. the 200... well nobody really cares about the 200 anyway. while i can't claim much improvement over the last decade in the short stuff, my distance times continually improve.... today's main set: 5x 100 on 1:20 went :06, :05, :06, :07, :06 on 14 SPL 5x 100 on 1:15 went :07, :07, :07, :06, :07 on 14 SPL 5x 100 on 1:10 went :05, :07, :07, :07, :07 on 15 SPL tomorrow, day off from swimming sunday, 4-6 hour swim at coney island 60-61 degrees monday, 5x 25 sprint from blocks on 5:00 (just kidding)

RE: Performance or Pace-time?

Former Member — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:53:38 GMT