Training for the 1500/1650: Suggestions?

Not familiar with the Sweet Spot training principle. OK. Let me then refer to this nice description here Basically the entire premise of SST is to work hard enough to stress metabolic systems and to encourage your body to adapt but easy enough that you can finish the intervals, sessions and you can keep on track through your weekly schedule and rack up a lot of quality time. Now I'll come back shortly to further explain what it means. While the 400m Free belongs to the Vo2max spectrum, the 1500 belongs almost exclusively to the anaerobic threshold spectrum. It basically means that the more volume you could do at this intensity level, the better it is. That being said, this intensity - which represents the max swim velocity you can hold on a 20-30min duration - is very intense. Depending on your recovering ability, your time spent at this intensity within a workout may be limited. The number of workouts per week having main sets at this target intensity may be limited as well. The Sweet Spot Intensity level represents the best compromise between *being able to book a lot of volume* and *working near threshold intensity level*. With this explained, let me now try to answer your questions: How much aerobic (En1) swimming should I be doing outside of the warm up and warm down? Euh ... if you're referring to basic low level endurance, I'd say none (except for drill and technical work as well as recovery swim between hard sets). The SST intensity should be the lowest intensity level to compose your main sets. An exception to this rule would occur if you really train a lot of hours per week. But if you're limited to say 6-10 hours per week, I'd say save the basic low level endurance for wup/wdown/drill/technical swim/recovery. And how long should the anaerobic threshold (En2) sets be? The minimal duration of a Threshold segment is 10min. It is very hard to imagine being able to stay at this intensity for more than 40min. Remember that it is near some 1500 race pace. Say that you're worth 21 min over 1500 (at the moment), that would could something like 14x200 off 2:55 - try to hold a 2:40-2:45 pace. Feasible but not easy. And when you're worth 20min flat, then this set becomes 15x200 off 2:45 - try to hold 2:35-2:40. Not easy neither. Sweet Spot intensity is far easier to hold, and still contributes a lot to threshold development. This could translate into something like 15x300 off 4:30 - holding a 4:15 (1:25/100m pace). Assuming you're worth 20min over 1500m, this is very reasonable and gives you little over 60min at targeted intensity. So at threshold intensity, 15-30min is a very good set duration. At SST intensity you could double or triple this duration depending on the energy available.

I still like evenly paced 100s with 10 or 15 sec rest periods. The rest periods can be decreased as low as 5 seconds when you a ready to do this. 2 sets of 15 with a 5 or 6 min rest between these 2 sets. They should be done at a little faster time then race pace if you want to be faster then you are now. Once or twice a week is good of course do your regular training the other days and don't forget your warmups and cool down swims..

The minimal duration of a Threshold segment is 10min. It is very hard to imagine being able to stay at this intensity for more than 40min. Remember that it is your 1500 race pace. I thought that race pace (even for a 1500) was faster than threshold; isn't threshold (En2) derived from a T-3000?

Geek suggested that I build my endurance with dryland work, but unlike him I have a job and limited time to train, and I don't really want to give up pool time. Any suggestions? I already have a huge endurance base built dryland, it just does not transfer to swimming. So I'd probably suggest - if like you're training time is limited - to avoid taking this path. My cycling / cross-training endurance level is such that if it was transferring to swimming, I'd expect a 1500 well under 20m. Trust me, I don't get anywhere near this at the moment. Your question is simple and calls for a simple answer. The main fitness component involved in performing the 1500 is anaerobic threshold. This component, as you already know, is best developed when training at threshold pace. For me, intervals should be favored but they have to be designed in a way that favors threshold development. And for this, you just need to make sure that the rest periods are short enough so that your body can't really notice that you actually stop. Half life of several physiological processes involved in maintaining threshold pace is ~30s. If you make your rest periods equal or shorter than let's say 20sec you should be ok. Then the rule is simple: the avg intensity including the rest has to match the threshold level. If so, you're working at threshold. Now, for determining the intensity, I would strongly suggest that you use swim pace instead of HR. It is much easier to monitor and is also much more reliable. The scientific literature often recommend simple endurance tests to establish what your target threshold pace should be. It ranges from T1000 to T3000. Personally, I don't pay much attention to these standards. Any distance that belongs to the threshold spectrum is fine. As a reminder, there's this good old Critical Swim Speed concept that would allow you to build smart sets. Based on two inputs, it can guide you in determining what target pace should be for any (longish) distance. For instance, you supply the 200 and the 400, you get the 3000. So you can tune a set of 15x200 on precise pace using this old principle. And if you really want to get scientific, you may try to compute Skiba's Swim Scores. That allows for the whole season to be monitored the same way you'd do with TRIMPS. I am currently putting an Excel Spreadsheet to compute these as I intend to use this concept this year. - - - Ref www.pponline.co.uk/.../0162.htm explanation of the concept www.swimsmooth.com/training.html calculator (in the middle of the page) www.physfarm.com/swimscore.pdf Skiba's Swim Score

I think most of suggestions here are good. One of my favorite set's (not really as it hurts) is 11x150's (SCY) or 10x150 (SCM) on a tight interval :10 to :15 seconds rest. Focusing hard on that pace clock and trying sustain the same pace at the end of set as at the beginning.

I did a set last year that I thought really helped with distance pacing. The first week I did both 4x50 on :45 trying to hold my 500 pace and 4x100 on 1:30 trying to hold my 1650 pace. Then the following week I did 6x50 on :45, and the week after that 6x100 on 1:30. I kept adding two repeats until I got up to 20x50 and 20x100. Then I skipped a week, then the final week (probably two weeks out from Nationals) did both 10x50 and 10x100. So the only weeks you do both the 50s and the 100s are the first and last weeks. All the other weeks you just do one or the other. The sendoffs worked out for me to give very close to a 2:1 swim to rest ratio. I do like Kirk's suggestion and will try that when I next train for a mile, but ... My best season for distance swimming was when we did a ton of 500s and 200s in practice. I personally prefer sets of 100s, but if I really want to get into good distance shape, I find the minimum repeat unit needs to be 200s. ... Jim and others are right. You need some longer distance swims. Here are a couple of workouts I've done recently that I think are good for 1000/1650 training: forums.usms.org/blog.php forums.usms.org/blog.php Chris Stevenson also frequently does broken miles and I think that is good. I have no clue what En1, 2 or 3 stand for, but, for me, I think a lot of work on longer distance sets (300 to 600) over 2K to 3K continuously with relatively little rest (e.g., 5 or so seconds per 100) on as fast an interval as you can hold is great for building endurance. For me, if I ultimately wanted to hold 1:00 per 100 in a mile (a goal not yet achieved as a Masters swimmer, but hopefully next SCY season), I'd want to be doing these distances aiming for a 1:05 pace on a 1:10 interval earlier in the season when aiming for most endurance work. However, YMMV as I tend to swim a lot faster come taper time pace-wise than I can hold in workout.

How do we know this. Is it threshold or what.... ... The only way you will know you are doing a threshold workout is a blood test Well, we don't care much about blood testing anymore. You like simple stuff? If you swim your best avg speed over a 20min long duration you are definitely training at threshold. The Vo2Max level, which is the next floor after MAXLASS just can not be hold for 20min. To give you a better idea, the 400m is swam at Vo2Max level. Start a 400 All Out and try to continue up to 1500 at that pace without slowing down ;-) So really, blood testing isn't required. And even so. Even in perfect controlled lab conditions, two technicians may argue on where your MAXLASS occur. These curves on graphs are not as easy to interpret as some might think. It doesn't matter that much to know exactly where you sit between OBLA (4mmol/L) and MAXLASS. Swimmers don't need to know these things in order for the training to be efficient.

I thought that race pace (even for a 1500) was faster than threshold; isn't threshold (En2) derived from a T-3000? Well that's a very good question. I used Threshold spectrum as an expression because that's really what threshold is. To further qualify all that, let's use scientific words if I may since it would be a reasonable reference. This spectrum begins with Lactate Threshold (aerobic threshold), which is commonly defined as an accumulation of 1mmol per L of blood, over your baseline, which is often 1mml (or less). That, you can hold for real long durations. Main limitation becomes the glycogen pool really. One step over that and you reach the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA) which is defined at fixed lactate level (labs love that one). It corresponds to 4mmol per liter. That when fit some may hold for little under, little over an hour. Then at the higher end of threshold spectrum you get to MAXLASS, stands for maximal lactate steady state. This is the last inflection point over which the accumulation becomes drastic. That some hold near 20-30 but more reasonably 10-20. Any work done anywhere within this spectrum should contribute to improve performances over 1500. But since this event correlates in duration and intensity with MAXLASS, work done at this level is more specific to the event. Those times are even harder to imagine and for sure not feasible. They may or may not. 2:45 is little under 1500 race pace. 7 of them appears more realistic. These interval choices were made to illustrate that holding a hard threshold set over 20 or 30min duration may be difficult to achieve. Forgot to mention that this SST intensity is kind of a spectrum (although somehow narrower) in itself. For instance, putting those 300 on 4:45 would still match this intensity. Some call that tempo. The idea is not to kill yourself so depending on what was done in previous days ect.

Threshold - twice a week 35-40 min set - go for best average, no big descending - if you do nothing else, do those 2 sets. En1 - as much as possible as long as you are fresh for the 2 threshold sets. I think this is good advice and I agree on the descending part. If you are able to swim much faster at the end odds are you aren't putting in enough effort up front. You should be struggling just to hang on.

I have no clue what En1, 2 or 3 stand for, but, for me, I think a lot of work on longer distance sets (300 to 600) over 2K to 3K continuously with relatively little rest (e.g., 5 or so seconds per 100) on as fast an interval as you can hold is great for building endurance. I highly recommend Maglischo's "Swimming Fastest" for lots of great ideas for distance training (and other types too, of course). V brief summary here, but go to the source. Maglischo definitions: En-1 -- what he terms "basic endurance training" -- is somewhere between aerobic and anaerobic threshold. Anaerobic threshold is where LA production/removal are equal; aerobic threshold is described as "the minimum speed that will produce an improvement in the aerobic endurance of slow-twitch and some low-threshold FTa muscle fibers." Recommended set length are 2000 yd; rest intervals are fairly short (5-10 sec for short repeats; 10-20 for middle-distance; 20-60 sec for longer repeats). Maglischo recommends that distance swimmers spend a lot of time in En-1 "most of the endurance training that distance swimmers do should be in the basic endurance category (En-1)." En-2 is at anaerobic threshold ("threshold endurance training"). Example sets are 20-40 x 100 or 10-20 x 200 with approx 10 sec rest between repeats. Keep in mind the point is NOT to be at race pace; the point is to be at LT. He likes repeat distances of 200s or longer. Maglischo says "Distance swimmers can and should swim more of their repeats near threshold speeds (En-2) than other swimmers." He goes on to recommend 1-2 sets of En-2 per week in the early season, increasing these in the middle season, and then tapering off later in the season as more training is done in En-3. En-3 training is above LT and produces acidosis; Maglischo also calls this "overload endurance training." This would include most of what we have been calling "race pace" training...as long as the set lengths are fairly long and the rest intervals are not too generous. (For example, doing mile race-pace on a couple 50s with lots of rest is not very challenging and won't produce much acidosis.) En-3 set lengths are somewhere between 500 and 2000 yards. Rest intervals can be somewhat longer than En-1 or En-2 but still not real long. Example sets are 6-10 x 200 with 10-30 sec rest. But he also includes as an example 10-20 x 100 on the shortest possible sendoff. I believe the point is to be producing reasonably high lactate levels for a relatively long period of time, not necessarily always swimming right at race pace. Maglischo cautions about doing too many En-3 sets. In the early season there is little En-3: maybe some descending sets would dip into this area. In mid-season he calls for 1-2 per week, and 2 per week late in the season. This is all very general, and he gives lots of examples (I notice that Kieren Perkins and Janet Evans seemed to do a little more than two En-3 sets per week; more like 3-4 per week). But some key points for distance swimmers are: longer set distances and repeat lengths, not a lot of rest, and the fact that more time should be spend below LT than at or (especially) above it.