Can speed practice alone help long distance endurance?
Former Member
If I only practice to improve the speed in short distance, will it help increase the endurance needed for long distance? In other words, say I have trained for several months for (only) speed, could I, one day, suddenly find myself swimming long distance without feeling tired?
(Obviously the opposite is not true: simply being able to swim slow long distance doesn't help improve the speed.)
Parents
Former Member
You can train speed alone and help endurance for middle distance, I don't know about long distance.
I think that you need speed to improve your technique, but also you need to swim long distance to get used to that "long" stroke, the kick is differet (5k), the breathing is different... if you want to swim mostly LD.
I swim mostly middle distance races 400/800 free, but now I decided to focus more on speed training, so I have been trainning lots of 50s/25s with long rest for the past 3 months,
Last week I timed my 400 free and I was just 2 sec off my best time, my 50 free from a push got almost 2 sec faster, so this is my direction for the next months.
You can train speed alone and help endurance for middle distance, I don't know about long distance.
I think that you need speed to improve your technique, but also you need to swim long distance to get used to that "long" stroke, the kick is differet (5k), the breathing is different... if you want to swim mostly LD.
I swim mostly middle distance races 400/800 free, but now I decided to focus more on speed training, so I have been trainning lots of 50s/25s with long rest for the past 3 months,
Last week I timed my 400 free and I was just 2 sec off my best time, my 50 free from a push got almost 2 sec faster, so this is my direction for the next months.
