Can speed practice alone help long distance endurance?

I'm still open to all input--experiences will be more helpful than theories, so if anyone out there can relate to their actually experience it'll be great. :) well then for ground evidence like we sometimes like to call this, I am sorry for cross-referring to an other forums but there's a specific thread that was opened few months back related to this specific question. So far, most campers in this thread seem to have had a very cool and refreshing experience. There you go. 26 pages of ground evidence pointing in the direction that up to a certain level, speed development seems to have a more favorable impact on performances over longer distances than working on endurance per se. www.tritalk.co.uk/.../viewtopic.php To summarize the whole thread very rapidly. Take someone who's best 1500 is let's say... 24min flat. I do not care at this point about this guy's performance over the 100m. Take the guy, put him on sole speed development until the 100m comes close to 1min flat. All 25/50/100/200m based training. Could take 2 or 3 years. No endurance work at all. Once this guy is on 1min flat, his 1500 will no longer be 24min flat, in fact it will be difficult for this guy to swim that slow. The relation between one's best 100m and performances over longer duration events is very strong. Most (if not all) good sprinters I have coached in the past would probably outperform most endurance specialists on this site here. But when your best 100m is down to 50sec flat, let me tell you just one thing, you book 20min for 1500 in warmups (these guys have hard time swimming slower than 1:20 pace) and 18H45 without even reaching your threshold yet. How strong of a relation is that? Another solid example? I saw a 100m backstroke specialist being turned into a 40k marathon specialist in a matter of few months. That was done to allow him to earn some money during FINA World Cup events (professional events that is). Not sure you could turn a running sprinter into a marathoner within few months.

But I hear there is a new pill you can take to help you with your endurance training. It's called Vitamin SuckItUp. Unfortunately, it is a terribly bitter pill and very few people are willing to take it. :lmao: Unfortunately most sprinters are allergic to this pill, though they do attempt to swallow it with lots of whine.

To summarize the whole thread very rapidly. Take someone who's best 1500 is let's say... 24min flat. I do not care at this point about this guy's performance over the 100m. Take the guy, put him on sole speed development until the 100m comes close to 1min flat. All 25/50/100/200m based training. Could take 2 or 3 years. No endurance work at all. hmmmm..... i think most distance swimmers spend most of their time doing 25/50/100/200m based training. thats what 90% of the masters workouts i do consist of. of course when i'm swimming with the tri-gals we trim the rest intervals pretty tight. when i swim solo or train in OW, i'll do 500's 1000's 2000's multi- miles etc. and what you left out of the equation is some 100/1500 ratio to start with.

I might be a good case study of this. I have not swam anything longer than 100M in the winter or under 1 mile in the summer for the past year. So far I have found that distance training had little positive impact on my sprint races - I was tenths of a second better in my first meet this fall and had modest improvement in my 2nd after a couple of months of training for shorter distance. I do feel fairly confident that I could improve my distance times significantly now but I will find out this summer. I think I have developed some "easy speed" - but at the same time I might need even just minimum training of a couple weeks to produce it.

I disagree strongly with the notion that "25/50/100/200m based training" is not "endurance work," though I guess maybe that's your point? Tons of studies out there show that interval-training, with distances short relative to the target race, will improve performance in that race. How "endurancey" it is depends on the number of reps and the rest interval. Sorry, I should have specified that I meant training (by all means) to improve over these distances (50/100/200). I am somehow familiar with the notion of broken distances (aerobic intervals) as composing 90% of most swimmers' regiment. And to tell you the truth, it's a notion that the original poster explicitly mentioned and somehow got ignored until your post. (to the op) If it was your original question, then yes most 100% sure that breaking down your distances in smaller chunks is a generally accepted way of developing endurance. Say you want to do 2000 of moderate endurance pace work (purely aimed at developing endurance), you may split this thing into chunks of 50 m and still be on target. You just got to make the rest period smaller. But what I actually meant is that it is highly important for triathletes (to name these) coming from a running background (to name this) that they should first learn to swim fast, then extend the durations (much later into their season). A lot of these folks have a 1500 around 27, a 100m around 1:30. They'd better get this thing down to at least 1:15 before thinking of solely focusing on endurance development (like they sometimes do). That turns some of them into "diesel" swimmers. For me, swimming fast somehow is a certificate of stroke efficiency. Any 1500 "specialist" that doesn't have a 100 near 1:10 would probably improve faster over 1500 more by improving on the 100 first. It's primarily what I meant.

If I only practice to improve the speed in short distance, will it help increase the endurance needed for long distance? No. But I hear there is a new pill you can take to help you with your endurance training. It's called Vitamin SuckItUp. Unfortunately, it is a terribly bitter pill and very few people are willing to take it.

this thread is getting good now........

Absolutely, for as a kayak escort, sprinters have no trouble taking on the surf and strong currents. Long distance marathon swimmers do have trouble and I have to fish them out all the time. Speed practice really helps you punch out, while you'll just be marking time and swimming in place when the current is against you if you train long and slow like "marathon swimmers" do. If you're busy work-a-holic that can manage an hour of training a day, then speed practice is for you, and a one mile to 2 1/2 mile open ocean swim will be a piece of cake. Anything over an hour of practice is just garbage milage and is counter productive. Forget technique, for out in the ocean, you just throw your arms out there and see what works, for all that efficient stroke stuff means nothing when you're getting banged up in the surf.

chaos, do you do the other 10% (long distance) all in OW, or some in pools? depends on the time of year. BTW, 10% was just a # i pulled out of my hat. from may to sept, i probably spend 70% or more of my practice time in OW

Forget technique, for out in the ocean, you just throw your arms out there and see what works, for all that efficient stroke stuff means nothing when you're getting banged up in the surf. WARNING: ridiculous statement above