Thinking about doing a broken 200 back in practice tomorrow just to see where I am. In my age-group days, we used to do these and break 10 seconds at the 50. The time we would get (after subtracting the 10 second rest breaks) was surprisingly close to what we would do in a meet.
I'm wondering if I should change the amount of rest between each 50 since I am older now. Will I still get an accurate picture with 10 seconds rest or should I go with 15?
We have done them both splitting at the 50 and splitting at the 100. If we split at the 50, we only stop for 5 sec. Splitting at the 100, we get 10 sec. Why not try it both ways and do a nice easy 200 in between. See if you can get the same result.
Seems like we did 4x50y free on 5 seconds rest for our race-pace 200's? I don't think we got 10 seconds unless it was for 50m pools. OMG everything hurt, the kind of hurt that put me sobbing into the gutter not able to pinpoint what hurt worst. Subtracted rest times were good enough to use for meet goal times.
I don't think age matters too much; if you need more rest in practice between 50's, it means you won't be able to hold that aggressive pace in a meet.
Motivation - we didn't do lactate tolerance or race pace sets like this very often. It's too hard mentally as well as physically to "get up" and go like this very often.
I did an experiment with broken 200s back in October. I wanted to see which breakdown got me closest to a meet time (I did a 200 free in a meet less than 2 weeks later that provided the comparison- the following was done freestyle, not backstroke, unfortunately).
1 x 200 on 8:00
- 10sec rest at 75 and 150: 2:16 total, minus rest 1:56
~150EZ
1 x 200 on 8:00
- 10sec rest at each 50: 2:23 total, minus rest 1:53
~150EZ
1 x 200 on 8:00
- 10sec rest at 100 and 150: 2:18 total, minus rest 1:58
I ended up going 1:54 at the meet, so 10sec at each 50 seems to be the best estimate for *me.* However, I tend to be more of a sprinter and more rest is better in my case. YMMV.
I did an experiment with broken 200s back in October. I wanted to see which breakdown got me closest to a meet time (I did a 200 free in a meet less than 2 weeks later that provided the comparison- the following was done freestyle, not backstroke, unfortunately).
1 x 200 on 8:00
- 10sec rest at 75 and 150: 2:16 total, minus rest 1:56
~150EZ
1 x 200 on 8:00
- 10sec rest at each 50: 2:23 total, minus rest 1:53
~150EZ
1 x 200 on 8:00
- 10sec rest at 100 and 150: 2:18 total, minus rest 1:58
I ended up going 1:54 at the meet, so 10sec at each 50 seems to be the best estimate for *me.* However, I tend to be more of a sprinter and more rest is better in my case. YMMV.
Did you do this all in one workout session? If so, that must have been painful!
Also, do you think that there was a "fatigue factor", i.e. would the add-ups have been much different if you did the test in a different order?
Did you do this all in one workout session? If so, that must have been painful!
Also, do you think that there was a "fatigue factor", i.e. would the add-ups have been much different if you did the test in a different order?
Yes, it was a test set done in a single pratice. Good question about the fatigue factor- a lot of times my 2nd or 3rd rep in any test set is a little faster, so between the fatigue and warming up within the set, it would be tough to say that all things were equal for each 200.
But I think the same could be said if done between days (e.g did weights the day before one rep but not before another, later in the week so more fatigued for this rep). I'll certainly repeat this experiment though, and maybe consider doing them on separate days to see how it compares. It would certainly be less painful that way :)
We did these yesterday. Broken at the 50, with foot touches. With the first one, the 50's were on 1:00. I did 4 sec below my best. The 2nd one, the 50's were on 50 and I was at my best. We dove on the first 50 only. And yes, lactic acid set in - ugh.
One of my all time favorite (albeit grueling) sets, courtesy of the great Jenn Michaels, coach of Team Pitt Masters:
5 sets of 8x50 on 1:00
Set#1 - o=ez, e=200pace+2sec
Set#2 - o=ez, e=200pace+1sec
Set#3 - o=ez, e=200pace
Set#4 - o=ez, e=200pace -1sec
Set#5 - o=ez, e=200pace -2sec
o - odds; e - evens
Say your best 200 is exactly 2:00. In Set #1, that would mean the even 50s would all be 32s (200 pace = 30 + 2 sec.)
By Set @5, the even 50s all need to be 28s.
It does get tiring. No dives. We usually "regroup" for a minute or so between each of the sets.
