Reading the Eddie Reese article in the SFF thread and the importance of an aerobic base I was led to wonder, how do you establish and maintain an aerobic base, and how do you know when to go from building the aerobic base to working on non-aerobic training? Do you split your season or do you work on all aspects all the time?
I know it's a big question but...
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Former Member
I'm going to post an unscientific reply:
I have the time, alongside work, family and other commitments to train 3 times a week in the pool (for an hour). If I'm disciplined I can do a couple of gym sessions and/or jog.
I don't have time to spend focusing on aerobic development. I don't believe that, in the time I have, I will develop a huge aerobic capacity. So, although I do more aerobic work further from my taper meets I focus more on getting up to race pace, which means 50-200 pace/intensity. By the last month or so before my main meet I am doing almost exclusively race pace work. I get a small amount of aerobic maintenance in warmups etc.
Alongside swimming, my land work is important. I like to run, and will do 10ks etc. I suffer from chronic bowel disease so my commitment to running is inconsistent. However, this is still virtually my only purely aerobic exercise.
In the gym I don't do sets of heavy weights. I "complexes" much of the time, which are mini circuits of 6 sets of 6 reps of 6 exercises (so 36 reps in a set, of varied exercises) using multiple body parts. This feels much like 100-200 race pace work in the pool - with my heart rate getting up towards 180 bpm and I'm serously sucking in air at the end! So I guess this is anaerobic.
In short, if I had double the time in the pool I'd probably do more aerobic work. But not a lot!
I'm going to post an unscientific reply:
I have the time, alongside work, family and other commitments to train 3 times a week in the pool (for an hour). If I'm disciplined I can do a couple of gym sessions and/or jog.
I don't have time to spend focusing on aerobic development. I don't believe that, in the time I have, I will develop a huge aerobic capacity. So, although I do more aerobic work further from my taper meets I focus more on getting up to race pace, which means 50-200 pace/intensity. By the last month or so before my main meet I am doing almost exclusively race pace work. I get a small amount of aerobic maintenance in warmups etc.
Alongside swimming, my land work is important. I like to run, and will do 10ks etc. I suffer from chronic bowel disease so my commitment to running is inconsistent. However, this is still virtually my only purely aerobic exercise.
In the gym I don't do sets of heavy weights. I "complexes" much of the time, which are mini circuits of 6 sets of 6 reps of 6 exercises (so 36 reps in a set, of varied exercises) using multiple body parts. This feels much like 100-200 race pace work in the pool - with my heart rate getting up towards 180 bpm and I'm serously sucking in air at the end! So I guess this is anaerobic.
In short, if I had double the time in the pool I'd probably do more aerobic work. But not a lot!
