The complete citation for the Costill study comparing training twice a day at 10,000m or more to once a day at 5,000m or less and finding no advantage is:
Costill, D.L., R. Thomas, R.A. Robergs, D.D. Pascoe, C.P. Lambert, S.I. Barr, and W.J. Fink. 1991. Adaptations to swimming training: Influence of training volume. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 23: 371-377.
It's unclear whether these volume levels have much relevance to most masters swimmers...
First, I have a bias. I am not a fan of Costill's work, so that may taint my opinion of his studies.
Lindsay, I think you are right, the volume levels in the study don't matter much to us. I think very few of us are able to get 25k in per week, and 50k is completely unrealistic.
I have only seen studies on training volume relative to single event performance. This doesn't seem to be the logical benefit of training volume. Most college swimmers are going to swim multiple events at their target meet, and certainly multiple events during in season meets. Wouldn't the increased volume prepare their body more for repeated high level performances rather than optimally for a single high level performance?
I think this is something masters suffer from noticeably. At the end of a meet, our performances start to fall of, and knowing this, we expect our best performances to be in the early to mid of our event line up and plan our events accordingly, hoping our favorite events lands early to mid meet.
If you follow the blogs of some of the more frequent competitors, there are a couple that don't suffer much of a performance drop off at the end of a meet and their training volume is usually closer to 25k than to 10k/week.
Did you notice the other comment made in the abstract, "It was also noted that both groups showed little change in swimming endurance and power after the first 8 wk of training, though their performances improved significantly after each taper period"? I don't know what the baseline was for that statement, but some masters swimmers taper multiple times per season, while others don't train seriously until 2 to 3 months out from a nationals. Maybe a 12 week training cycle is more optimal than a 24 week cycle? From a mental stand point, it should be much easier to stay focused and motivated for the shorter time period.
The complete citation for the Costill study comparing training twice a day at 10,000m or more to once a day at 5,000m or less and finding no advantage is:
Costill, D.L., R. Thomas, R.A. Robergs, D.D. Pascoe, C.P. Lambert, S.I. Barr, and W.J. Fink. 1991. Adaptations to swimming training: Influence of training volume. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 23: 371-377.
It's unclear whether these volume levels have much relevance to most masters swimmers...
First, I have a bias. I am not a fan of Costill's work, so that may taint my opinion of his studies.
Lindsay, I think you are right, the volume levels in the study don't matter much to us. I think very few of us are able to get 25k in per week, and 50k is completely unrealistic.
I have only seen studies on training volume relative to single event performance. This doesn't seem to be the logical benefit of training volume. Most college swimmers are going to swim multiple events at their target meet, and certainly multiple events during in season meets. Wouldn't the increased volume prepare their body more for repeated high level performances rather than optimally for a single high level performance?
I think this is something masters suffer from noticeably. At the end of a meet, our performances start to fall of, and knowing this, we expect our best performances to be in the early to mid of our event line up and plan our events accordingly, hoping our favorite events lands early to mid meet.
If you follow the blogs of some of the more frequent competitors, there are a couple that don't suffer much of a performance drop off at the end of a meet and their training volume is usually closer to 25k than to 10k/week.
Did you notice the other comment made in the abstract, "It was also noted that both groups showed little change in swimming endurance and power after the first 8 wk of training, though their performances improved significantly after each taper period"? I don't know what the baseline was for that statement, but some masters swimmers taper multiple times per season, while others don't train seriously until 2 to 3 months out from a nationals. Maybe a 12 week training cycle is more optimal than a 24 week cycle? From a mental stand point, it should be much easier to stay focused and motivated for the shorter time period.
