So Coach T. What is your conclusion.
If I am a 50/100 specialist. Elite level. Should I bother doing any aerobic work at all? The author of the article quote a volume of 6k per day as being too much, without proposing any alternative.
Your opinion. What should be the weekly volume of an Elite Level 50/100 specialist?
I really wish I could have more *constant* stroke correction. It would be really annoying at first I'm sure, but the benefits would probably outweigh it in the long run.
Excellent article and I can see my coach following the thought process here a lot. He believes in quality over quantity. Why do massive yardage badly when you can do lower yardage but at higher intensity and with proper technique. And trust me, he's always stopping us for improper technique. The former age group team I was on is in the opposite came. In 90 min practices they are hitting 5000+ yards. In 2.5 hours practices 10,000+ yards. No stroke instruction and it's all just go, go, go type of swimming. The coach has even told others that he doesn't have time built in to the workout to stop for stroke correction. The swimmers on that team are having issues such as shoulders and knees at younger age. Not that my team isn't but our problems are coming from lifting weights and (in my case) a sprained ankle, not from swimming improper yardage. We train at that race pace about 3-4 times a week and have practices 2 times a day during weekdays and once on weekends, plus dry land and stretching. I hit that lactic acid quite often. This style of training has allowed me to become faster than when I was in high school and is now beating my times from when I was with the mega-yardage team of last year.
So Coach T. What is your conclusion.
If I am a 50/100 specialist. Elite level. Should I bother doing any aerobic work at all? The author of the article quote a volume of 6k per day as being too much, without proposing any alternative.
Your opinion. What should be the weekly volume of an Elite Level 50/100 specialist?
Elite sprinters in swimming are like all sprinters, strong and fast and without a need for high volume aerobic work. How much aerobic capacity do you need for any sub-minute bout? I'd like to give you a specific amount of training yardage but I think you need to hear it from a world class sprinter. 6K per day with a majority of it going toward technical improvement isn't out of the question but a high intensity 6K ~ I don't think so. Good luck! Coach T.
Your opinion, would a Base building phase be required for these specialist, or are we looking at all year round anaerobic capacity focus?
I don't think my opinion is worth of a hill of beans, but I would say, no, someone concentrating solely on sprints doesn't need an aerobic phase. In fact, I'd say someone who's only interested in 50s probably doesn't need an aerobic training at all. Once you get to 100s, then some aerobic training would be worthwhile.
Jazz,
I have some interesting reading for you.
coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../ASCA2009.pdf
Q, I just started skimming through this, and I must say it is excellent. Perhaps it should be mandatory reading before any of us on these forums be allowed to bloviate on some tidbit of swimming minutiae of which be suspect we have inner wisdom!
Not sure if it covers the effect of land training and weight lifting on swimming performance, but I suspect it might provide a wee tincture of validation for those of us who hold despised views along these lines!
Will continue perusing now.
Long live well-designed and replicatable science!
I truly like to read anyone's opinion really. And my participation to this thread is related to 50/100 specialists. Plain 50m free specialists tend to be rare.
I'm a 50/100 specialist. I don't really periodize or do "base training." I do very little true aerobic work. If I do, it's usually (1) kicking with fins; (2) aerobic + technique work on a recovery day; (3) as a warm up type set; or (4) sometimes with a team as a change of pace. I really do almost no short rest aerobic threshold work.
Not sure if it covers the effect of land training and weight lifting on swimming performance, but I suspect it might provide a wee tincture of validation for those of us who hold despised views along these lines!
And it suggests, upon quick perusal, that the notion that fins are not beneficial to adult swimmers may be erroneous. Even you, Jimby, hold some possibly unvalidated views. hehe :)
Solar - I liked your response and it made a ton of sense. I found that building a strong aerobic base was the key to a good season. After that we did 3X week of anarobic and/or V02Max (get some of that, Ion) work for a few weeks.
Let us remind ourselves that it would be very hard to go over 20min of anaerobic work day in day out. (for an elite sprinter, that would be around 20x100 at race pace). You do this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and some day something bad will come out of this obsession for race pace training.
This definitely rings true, though I never thought of it in terms of time before. In my experience, more than 10 minutes of anaerobic swimming per day is not sustainable for more than a week or two.
