Fortress' impressive three world record performance over the weekend made me think of this topic. Obviously the things she's doing are working well for the events she likes to swim. She concentrates on SDKs, fast swimming with lots of rest and drylands to aid in explosiveness. Long aerobic sets just aren't a part of her training regime, from what I've seen.
Almost every organized training group I've swum with, on the other hand, focuses on long aerobic sets, short rest, not a whole lot of fast stuff, etc. Basically the polar opposite of how Fortress trains. In my opinion this probably works pretty well for those who swim longer events, but really does very little for sprinters. The sprint events are almost always the most popular events at meets, so why do people choose to train aerobically? I think there are a number of factors at play. There's the much maligned triathletes. There's those who don't compete and "just want to get their yardage in." There's a historical precedent of lots of yardage being the way to go.
So what do you all think? How does you or your team train? I know lots of regular bloggers here DO train differently than my perception of the norm. Examples include Ande, Chris S. and Speedo. Are too many masters teams stuck in a training regime that is not at all what many of their swimmers need to get faster?
if swimmers want to SPRINT as fast as they can then
YES Most Masters Teams are Training Wrong, but it's not just most masters teams, it's many club and college teams. They need to train like Leslie, Rich Abrahams, and me at times when I'm preparing for sprints.
We become what we do
Whatever you do and measure improves
What do you you want to improve?
What do you need to DO and measure?
here's my most recent SFF tip that I started writing before I read this thread
I read about how Cameron van der Burgh trained for sprints.
He said "In the 50 scm breastroke I take 5 strokes on the first 25 & 9 on the 2nd"
Which is 14 total strokes, he did a lot of training focusing on SPEED and power.
Think about how much time you spend in each part of your race and how much distance you cover
What are the percentages?
What type of training do you need to do to improve your ability in each phase of the race?
Do you spend the same percentage of your training time focusing on each aspect of your race?
as an example:
Leslie kicks almost 30 meters of her 50 bk & fl. That's 60% of the race!
I'm pretty sure she does more fast high quality SDK training than most women in her age group & it paid off pretty big time for her.
I tend to shift my training as meets approach and start doing more speed and strength work.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't swim as well if I kept doing the middle distance training.
Plus think about how many times she's rehearsed her race,
versus someone doing traditional training.
a typical aerobic set is 10 x 100 on 1:20 hold 1:15's
repeatedly doing sets like that make you better at that type of swimming
a sprinter might do
10 x 50 on 1:20
odds easy
evens fast
plus when you do sprint training, you're not as broken down as you are when you do long hard aerobic training. Sprinters can keep getting stronger in the weight room, which can translate to more speed in the pool.
Ande
Fortress' impressive three world record performance over the weekend made me think of this topic. Obviously the things she's doing are working well for the events she likes to swim. She concentrates on SDKs, fast swimming with lots of rest and drylands to aid in explosiveness. Long aerobic sets just aren't a part of her training regime, from what I've seen.
Almost every organized training group I've swum with, on the other hand, focuses on long aerobic sets, short rest, not a whole lot of fast stuff, etc. Basically the polar opposite of how Fortress trains. In my opinion this probably works pretty well for those who swim longer events, but really does very little for sprinters. The sprint events are almost always the most popular events at meets, so why do people choose to train aerobically? I think there are a number of factors at play. There's the much maligned triathletes. There's those who don't compete and "just want to get their yardage in." There's a historical precedent of lots of yardage being the way to go.
So what do you all think? How does you or your team train? I know lots of regular bloggers here DO train differently than my perception of the norm. Examples include Ande, Chris S. and Speedo. Are too many masters teams stuck in a training regime that is not at all what many of their swimmers need to get faster?
if swimmers want to SPRINT as fast as they can then
YES Most Masters Teams are Training Wrong, but it's not just most masters teams, it's many club and college teams. They need to train like Leslie, Rich Abrahams, and me at times when I'm preparing for sprints.
We become what we do
Whatever you do and measure improves
What do you you want to improve?
What do you need to DO and measure?
here's my most recent SFF tip that I started writing before I read this thread
I read about how Cameron van der Burgh trained for sprints.
He said "In the 50 scm breastroke I take 5 strokes on the first 25 & 9 on the 2nd"
Which is 14 total strokes, he did a lot of training focusing on SPEED and power.
Think about how much time you spend in each part of your race and how much distance you cover
What are the percentages?
What type of training do you need to do to improve your ability in each phase of the race?
Do you spend the same percentage of your training time focusing on each aspect of your race?
as an example:
Leslie kicks almost 30 meters of her 50 bk & fl. That's 60% of the race!
I'm pretty sure she does more fast high quality SDK training than most women in her age group & it paid off pretty big time for her.
I tend to shift my training as meets approach and start doing more speed and strength work.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't swim as well if I kept doing the middle distance training.
Plus think about how many times she's rehearsed her race,
versus someone doing traditional training.
a typical aerobic set is 10 x 100 on 1:20 hold 1:15's
repeatedly doing sets like that make you better at that type of swimming
a sprinter might do
10 x 50 on 1:20
odds easy
evens fast
plus when you do sprint training, you're not as broken down as you are when you do long hard aerobic training. Sprinters can keep getting stronger in the weight room, which can translate to more speed in the pool.
Ande
Fortress' impressive three world record performance over the weekend made me think of this topic. Obviously the things she's doing are working well for the events she likes to swim. She concentrates on SDKs, fast swimming with lots of rest and drylands to aid in explosiveness. Long aerobic sets just aren't a part of her training regime, from what I've seen.
Almost every organized training group I've swum with, on the other hand, focuses on long aerobic sets, short rest, not a whole lot of fast stuff, etc. Basically the polar opposite of how Fortress trains. In my opinion this probably works pretty well for those who swim longer events, but really does very little for sprinters. The sprint events are almost always the most popular events at meets, so why do people choose to train aerobically? I think there are a number of factors at play. There's the much maligned triathletes. There's those who don't compete and "just want to get their yardage in." There's a historical precedent of lots of yardage being the way to go.
So what do you all think? How does you or your team train? I know lots of regular bloggers here DO train differently than my perception of the norm. Examples include Ande, Chris S. and Speedo. Are too many masters teams stuck in a training regime that is not at all what many of their swimmers need to get faster?
