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?
Consider yourself very lucky, then. This is not typical in my experience--and the idea of an open lane is a mere pipe dream for most.
Have you or others on your team chatted with your coach about what your individual goals are? Or maybe chatted with others on the team on what they want/need to do during workout? Every masters coach I've met has been extremely receptive in helping me plan things out, giving specific sets during workouts, as well as ideas of things to do both swimming on my own as well as outside of the pool (such as weights). And I've rarely been alone when I've done different sets (of course you don't want to spring this on the coach day of workout but plan in advance).
Consider yourself very lucky, then. This is not typical in my experience--and the idea of an open lane is a mere pipe dream for most.
Have you or others on your team chatted with your coach about what your individual goals are? Or maybe chatted with others on the team on what they want/need to do during workout? Every masters coach I've met has been extremely receptive in helping me plan things out, giving specific sets during workouts, as well as ideas of things to do both swimming on my own as well as outside of the pool (such as weights). And I've rarely been alone when I've done different sets (of course you don't want to spring this on the coach day of workout but plan in advance).
