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?
i'll go out on a limb here.....
i heard someone say (not to me) "just because you swim short events; doesn't make you a sprinter"
Likewise, just finishing a 1500 (or a 5K or a 10K) is not at all the same thing as racing it.
I think very few teams train to race, period. Cranking out lots of totally aerobic yardage is probably more helpful for me than for a sprinter, but the main training difference between the younger slower me and the older faster me is training with a group of racing-minded mid-distance and distance swimmers. We are not the majority of members on our team either, but we are numerous enough that the coach can justify giving us attention, and numerous enough to provide reliable workout partners.
i'll go out on a limb here.....
i heard someone say (not to me) "just because you swim short events; doesn't make you a sprinter"
Likewise, just finishing a 1500 (or a 5K or a 10K) is not at all the same thing as racing it.
I think very few teams train to race, period. Cranking out lots of totally aerobic yardage is probably more helpful for me than for a sprinter, but the main training difference between the younger slower me and the older faster me is training with a group of racing-minded mid-distance and distance swimmers. We are not the majority of members on our team either, but we are numerous enough that the coach can justify giving us attention, and numerous enough to provide reliable workout partners.
