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?
The expression "garbage yards" is used so often on these forums that the concept has more or less entered the Conventional Wisdom ... mainly I swam "garbage yards."
You need to define "garbage yardage!" I consider it yardage done at a medium pace with no specific purpose. I don't label a set "garbage yards" if it requires an intense effort to make intervals or it consists of slower recovery swimming (we need recovery). I've seen you at many Sewickley practices and you are working so hard on some swims that you can barely talk after them. That's not garbage. And you do mix in enough race pace efforts to keep your sprints sharp. That's not to say that you wouldn't benefit even more from increased race pace efforts.
I agree that workouts must vary by the individual, depending on his/her own physical abilities and target distances. For example, a SDK oriented practice probably isn't right for a distance swimmer or someone who is inflexible or has a bad back. But sometimes people need to break out of their comfort zone ... And that comfort zone is likely the reason that despite the so-called conventional wisdom bashing garbage yards, so many still do it and prefer it.
The expression "garbage yards" is used so often on these forums that the concept has more or less entered the Conventional Wisdom ... mainly I swam "garbage yards."
You need to define "garbage yardage!" I consider it yardage done at a medium pace with no specific purpose. I don't label a set "garbage yards" if it requires an intense effort to make intervals or it consists of slower recovery swimming (we need recovery). I've seen you at many Sewickley practices and you are working so hard on some swims that you can barely talk after them. That's not garbage. And you do mix in enough race pace efforts to keep your sprints sharp. That's not to say that you wouldn't benefit even more from increased race pace efforts.
I agree that workouts must vary by the individual, depending on his/her own physical abilities and target distances. For example, a SDK oriented practice probably isn't right for a distance swimmer or someone who is inflexible or has a bad back. But sometimes people need to break out of their comfort zone ... And that comfort zone is likely the reason that despite the so-called conventional wisdom bashing garbage yards, so many still do it and prefer it.
