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?
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I'm not a very good swimmer by the standards of most participants in these forums. I learned long ago that wall work is important for me. The less I swim, the faster I go.
Skip
That's absolutely right. Wall training is never time wasted. This part of the race can stay pretty constant regardless of how your level of skill or endurance might change over time. There's never a good excuse to waste time on the walls in a race :)
My only regret is that it took me til i was in my 30's to realize such clarity. :blush:
... if only this was explained to me in hs or college i'd have been even faster back then. Granted, this is a discussion about non youth programs, but I think it still applies to everyone.
I'm not a very good swimmer by the standards of most participants in these forums. I learned long ago that wall work is important for me. The less I swim, the faster I go.
Skip
That's absolutely right. Wall training is never time wasted. This part of the race can stay pretty constant regardless of how your level of skill or endurance might change over time. There's never a good excuse to waste time on the walls in a race :)
My only regret is that it took me til i was in my 30's to realize such clarity. :blush:
... if only this was explained to me in hs or college i'd have been even faster back then. Granted, this is a discussion about non youth programs, but I think it still applies to everyone.
