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?
At meets aren't 50s and 100s the most popular? If so, that suggests that more workouts should be true Fortress-style sprint workouts.
I think even if I was a sprinter I'd feel like I wasn't making the most of my pool time if I wasn't moving.
They are, but most masters practices aren't. At all. And it may be that OW is the most popular discipline these days ...
Sprinters don't typically feel guilty about pool time. :D I sit on the wall or move in slow mo recovery fashion all the time.
I think, as you say, that most masters teams do the best they can with the lanes, time and diverse group of swimmers they have. (But when a "sprint" set is assigned, it could at least be a real sprint set.) Unfortunately, because of nature of the beast, masters practices can be "one size fits no one" unless you adjust the practice to suit your needs.
11 practices a week is a lot. My team has 4.
At meets aren't 50s and 100s the most popular? If so, that suggests that more workouts should be true Fortress-style sprint workouts.
I think even if I was a sprinter I'd feel like I wasn't making the most of my pool time if I wasn't moving.
They are, but most masters practices aren't. At all. And it may be that OW is the most popular discipline these days ...
Sprinters don't typically feel guilty about pool time. :D I sit on the wall or move in slow mo recovery fashion all the time.
I think, as you say, that most masters teams do the best they can with the lanes, time and diverse group of swimmers they have. (But when a "sprint" set is assigned, it could at least be a real sprint set.) Unfortunately, because of nature of the beast, masters practices can be "one size fits no one" unless you adjust the practice to suit your needs.
11 practices a week is a lot. My team has 4.
