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 coach a Masters swim team in Colorado Springs. I agree that if the goal of the swimmers were to swim fast at meets, then most Masters teams are training wrong. Unfortunately I only have about 5+ swimmers (out of 40 who show up) who go to meets. I have one swimmer who does stuff like the English Channel, several who do Ironman races, others do short tri races and lots of folks who just want a workout and will never compete. I try to get everyone faster. We have IM and/or middle distance days, distance days, sprint days and Saturdays are a mix of stuff. The neat thing is that by working on everyone's stroke technique and the workouts, everyone gets faster. It is a compromise and everyone in the pool knows it. I have been able to get everyone to do the sets because I try to make them fun and challenging. We let swimmers change the sets as long as they don't disrupt the rest of the lane doing the set. Often they either lead the lane and shorten the distance or go at the end of the lane and do stroke. I also modify sets from a kid's team we are part of that I swim with every so often. These sets are often about very fast swimming, for example 15 yard bursts, and getting used to moving faster than most Masters swimmers are comfortable with.
Another thing I do is film them underwater. We can then see what happens to their strokes as they change from slow to moderate to fast. Usually of course they become much less streamlined and their strokes often become shorter. I have often seen larger improvements in speed from better stroke technique than from training.
I coach a Masters swim team in Colorado Springs. I agree that if the goal of the swimmers were to swim fast at meets, then most Masters teams are training wrong. Unfortunately I only have about 5+ swimmers (out of 40 who show up) who go to meets. I have one swimmer who does stuff like the English Channel, several who do Ironman races, others do short tri races and lots of folks who just want a workout and will never compete. I try to get everyone faster. We have IM and/or middle distance days, distance days, sprint days and Saturdays are a mix of stuff. The neat thing is that by working on everyone's stroke technique and the workouts, everyone gets faster. It is a compromise and everyone in the pool knows it. I have been able to get everyone to do the sets because I try to make them fun and challenging. We let swimmers change the sets as long as they don't disrupt the rest of the lane doing the set. Often they either lead the lane and shorten the distance or go at the end of the lane and do stroke. I also modify sets from a kid's team we are part of that I swim with every so often. These sets are often about very fast swimming, for example 15 yard bursts, and getting used to moving faster than most Masters swimmers are comfortable with.
Another thing I do is film them underwater. We can then see what happens to their strokes as they change from slow to moderate to fast. Usually of course they become much less streamlined and their strokes often become shorter. I have often seen larger improvements in speed from better stroke technique than from training.
