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?
Just when I thought I was getting a handle on "garbage".....
I thought the thinking was that repeat 100's & 200's were aerobic sets that might be a training plan for the 500. Maintaining a certain pace over 5 or 10 (or more) repeats and building aerobic endurance. It seems like it would be better than repeat 500's because you'd be working on pacing.
I can see it being "garbage" if you're able to maintain 1:10 to 1:15 and are waiting :15 to :20. And it's "garbage" for sprinters because there's not enough rest to put in an all-out effort.
But if a swimmer is coming in at 1:20 or 1:25 and working hard, isn't it OK training for a 500?
None of what you or Thrashing Slug listed is necessarily garbage - it's aerobic swimming. Garbage yardage is swimming without purpose.* Aerobic swimming is garbage if you're just going through the motions. Same with anaerobic swimming. Needless to say you'll do much better if you push yourself and work on something like descending, SDK's off every wall, fast turns, and beating whoever's next to you.
* 99% of the credit for that definition goes to The Fortress. In a blog comment I happened to paraphrase it down to the minimal verbiage you see above. The shortened version was well-received and resulted in me being elected mayor of Blogtown for seven whole minutes! :banana:
Just when I thought I was getting a handle on "garbage".....
I thought the thinking was that repeat 100's & 200's were aerobic sets that might be a training plan for the 500. Maintaining a certain pace over 5 or 10 (or more) repeats and building aerobic endurance. It seems like it would be better than repeat 500's because you'd be working on pacing.
I can see it being "garbage" if you're able to maintain 1:10 to 1:15 and are waiting :15 to :20. And it's "garbage" for sprinters because there's not enough rest to put in an all-out effort.
But if a swimmer is coming in at 1:20 or 1:25 and working hard, isn't it OK training for a 500?
None of what you or Thrashing Slug listed is necessarily garbage - it's aerobic swimming. Garbage yardage is swimming without purpose.* Aerobic swimming is garbage if you're just going through the motions. Same with anaerobic swimming. Needless to say you'll do much better if you push yourself and work on something like descending, SDK's off every wall, fast turns, and beating whoever's next to you.
* 99% of the credit for that definition goes to The Fortress. In a blog comment I happened to paraphrase it down to the minimal verbiage you see above. The shortened version was well-received and resulted in me being elected mayor of Blogtown for seven whole minutes! :banana:
