Are Most Masters Teams Training Wrong?

I agree 100% with your analysis; however, I disagree in part with the thread title that teams are training "wrong". If you asked each swimmer to write down why they swim and what their goals are, you will get as many answers as their are swimmers on deck. Put another way, my $65 monthly membership isn't worth any more than the slowest lane 8 swimmer's $65/$85 and reasons why they swim. Given the stats on our team, there is only one swimmer I know of that swims to race 1 meet per month on average, and goal times are to continue to make USA regional/grand prix cuts in local USA A meets, and swimming a full line up only at selected masters meets. For the other 599+ members of the team, they are more interested in open water events, explicitly not swimming any meets, training for triathlons, rehabing/recovering/recuperating and many, many swimmers who basically want to hang on to whatever lane they are currently in, and have no interest in hearing about better technique or anything that in the category of "taking a step back to take a step forward". Their goal is met each practice - which is essentially the opposite of why you might be swimming (that would be sprints. in a meet.) There is no right/wrong way to approach it - it's just if you want something different, then you have to find a way. My motto is "I love meets! I don't like to practice very hard!" I have never liked training hard, I can't stand to feel the burn, and I really could care less about "toughness of conditioning sets." Even lane 2 marvels when I actually did a 400/300/200/100 without stopping this year. And that was only because I couldn't find a way to skip without totally screwing up the (crowded lanes). I still resent doing that set even today! But if I really can't stand doing those sets, then I also accept the range of times I am or am not capable of swimming. Notice I did NOT say that I SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be swimming - NO SUCH THING!!! My coaches fully support me, and I think my teammates know me well enough when I sit out on most sets. Put another way, we pay either $65 or $85 a month, and it seems silly to run a business catering to the 1 person who trains as a sprinter rather than the 599+ who like the workouts that are given! There is some customization - we have sprint day/lanes, distance/open water lanes, fear of water intro practices, fraternity of flyers month, etc. But if you want something really specific, I think it's a one-on-one discussion with your coach and what YOU need to get there. I think there is no better example of the emphasis of the majority of masters swimmers than Jim Montgomery - and most of his team building/program building is geared towards true beginner swimmers.

Ande just posted this on his thread. But I tend to agree with you that perhaps many programs are more focussed on yards. Perhaps this would improve if more coaches with more recent training experiences were present on deck to support the varying needs of the different camps? (distance vs sprint, short axis vs long, etc.)

if swimmers want to SPRINT as fast as they can then YES Most Masters Teams are Training Wrong, but it's not just most masters teams, it's many club and college teams. They need to train like Leslie, Rich Abrahams, and me at times when I'm preparing for sprints. We become what we do Whatever you do and measure improves What do you you want to improve? What do you need to DO and measure? here's my most recent SFF tip that I started writing before I read this thread I read about how Cameron van der Burgh trained for sprints. He said "In the 50 scm breastroke I take 5 strokes on the first 25 & 9 on the 2nd" Which is 14 total strokes, he did a lot of training focusing on SPEED and power. Think about how much time you spend in each part of your race and how much distance you cover What are the percentages? What type of training do you need to do to improve your ability in each phase of the race? Do you spend the same percentage of your training time focusing on each aspect of your race? as an example: Leslie kicks almost 30 meters of her 50 bk & fl. That's 60% of the race! I'm pretty sure she does more fast high quality SDK training than most women in her age group & it paid off pretty big time for her. I tend to shift my training as meets approach and start doing more speed and strength work. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't swim as well if I kept doing the middle distance training. Plus think about how many times she's rehearsed her race, versus someone doing traditional training. a typical aerobic set is 10 x 100 on 1:20 hold 1:15's repeatedly doing sets like that make you better at that type of swimming a sprinter might do 10 x 50 on 1:20 odds easy evens fast plus when you do sprint training, you're not as broken down as you are when you do long hard aerobic training. Sprinters can keep getting stronger in the weight room, which can translate to more speed in the pool. Ande 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?

Are too many masters teams stuck in a training regime that is not at all what many of their swimmers need to get faster?Yes and no. Rationale for answering No: Most Masters swimmers do not compete in meets; hence, they don't generally care about speed and explosiveness. Since most Masters swimmers do not compete, most are also unaware that higher-intensity work like sprinting with lots of rest can also provide lots of good health benefits. For those Masters who don't compete and came back to the sport years after being an age grouper, their primary frame of training reference is likely the 'garbage yardage' model. So, in a way, they're getting what they expect to get an are probably happy with it. For those Masters who don't compete and came at swimming either from a running/tri background or no athletic background, they probably view swim training like most people view run training -- go out and do it for some specified period of time with very little variation in effort, then get out. Again, they're probably getting what they expect out of workouts and are happy with it. Rationale for answering Yes: For Masters teams that have a good proportion of their swimmers competing, they need to change their workout model to drive more quality/race pace work. It's not only the 'all the rage' with swimmers like our Masters' elite (e.g., Fort, Ande, Rich Abrahams), it's what the 'elite elite' (including the old folks like Lezak and Torres) are doing to swim faster faster. I will say that, as a competitor, I love the speed play variations that my coach gives. But, you should hear the groans and see the lack of participation when she tells people to go fast stuff off the blocks!

This is a fundamentally important topic. After all the decades of swimming programs, why don't we know already what is best (for fitness, performance, health and shoulder safety)? Consider the time, financial and injury savings if we did know. Are thousands of us needlessly swimming hundreds of thousands of yards/meters a year? After one builds aerobic conditioning, would it be better to cut back on the yardage and focus on technique drills and videos? Are quality strokes better than just swimming back and forth thousands of yards a day? Does it take a million yards/meters a year to perform optimally? How many of us are needlessly worn out and/or doing possibly counterproductive workouts? After researching and interviewing extensively since my first scientific research into neuromuscular physiology in the 1970s, I cannot find reliable answers or even consensus. I certainly wanted to include this kind of information in my Swimmer article a year ago for which I piled a 4-foot stack of scientific and training studies. I think for some, the amount of yards and type of swimming depends on the person's body. For some, doing a lot of high intensity, low rest yards might be just what they need to go faster. For others, technique based swimming might be better for them. I have found now that I'm a technique focused with a mix of lactic sets type of person. My sprinting is getting faster and I'm still able to hold my long distance times with this type of training.

I think for some, the amount of yards and type of swimming depends on the person's body. For some, doing a lot of high intensity, low rest yards might be just what they need to go faster. For others, technique based swimming might be better for them. I have found now that I'm a technique focused with a mix of lactic sets type of person. My sprinting is getting faster and I'm still able to hold my long distance times with this type of training. I agree with Allison here. I think there is enormous variation between different swimmers, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to optimal training. The expression "garbage yards" is used so often on these forums that the concept has more or less entered the Conventional Wisdom as an indisputable fact--along with now debunked notions such as "stretching is good for you" and "eating a box of powdered Jell-O before a race will help you swim faster." When it comes to swim training, there is an awful lot of proof by anecdote. Hey, it works for Leslie, it will work for everybody! Personally, I think the single most important factor in Leslie's world records was her relentless training pursuit of perfect SDKs. In many ways, SDK swimming really is a fifth stroke. Though most kids coming up now learn these as part of the sport, most of us semi-centenarians did not practice these at all in our formative years because they had not, in fact, been invented yet! As Jazz points out, if you ever swim a practice with Leslie, you will be amazed at how much time she spends underwater--"shooting" off into the blue ether like a dolphin with her monofin or regular fins. I agree with the general principle that you need to train the distance and intensity you want to swim in meets. And Leslie does, indeed, do a lot of extremely high intensity, long rest sets. But it's the SDK component of this that I think accounts for the lion's share of her superiority over her competitors. Watch the video of her swimming her races, and you wonder where she has disappeared to for much of the time. Getting back to garbage yards, I suffered from a detached retina in January, was out of the pool for a couple weeks as a consequence, and got 19 miles behind in my Go The Distance goal. When I was cleared to swim again, the only way I could catch up was long distance garbage yard swims. I am no Leslie, but I nonetheless did in jammers at age FINA 59 a time in the SCM 100 that was .3 slower than what I swam at age FINA 56. I didn't do any weightlifting. I did a few sprints in our regular practices when we were called upon to do sprints. But mainly I swam "garbage yards." For me, at least, they seem to work pretty well.

This is a fundamentally important topic. After all the decades of swimming programs, why don't we know already what is best (for fitness, performance, health and shoulder safety)? Consider the time, financial and injury savings if we did know. Are thousands of us needlessly swimming hundreds of thousands of yards/meters a year? After one builds aerobic conditioning, would it be better to cut back on the yardage and focus on technique drills and videos? Are quality strokes better than just swimming back and forth thousands of yards a day? Does it take a million yards/meters a year to perform optimally? How many of us are needlessly worn out and/or doing possibly counterproductive workouts? After researching and interviewing extensively since my first scientific research into neuromuscular physiology in the 1970s, I cannot find reliable answers or even consensus. I certainly wanted to include this kind of information in my Swimmer article a year ago for which I piled a 4-foot stack of scientific and training studies.

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.

along with now debunked notions such as ... "eating a box of powdered Jell-O before a race will help you swim faster." Wait, what? I missed the memo! Lots of good advice here. To briefly address the thread question: I don't have a good sense of how "most masters teams" train, so I am not sure of the answer. High intensity training is good, both for racing and for general health/fitness. Recovery is also good, that's when you get faster/fitter; this can be long/slow/aerobic work for "active" recovery. I like to hit all the HR/intensity training zones; too much time in any one zone is not good, the right mix will depend on the person and the purpose of the training. I also generally feel more confident when I've spent more training time in the water; I'll admit there may be a psychological component to this, it may not just be physiological. Of course, too much can hurt you if you don't recover from it.

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. Leslie, I agree about getting out of the comfort zone. That is so important when it comes to race-day training.It's painful when done but worth it in the long run. I hope masters coaches are getting their swimmers out of that comfort zone every once in a while.