Are Most Masters Teams Training Wrong?

Sets like 8x400 are the reason I'd get out of the pool and leave practice early when I was still swimming with teams. I haven't gotten out early once since I decided to go at it on my own last year. Couldn't be happier with my own lane and writing my own sets. The water is bluer on this side... or something. The ONLY thing I feel is missing without a coach or teammates is someone to run a stopwatch for me on sprint sets, but usually you can bribe a lowly noodler for such a duty :)

I'm sure he does as he trains with a great team. That set is too hard for me, more like a mini lactate set. I would do 10 x (25 AFAP + 50 EZ) @ 2-3:00 for a true sprint set. For me ,definitely a lactate tolerance set.A regular sprint set would be more like your suggestion.

Most teams just don't have workouts for sprinters because they're catering to too many other different specialities -- tris, OW, mid-D, D, etc. -- who want more yardage and less rest. At meets aren't 50s and 100s the most popular? If so, that suggests that more workouts should be true Fortress-style sprint workouts. "More yardage and less rest" probably applies to most people, if for no other reason than most peoples' available training time is limited. Workouts are 75 minutes where I swim for now (two, maybe three times per week). I can make one lap swim, which is only one our long. 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. Finally, I think there are limited opportunities to divide the lanes on many teams. When I swam with Evanston Masters last year, the pool was generally pretty crowded. It wasn't unusual to have five swimmers per lane, and seven wasn't unheard of. Lanes were always divided up by speed into three groups: slow, medium, fast (say, based on what sort of interval you'd swim 100 free repeats), never by specialty. Unless you have lots and lots of available pool time I suspect it's hard to divide up a large team any other way. That means that most dedicated sprinters and distance swimmers probably look elsewhere for pool time. I was very jealous of the available practice times at St. Pete Masters when we were down there on vacation last month. 5x/wk early morning *and* late afternoon, plus Sunday. I've never had 11 practices per week to choose from. Skip

Sets like 8 X 400 and, especially, 10 X 300 double descend long course, aka "world's greatest set," are the reasons I stay motivated. When those sets go on the board I know we are about to laissez le bon temps rouler. The river of tears and chorus of boos from the weak minded sprinters makes it even better. But, I agree, pointless for 50-100-200. And training like that earned you a top ten time in the 1500 last year. Nicely done. Other favorites include 5 x 800 and 5 x 1000.

As you can see, I'm certainly not fast, but they were definitely not "garbage yards" for me. Sure, it is not garbage yardage if it is the right kind of set for the events you plan to swim :) Do speed work on your own, Luca! I'm planning to. I read about the WRs you recently set, I'm sure you don't mind if I take ideas from the workouts you post in your blog :bump: Sets like 8x400 are the reason I'd get out of the pool and leave practice early when I was still swimming with teams. I did that two days ago for the first time ever, I kinda felt guilty but I just couldn't stay in any longer.

Sets like 8 X 400 and, especially, 10 X 300 double descend long course, aka "world's greatest set," are the reasons I stay motivated. When those sets go on the board I know we are about to laissez le bon temps rouler. The river of tears and chorus of boos from the weak minded sprinters makes it even better. i demand a refund from my coach whenever the main set is less than 3000 yds. but i never have any company when i write the workout :(

I think many of the above reason are why I train with a team setting, but do a solo workout as much as possible. The team group is good for atmosphere...but in my group, a lot of talking about fishing and gas prices, and how cold the 81-82 degree water is (:cane:). I just get in my lane and go...knowing I have 1 hour before work to get it done. I just try to get as much accomplished as possible before I get bombarded by others in the lane. We have a very informal team practice...which is both good, and bad for all the reasons you can think of. It's open from 5:00am to 7:00am, and people arrive and leave during all hours. It's more or less an open lap swim period, where the "coach" has a set workout at the ends of the lanes in a ziploc bag to follow if you choose to. She is in the water too...after complaining about how cold it always is. But the workouts are tailored more to the majority of the group which are the elderly/moderate swimmers. So, I guess, most of my workouts would be considered "solo".

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.

they should limit entries on the 50s like they do the 1650!!! .... but seriously; how many swimmers use 50's as filler material at swim meets? (i've even done it myself, as anyone who has ever seen me swim a 50 will confirm) I tend to swim the 50s at my home meet...I don't like the idea of driving 3 hours+ across the state to another meet to swim for 23+ seconds (:31 for ***). If I'm going to pay for the gas to go...I'm going to put in the time in the pool too. But then again...I'm not a true sprinter. :)

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.