Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

Dr. R. has made a number of tweaks since his big paper came out, often in response to feedback from the teams and solo swimmers who were brazen enough to put his methods to the test. Ande, Rich, Allen, and everyone else out there who harbors an honest interest, think about joining the panel mentioned in the above post. After all, USRPT is nothing if not about efficiency. And who should be more concerned with that than those of us who are now stingily having to parcel out our aging energy reserves? This is cutting edge stuff, based in science and especially attractive to persons with an open, scientific bent of mind, who look to science cut through the tangles of pseudo-scientific superstition. The only legitimate way to rebut USRPT is to rebut the science behind it, and no one that I can find has been able to do that—unless you seriously think that studies on lab rats and untrained volunteers can apply to trained athletes. What we see instead is evasion. Somewhat in frustration, after striking out with entreaties to ASCA, Swimming Science Journal, and a well known swimming scientist, I wrote the following letter to John Leonard (which I suspect will put the nix on further speaking invitations): Dear John, Can there be a better means of fortifying one’s own coaching ideology than of laboring to understand the thinking of a worthy opponent? Ignoring an adversary, however, as though he doesn’t exist or is too outlandish to be taken seriously, is the laziest form of intellectual evasion. It’s a dodge that’s irresistible, itseems, when the opponent puts his ideas in a daunting, 55 page treatise that even Dr. Maglischo calls “imposing.” I refer of course to Dr. Rushall’s “Swimming Energy Training in the 21st Century, the Justification for Radical Changes,” Swimming ScienceBulletin, 39. Rushall—no shrinking violet he—makes the case for straight sets of short, race-pace repeats on short rest-intervals. He calls this format “ultra-short training at race pace,” and it is highly counterintuitive. Try to imagine how 30 x 25 meters at 100 meter race pace, on a rest interval of 20 seconds, can avoid lactacid fatigue and glycogen depletion while optimally training race-specific technique and race-specific aerobic and anaerobic endurance! Sidestepping Rushall is now even less defensible. He has written an abridged version of the energy paper, using language merciful to coaches, and I have written an introductory synopsis. These can be found at coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../ultra40a.pdf and coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../ultra40b.pdf. Rushall is anyone’s tough read. But a determined effort to grasp his science and his concepts, even if one is already invested against them, will help to buttress one’s own standards—and to preserve one’s integrity as a thinking person. Best wishes always, Dan

Dr. R. has made a number of tweaks since his big paper came out, often in response to feedback from the teams and solo swimmers who were brazen enough to put his methods to the test. Ande, Rich, Allen, and everyone else out there who harbors an honest interest, think about joining the panel mentioned in the above post. After all, USRPT is nothing if not about efficiency. And who should be more concerned with that than those of us who are now stingily having to parcel out our aging energy reserves? This is cutting edge stuff, based in science and especially attractive to persons with an open, scientific bent of mind, who look to science cut through the tangles of pseudo-scientific superstition. The only legitimate way to rebut USRPT is to rebut the science behind it, and no one that I can find has been able to do that—unless you seriously think that studies on lab rats and untrained volunteers can apply to trained athletes. What we see instead is evasion. Somewhat in frustration, after striking out with entreaties to ASCA, Swimming Science Journal, and a well known swimming scientist, I wrote the following letter to John Leonard (which I suspect will put the nix on further speaking invitations): Dear John, Can there be a better means of fortifying one’s own coaching ideology than of laboring to understand the thinking of a worthy opponent? Ignoring an adversary, however, as though he doesn’t exist or is too outlandish to be taken seriously, is the laziest form of intellectual evasion. It’s a dodge that’s irresistible, itseems, when the opponent puts his ideas in a daunting, 55 page treatise that even Dr. Maglischo calls “imposing.” I refer of course to Dr. Rushall’s “Swimming Energy Training in the 21st Century, the Justification for Radical Changes,” Swimming ScienceBulletin, 39. Rushall—no shrinking violet he—makes the case for straight sets of short, race-pace repeats on short rest-intervals. He calls this format “ultra-short training at race pace,” and it is highly counterintuitive. Try to imagine how 30 x 25 meters at 100 meter race pace, on a rest interval of 20 seconds, can avoid lactacid fatigue and glycogen depletion while optimally training race-specific technique and race-specific aerobic and anaerobic endurance! Sidestepping Rushall is now even less defensible. He has written an abridged version of the energy paper, using language merciful to coaches, and I have written an introductory synopsis. These can be found at coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../ultra40a.pdf and coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../ultra40b.pdf. Rushall is anyone’s tough read. But a determined effort to grasp his science and his concepts, even if one is already invested against them, will help to buttress one’s own standards—and to preserve one’s integrity as a thinking person. Best wishes always, Dan