Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

I realize you are using the set that Syd gave you, but you're setting up a straw man. This is similar to what Rushall does when he rails against "conventional training" (whatever that is). You could just as easily say that USRPT trains you to do 25s on the 0:30, or any other of the USRPT sets. The value of the set depends entirely on what you do in the set. I agree with you that USRPT is significantly superior for most purposes than the "every set is garbage yardage" approach to training, but that is by no means the only alternative to USRPT. In any serious training program, every set should have a very specific goal in mind, even if the goal of a given set is recovery or drill or aerobic conditioning or whatever (instead of race pace training). I think we generally agree that USRPT has merit. And that is really the main point. There is way too much "garbage yardage" in most Masters workouts. Yes, you could say USRPT trains you to do 25s on the :30, but it is at race pace and at the same pace I do the 50s and the 75s. To me the point of that is to "know" what race pace feels like. I needto know when I hit the water that the pace I am swimming is the pace I do every day and with this training I feel I know that. If I were to do Syd's set of 10 x 100 at race pace, I could maybe do 2 or 3 at the most at my 400 pace - and maybe there is some value in that, but the rest of the 7 x 100 would be a waste of my time and only serve to exhaust me while not practicing my race pace. " Every set should have a very specific goal even if ..." I agree with that too. I have been with coaches who could not actually state the goal of the set. I want to know why I'm doing such and such it helps me to think while I swim. "Or someone may want to do 10 x 100 on 1:45 and work some aspect of their technique..." OK, point taken, but I say why not try that double number of kicks off the wall in your USRPT set? A few weeks ago I was playing with speeding up at the 15m mark of the first length of each 50 in my USRPT set. I was going to swim a 500 in a meet and thought I would try this out. It seemed to work well in practice. When I got to the meet and tried it starting at the 250 mark, it took too much out of me and my finish time suffered as a result. Lesson learned! But your point here was purposeful training, and I really agree. "...it requires an attitude adjustment to realize that 30 x 25 doesn't necessarily mean that you will do 30 x 25. Well, if you are doing "skip if missed" you will definetly NOT do all 30. When I do two sets of 30 x 50 on Monday and Friday I never have done 60 fiftys. The most I have done is a total of 41 in the two sets and that is before I dropped my target time. At my new target time I am doing a total in the two sets of 28 - 30. "USRPT does a good job of this but is definetly not the only way to go..." Again you are right on. Whatever works for you, do it, commit to it, embrace it, work hard at it. All I know is this has worked much better than anything else for me ever.

I realize you are using the set that Syd gave you, but you're setting up a straw man. This is similar to what Rushall does when he rails against "conventional training" (whatever that is). You could just as easily say that USRPT trains you to do 25s on the 0:30, or any other of the USRPT sets. The value of the set depends entirely on what you do in the set. I agree with you that USRPT is significantly superior for most purposes than the "every set is garbage yardage" approach to training, but that is by no means the only alternative to USRPT. In any serious training program, every set should have a very specific goal in mind, even if the goal of a given set is recovery or drill or aerobic conditioning or whatever (instead of race pace training). I think we generally agree that USRPT has merit. And that is really the main point. There is way too much "garbage yardage" in most Masters workouts. Yes, you could say USRPT trains you to do 25s on the :30, but it is at race pace and at the same pace I do the 50s and the 75s. To me the point of that is to "know" what race pace feels like. I needto know when I hit the water that the pace I am swimming is the pace I do every day and with this training I feel I know that. If I were to do Syd's set of 10 x 100 at race pace, I could maybe do 2 or 3 at the most at my 400 pace - and maybe there is some value in that, but the rest of the 7 x 100 would be a waste of my time and only serve to exhaust me while not practicing my race pace. " Every set should have a very specific goal even if ..." I agree with that too. I have been with coaches who could not actually state the goal of the set. I want to know why I'm doing such and such it helps me to think while I swim. "Or someone may want to do 10 x 100 on 1:45 and work some aspect of their technique..." OK, point taken, but I say why not try that double number of kicks off the wall in your USRPT set? A few weeks ago I was playing with speeding up at the 15m mark of the first length of each 50 in my USRPT set. I was going to swim a 500 in a meet and thought I would try this out. It seemed to work well in practice. When I got to the meet and tried it starting at the 250 mark, it took too much out of me and my finish time suffered as a result. Lesson learned! But your point here was purposeful training, and I really agree. "...it requires an attitude adjustment to realize that 30 x 25 doesn't necessarily mean that you will do 30 x 25. Well, if you are doing "skip if missed" you will definetly NOT do all 30. When I do two sets of 30 x 50 on Monday and Friday I never have done 60 fiftys. The most I have done is a total of 41 in the two sets and that is before I dropped my target time. At my new target time I am doing a total in the two sets of 28 - 30. "USRPT does a good job of this but is definetly not the only way to go..." Again you are right on. Whatever works for you, do it, commit to it, embrace it, work hard at it. All I know is this has worked much better than anything else for me ever.