Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." ―Machiavelli Oh, please. Race pace training has been around for a long time, this is just another version of it. Evolutionary perhaps, but not some radical paradigm shift. Does anyone truly think that Rushall is acting as an impartial scientist at this point? He has invested far too much of himself in "selling" this system to be objective about it IMO. It happens. In an ideal world it wouldn't matter, USRPT would be evaluated on its own merits and those of the studies supporting and refuting it. In the real world as its #1 promoter I would like to see Rushall act a little more balanced and nuanced in his pronouncements. Most people don't have the time to investigate all these things fully and form an objective opinion (and many of the studies are available to most people only as abstracts) that's why we depend on experts. The irony is that Rushall appears to be acting in a manner -- overgeneralizing, overinterpreting -- that he derides in others. At least that's the way it seems to me. But it's all good. I stand by my assertion that in most cases the best system for masters swimmers (both for athletic performance and general health) is usually the one that you can follow enthusiastically. If that's USRPT then go for it.

It's these kind of blanket unsupported statements that make Rushall seem rather cult-like ... "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." ―Machiavelli

so he advocates each set be done several times per week. I think he would say doing each set 3 times per week is optimal. does anybody else read this and go.....BORING....omg BORING!!!!! the same workout several times in the same week, week after week after week. ug, stick a fork in my eye that is so boring. i'd retire again by the 3rd week that sounds so boring. do you have to eat the same breakfast, lunch and dinner too? everyday to go along with this completely bored to tears workout. steve - i'm just not drinking the koolaid

"I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them." - Algernon, The Importance of Being Earnest For a while I thought, "I wonder what will happen when Jazzy gets in on this thread?" I'm not going to lie to you, this isn't how I imagined it going down. 3.5 Unpredictability Points awarded to Mr. Hands.

The goggles with a perscription are WONDERFUL! I couldn't do this without them. OK, that second time you did it with a target time of 34 was good. Rushall says don't count a faillure in the first 5 repeats. Your body is adjusting to the target time on the first five. I sometimes go all 32s in the first five but also go 33s and 32s more often. Of course if your target is 34 and you are going 37 in the first five that's no good. Discounting any failures in the first five of the original set (when your target was 32) means your first failure was at #9! That is good. What you then want to do is push that first failure to #10 then to #11 etc. But even before you do that, I would use 33 as your target time and try it.

Is the 30 x 50 the first time you have tried USRPT set? If so, you may want to start with 20 or even 10 to get the idea. When I started this in September, my target time was 32. But I did not start doing the sets at 32. I started at 35. That was too easy so I went to 34 which was also too easy. I spent 2 or 3 weeks at 33 then finally to 32. The fact that you failed three by the time you got to the tenth repeat tells me your target time is too fast. You want to be able to get in at least 10 before your first failure. That is always my goal. Take me through the set you did. What was the interval and what were your times on each 50 including the ones after a rest.[/QUOTEM Yes, this was the first time I did an USRPT set. I train SCM and I set a target time of 32 seconds for each repeat based on my 200 LCM time of 2:08. It went like this: 32, 32, 32, 33, 33, 32,, 32, 32, 33, 33. So that was four failures instead of three as I initially stated. I use a poolmate swim watch to time myself and it doesn't record tenths of a second. It rounds up or down to the nearest whole number (I presume) so a 32 could be anywhere from a 31:50 to a 32:49. Similarly a 32:50 would be recorded as a 33. I used my tempo trainer set on the second function to beep every 50 seconds for my interval time. I didn't rest on any of them. To be honest, my eyesight is not great at all and the poolmate only gives you four seconds to read the lap time before it goes into pause mode. With only four seconds, my bad eyesight and all that heavy breathing I wasn't really sure what time I was doing so I decided not to rest and instead to carry on until I felt I could do no more. I was pretty sure that I saw 32's on the first two but after that it was anybody's guess. I only knew what times I did when I stopped and reviewed my log. The tempo trainer works very well for the interval times but I need to find a more visible way of recording my repeat times (that or get goggles with a prescription). I did another set yesterday but this time shifted my target time to 34. I set the tempo trainer to beep every seventeen seconds. I still recorded my times on my watch but the tempo trainer gave me a reliable way on knowing whether I was hitting my target time or not. All I had to do was to get in before the second beep and I knew I was under 34. On the third beep I pushed off for my next repeat. That meant I was doing repeats on 51 seconds with roughly 17 or 18 seconds of rest. This set went as follows: 34, 34, 33, 34, 34, 33, 34, 33, 34, 32, 34, 33, 33, 34, 34, 32, 32, 32, 34 and then I stopped because I had to leave early. So that was nineteen repeats without any failures but it wasn't nearly as challenging as the target of 32. I am always interested in new ways of training and recently I have got stuck in a bit of a plateau with my 200 training. I am also intrigued by the results you and others have gotten using this method and would like to give it a try and see if it can get me to the next level.

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." ―Machiavelli "I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them." - Algernon, The Importance of Being Earnest

does anybody else read this and go.....BORING....omg BORING!!!!! Yup! I would have a really hard time motivating myself to get to the pool for this - I have enough trouble with anything that repeats more than ten times. At this point in my life I swim to enjoy it and while I would like to go faster (who wouldn't?), dropping out with this method certainly wouldn't accomplish either. Different strokes for different folks!

Syd: A lot of people complain that the 50 sets for 200m are too hard. Becca Mann was doing USRPT with the Andrews last week (swim swam has the articles) and they switched to the 25 set for 200s after about 10 repeats of 50s. I think they failed several times early on. Dr Rushall hasn't written about this but it seems like a really good idea.

As I understand UST@RP, the ideal amount of rest for this type of set is around 20 seconds, so I figured that trying to hold 1:07s, starting with 1:30 (or 23 seconds rest) would be OK. I guess I was wrong because I easily made all of the first 16. I adjusted the sendoff for the second 16 to 1:25. This was a bit more challenging, especially near the end of the set, but I still made them all. I guess I either need to drop my target interval to 1:06 or 1:05 or change the sendoff to 1:25 or both. What would be your advice? I would say both. You might try 1:05 on the 1:25. Remember that Rushall suggests the following sets for the 1650: 40 x 50 30 - 35 x 75 25 - 30 x 100 Eventually you should get to 2 days per week of 2 x (40 x 50) skip if missed on a rest interval of :20, plus 2 days per week of 2 x (35 x 75) skip if missed on a rest interval of :20 and 2 days per week of 2 x (30 x 100) skip if missed on a rest interval of :20. There is no rest after 16, no EZ 300 and couple of minutes rest. You do 30 x 100 and the only time you rest is if you miss one (except for the first 5). And if you miss two in a row with the rest OR miss four total, you stop the set. If you are not having failures the set is too easy. You are supposed to have failures. As per above, you should never get to being able to do 2 entire sets of 30 x 100. Again, if you are able to do 60 x 100 at the target time, the set is not challenging enough. My 2 big sets are 2 x (30 x 50) which means a total of 60 x 50. The most I have ever done is 26 in the first set and 16 in the second set for a total of 42 and of those 42 only a total of 34 have been at the target time. The other 8 have been failures i.e. 4 failures in each set. Hope this helps.