Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

How can you swim fast on such little rest to work? Maybe 25 yds in say 15 sec would be way different with 30 sec rest than the 33yds.33 yards seems a little far to train sprints with 20 sec rest, LA would likely be the limiting factor. Wouldn't swimming a portion at pace, and the other easy, tailored to hold pace for a set number of repeats be the goal? That would be tedious though, to check your time each mid-swim. For me I would train that distance with a different method, like with enough rest to go faster than pace.

I haven't done the USRPT stuff much, as I've mostly been away from the pool the last six-nine months, however, the times I did it, I calculated as follows. 1. Pick your goal race pace. To deal with round numbers, assume a 1:00 goal for 100SCY. 2. Assuming you're in a 25yd pool, divide that time by 4 (by 3 for rtodd and his old school pool *). That gives a 25yd pace of 15s. 3. Rest time is just twice the work time, so 30s. 4. Interval is work+rest, or 45s. * I was a lifeguard at UCLA back in the mid-70s. ISTR the men's gym pool was 33yds long. I might be misremembering though.

Ok. I did two sets of 8x 33yds on 45 and kept them at 22 sec. That's a 1:06 pace, so that's close to a min in a yds pool, so it's reasonably close to target pace. 20 sec would be better. Maybe next is to see how many I can hold on 22 and try to get up to 30. It's actually pretty cool concept. The 33 yds is split in between training for the 100 and 200.

I am going to try holding 25 sec for 33 yds and go on 45. (20sec rest) and see how many I can do. I'm not sure where the " race pace" title comes from. Unless your 100 goal time is 1:15 this is too slow. It's definitely supposed to be race pace. Not to say your set isn't good, but it's not a by-the-book Rushall USRPT set. My suggestion would be to forget what Rushall says about rest. Do this set at your 100 race pace and see how much rest you need to make the set worthwhile. Just remember the idea isn't to make them all the first time you try it.

Yea, after reading more carefully, I realize it is not for fast swimming, rather more like 80% effort. I am going to try holding 25 sec for 33 yds and go on 45. (20sec rest) and see how many I can do. I'm not sure where the " race pace" title comes from. I think for 200 race pace, yes, the 20 sec rest makes sense, but for 50 and 100, I think race pace is anaerobic and you don't train at that speed on 20 sec rest. I think pacing for a 100 is 3:1 rest swim ratio, so that would be more like 50s at goal 100 pace on 2 min as an example. My understanding is all sets are at race pace. it just doesn't work very well for training for 50s without modifications. For training for 100s you should swim sets of 25m at your 100m goal split time.

This is approximately what I can repeat at race pace: 50's @ 100 pace - ?!??!?? 25's @ 100 pace - 1:2 work:rest ratio 50's @ 200 pace - 1:1.66 25's @ 200 pace - 1:1 50's @ 400/500 pace - 1:1 50's, 75's, or 100's @ 1650 free pace - 2:1 Updated the above list. 25's @ 200 pace don't need nearly as much rest as I indicated earlier. Somewhere in the range of 1:1 to 1:1.2 is fine. 50's @ 100 pace remain an unknown quantity.

I did a Rushall inspired set yesterday that I actually liked and felt was helpful.I am on a trip and my hotel has a pool that I estimate to be 40 ft long.These are not the best conditions for a workout,but I did 6(6X40ft) on the 30 sec AFAP BR doing a pull out on the first length and then no pushoff on the next 5. I did this after warm up and with a recovery "100 -150 yd"(estimated distance and varied with my need) between each 6X40 ft. This seemed like a good sprint work out for me.

It's been a couple weeks and I'm getting into better shape, so I thought I'd update this list of work-rest ratios. 50's @ 100 pace - still haven't tried repeats of this. Under practice conditions, 50's @ 100 pace are AFAP. 25's @ 100 pace - 1:2 25's & 50's @ 200 pace - 1:1 - 1:1.2 50's @ 400/500 pace - 1:1 50's, 75's, or 100's @ 1650 free pace - 2:1 50's @ 400/500 pace will probably be the next one to change. If I drop 5 seconds off that interval, the ratio would be about 1.3:1.

... work-rest ratios ... 25's & 50's @ 200 pace - 1:1 - 1:1.2 How many reps?

How many reps? - 200 IM transition 50's: I've been doing 45 reps (15 each of fly-back, back-br, and br-free). Those are at about 1:1 and my failure rate is substantial, but dropping each week. I used to do 400 IM transition 50's on this interval, but they got too easy so I switched to 200 IM pace. - 50's at 200 back pace: 30 reps at 1:1.2. - 50's at 200 fly pace: 20 reps at 1:1.2. - 50's at 200 free pace: haven't done this yet. For freestyle I've been doing 500 and 1650 pace stuff. I suppose I will get to this eventually. 200 free isn't a focus event for me though. - 50's at 200 *** pace: :rofl: how long has it been since I've done a breaststroke workout? :dunno: