Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

But the failure element is how you track how much you're improving in Rushall's system. Without it how are you able to gauge your progress? In other training regimes the answer might be "I know I'm improving because I can hold a faster pace longer into a set" or "I know I'm improving because I'm swimming faster on all-out swims." Under Rushall's strict system of adhering to race pace you can't use either of these measures. As I said: average time. I don't believe you need to be strict about adhering to race pace as long as you are close. And let's examine this "strict" adherence for a moment. If you don't have a coach to time you and you use a digital clock, that's an uncertainty of almost a second. In other words, when I was seeing "13" was that 13.00 or 13.99? If you multiply by four then that's a pretty big swing in race pace. And that's assuming I can see exactly when I touch. If you are "strictly" adhering to Rushall's system then you are supposed to have a race finish, which means you don't look up until after you touch. So what you are seeing is not your actual time. Maybe by the time you focus on the clock, that cancels out the effect of the turn. And of course Rushall also advises a foot touch for free and back (at least that's what I remember seeing). I don't know about others, but when I do a foot touch it takes me longer to see my time on the clock. Bottom line: in the absence of a coach giving me times to the nearest 0.1 sec (which is most times), I'm okay with being "in the right neighborhood" of race pace. In this particular set I'll know I'm improving if I see a good mix of "12"s on the pace clock, especially if some of them are "long 12s" (i.e., the 12 is displayed for a goodly bit). And when I've reached the point of seeing ONLY 12s, I'll be pretty darn happy with the set. I don't anticipate getting there anytime soon. Others will say that it violates the spirit of specificity, and I say hogwash. If you are reasonably close (within a second), you're doing fine in that regard. No, I believe the more serious offense against the "spirit" of USTRP is that there may not be as good a guard against overtraining effects if you don't insist on strict adherence to race pace. If one consistently cannot hit (a reasonable facsimile of) race pace then either you are too tired to continue or you are setting your sights too high. The USTRP method of insisting that you stop after you "fail" a certain number of times is a good failsafe against overtraining. But I've been training a long time and I think I know the signs without that. To Chris and Sunruh and others, People will always be critical of new approaches (not that this concept is so new) and that's OK. This thread has offered a wonderful discussion about this training method. I am only a "group" of one, so it is a very small sample size, but (and I don't mean to toot my own horn) but, I don't know of a 65 year old who has put up decent times as a masters swimmer that are faster at 65 than when they were 60. It took me 6 months of 5 times a week USRPT, but in mid February - in the beginning of the yards season - I posted a faster time in the 200 free by nearly 3 seconds (2:03.35), than I did at Nationals last year (2:05.97) shaved and tapered and at 63 years and 10 months old in Indianapolis, I placed 4th in the 200. Same in the 500 I swam at Irvine two or so weeks ago. I swam it in 5:39.46 (and would have been faster except that I was trying out a race strategy that turned out to be flawed) I swam the 500 at Nationals in Mesa AZ in 2011 to a fourth place in 5:44.40 shaved and tapered. So what I am saying is, FOR ME, USRPT works. And I tried very hard to go strictly by the Rushall book. No modifications, no drills, no kicking, no pulling, no pyramid sets. This may not be for you, but there is no question that it works for me. Let me be clear that there are a lot of things about USRPT that I like and other things that I find intriguing, though I disagree on some points (one of which is that it needs to be "pure"). And I dislike many, many aspects about the way in which Rushall presents it: verbose writing that is needlessly antagonistic to put it mildly (for example). Rushall likes to present himself as the "scientist in the room" but I read a LOT of scientific articles, summaries, reviews, and books, including those written for laypersons. His presentation is NOTHING like those, and borders at times (IMO) on intellectual dishonesty. But I digress. Just because one doesn't like the manner of deliver doesn't mean the message is wrong. However it is not up to people to disprove USRPT, it is up to its adherents to prove it (ideally in controlled experiments). Rushall and others might say this has already been done, but I disagree. I think that many of the principles have been tested but not the whole USRPT package. And Rushall doesn't seem to agree that it isn't a new approach. Sure, "race pace" isn't new but he insists his way is different than what came before, that it is new. Which is fine, but you can't have it both ways. If this is a new mix of training principles and their implementation, then it needs to be tested. There are so many interdependent variables here that you CANNOT JUST ASSUME that when you throw various pieces together you get a sum of the parts. And not only that, but Rushall really does insist on a narrow path, and that isn't clear or obvious either. A sensitivity analysis would be nice. FINALLY, there is another piece here. Rushall doesn't just present USRPT as the optimal method of training, he also presents it as the best method of motivating swimmers. That's a connected but separate issue. Because a more motivated swimmer may do better in a sub-optimal method simply because s/he is more motivated.

why do you do the 75s with the same rest as the 50s? currently nobody on the planet earth can do a 75 and not hit into atp depletion. In USRPT there are only two amounts of rest, :15 rest when doing 25s and :20 rest when doing 50s, 75s or 100s. Remember, you do these as "skip if missed" and when you have two failures in a row (including extra rest) or four failures in the set, you are done with the set. So although the sets of 50s is written as 30 x 50, you should never ever be able to do all 30, ever. Same with the 75s. I think the actual set is 20 x 75, whatever, you are not supposed to make all of them. If you do, the set is too easy. You are supposed to fail before you get to the end of the set.

So temps are slowly starting to climb and thoughts turn to summer...and long course. So I have a question for any of the USTRP experts here about using the system in LCM pools. Looking at the USTRP table I posted earlier, as a mid-D swimmer I am really mostly interested in the three middle columns: 100, 200 and 400. Certainly I dabble in 50s and the 1500 occasionally so I might do those types of USTRP for a little bit of variety from time to time, but my focus will be in the middle columns. Looking at them, there are 3 possible repeat distances: 25s, 50s and 75s. Are the 25s and 75s supposed to be done in short course pools only? Because starting in the middle of a LCM pool would really play havoc with any attempt to maintain race pace. That leaves only 3 possible USTRP sets for me in a LCM pool, and honestly only two of them are viable sets. (20 x 50 LCM on 0:50 at 100 race pace? No, I don't think so.) I can see the point of doing sets of 25s in the short course pool (ideally SCM I suppose, though that's not going to happen around here) in preparing for LCM meets. But doing sets of 75s seems to violate the principle of specificity in training, because short-course 75s are nothing at all like LCM 75s. So bottom line: how is USTRP supposed to be adapted (if at all) for long course training? I haven't read everything on USTRP by any means, but if I came across this point I didn't pay attention to it at the time.

I hear you on this and feel the same way. I just can't seem to get my head around the idea that I stop a set half way through. 30 x 50 on 50 seconds should be just that. Stopping on the 12th repeat not only robs be of a sense of achievement that comes from completing a long set, but also robs me of that wonderful high I get from sore muscles and overall exhaustion that I can savor when I relax in the hot tub. I have been dabbling with USRPT sets recently but setting myself target times that I can make so I get to complete the whole set. Recently I realized that this was probably defeating the whole point of the exercise. So yesterday I got in and gave myself the target time that I want to achieve this season and found that it was no walk in the park. it took a huge effort not to fail by the sixth repeat. It was so exhausting that even though I hadn't failed I stopped anyway in anticipation of failure. For sure I would have failed on the seventh repeat. I decided that was enough for the day and that I would take stock in the hot tub and strategize for tomorrow. So that is where I am at the moment. I am off to the pool now but am scared of the exhaustion I felt yesterday and am already thinking a set of 10 x 100's on 1:45 sounds like a good idea for a main set. Or maybe I should be trying yesterdays set again and trying to get to the seventh repeat before failure. I don't know. I will see how I feel when I get there. People seem to be getting hung up on the failure part. Instead of thinking of the failure, think of the wonderful feeling of success you will have when you push to get that number 7 at your target time!! If you hit your target time on 6 x 50, that means you went race pace for 300 yards. I don't know what your 100 time is, but I'm pretty sure if you did that set of 10 x 100 on 1:45 ( as stated above) that none of them were swum at the pace you have done in a race. You say you were exhausted when you stopped the set...GOOD! You should be. Aren't you exhausted when you finish a race? If not, you should be! That's why it's called race pace training. Anybody can do 10 x 100 on the 1:45 or the 1:50 or 2:00, I say, so what. What does that prove and what does that train you to do? It trains you to go 100 on the 1:45. I've done over 2,000 50s at race pace since September. My body knows what :31 per 50 feels like. I don't even need a clock anymore. When you get in a race and dive in, all you have to do is what you do everyday with race pace training! You don't have to try harder, you just have to recreate the feeling of what you do everyday and the excitment of a race and the racing suit and the competition will take care of the rest. Now I just thought of this, but that is why Rushall says don't do USRPT 2 days a week and regular training on the other days - because with USRPT you are getting used to the pace you need in a race. If you then do a set of 10 x 100 on the 1:45, now you are training your body to go a different pace. Now your body is confused. That's why he says "mixed training gives mixed results" . I was exhausted too when I started this training. And even now after 6 months of only USRPT 5 times a week I don't always do two USRPT sets a day. But you know what? Even if I only do one set, it is more race pace training than most other competitors are doing!

Psychologically, I do better with a set number of repeats in mindset rather than a "go until you fail" system, even if that means I slightly fall off my desired race pace. I hear you on this and feel the same way. I just can't seem to get my head around the idea that I stop a set half way through. 30 x 50 on 50 seconds should be just that. Stopping on the 12th repeat not only robs be of a sense of achievement that comes from completing a long set, but also robs me of that wonderful high I get from sore muscles and overall exhaustion that I can savor when I relax in the hot tub. I have been dabbling with USRPT sets recently but setting myself target times that I can make so I get to complete the whole set. Recently I realized that this was probably defeating the whole point of the exercise. So yesterday I got in and gave myself the target time that I want to achieve this season and found that it was no walk in the park. it took a huge effort not to fail by the sixth repeat. It was so exhausting that even though I hadn't failed I stopped anyway in anticipation of failure. For sure I would have failed on the seventh repeat. I decided that was enough for the day and that I would take stock in the hot tub and strategize for tomorrow. So that is where I am at the moment. I am off to the pool now but am scared of the exhaustion I felt yesterday and am already thinking a set of 10 x 100's on 1:45 sounds like a good idea for a main set. Or maybe I should be trying yesterdays set again and trying to get to the seventh repeat before failure. I don't know. I will see how I feel when I get there.

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 say why not try that double number of kicks off the wall in your USRPT set? Actually, one area where I have some serious doubts about USRPT is about training for underwater kicks in a race, at least for someone who really goes out to 10-15 m on each wall. I'm a big believer that you should plan out your kicks as part of your race strategy. For example, in a 100 back I might have a goal to go 11 kicks off every wall (but fewer off the start so I won't get DQ's), while in the 200 back I might want to go 7 kicks for the first 100 and 6 on the 2nd 100 (though I've been toying with the idea of reversing this). I firmly believe you need to train to do something like this, and doing short repeats, even at race pace, simply does not come close to duplicating what it feels like to do that many kicks at the end of a race, much less do them well (my pie-in-the-sky goal would be to pull a Phelps-like blast-off on the last wall of the 200). So I worry that USRPT by itself will not fully stimulate the necessary physical adaptations. If one wants to do USRPT but include working on underwaters, one possibility that occurred to me is to do "shooter" style USRPT kick sets with increased rest. By "shooter" I mean that you go well beyond the 15m mark, maybe out to the far flags (i.e. roughly 20y or 20m out) on every lap of a 25 or 50, and maybe almost as far on 75s. You'd need to adjust USRPT intervals to give you more rest, but I think that's justified under Rushall's principles since his 20-sec rule seems to be based on the assumption that you are breathing while swimming at race pace, and obviously that's not the case when doing underwater kicking. Then again, perhaps there is no way to do "shooter" style repeats without building up lactic acid, which is anathema to the USRPT approach. In any event, I don't think USRPT really addresses this issue well.

Anybody can do 10 x 100 on the 1:45 or the 1:50 or 2:00, I say, so what. What does that prove and what does that train you to do? It trains you to go 100 on the 1:45. 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). See either Patrick Brundage's or Leslie Livingston's blogs to see what I mean. Every set has a purpose. I think any good coach crafts their workouts with similar care. I might do a set of 12 x 100 on 1:45 as four sets of 3 x 100, where 1-2 are aerobic/recovery swimming and the goal of #3 of each set is to hit 200 pace. Certainly that is a set that anyone can be proud of achieving even though it isn't a USRPT set. In point of fact, I believe there is value in doing 100s at 200 pace, and that is something missing from the USRPT sets I've seen. Or maybe someone wants to do "10 x 100 on 1:45" and work on some aspect of their technique (e.g. double the usual number of kicks off the walls). Or they simply want to build an aerobic base and not worry about race pace for one set. That's okay, as long as you recognize the set for what it is. The key point is purposeful training. People seem to be getting hung up on the failure part. Instead of thinking of the failure, think of the wonderful feeling of success you will have when you push to get that number 7 at your target time!! I agree with you, it requires an attitude adjustment to realize that "30 x 25" doesn't necessarily mean that you will do 30 25s. Personally I don't have a problem with the failure part, I just like to have a set number of repeats. I always really hated it when a coach would say something like "we'll do this until everybody gets it right" and doesn't specify how many we're doing. As long as you are at or near race pace I don't think it makes a significant difference whether you track progress by number of repeats or by average. Once you can hit race pace on all repeats then it is time to revise your goal pace (same as with USRPT). The main problem in doing a fixed number of repeats "at or near" race pace is that (a) you need to make sure you really are close to race pace, and (b) if you fall far off race pace then you are doing something wrong (goal is too ambitious or you are overtrained) and you should think about stopping anyway. I've done over 2,000 50s at race pace since September. My body knows what :31 per 50 feels like. I don't even need a clock anymore. When you get in a race and dive in, all you have to do is what you do everyday with race pace training! You don't have to try harder, you just have to recreate the feeling of what you do everyday and the excitment of a race and the racing suit and the competition will take care of the rest. Yes, that is a good advantage of USRPT. But I submit that it is also an advantage of ANY proper training method that uses race pace, ultra-short or not. Long before USRPT came around, I realized that there are two components to race pace training: - training at race *intensities* where you don't necessarily go right at race pace, sometimes not even close. This is where you do physiological training, getting your body and its energy systems adapted for racing. Rushall claims that USRPT is the optimum way to do this, but I'm not convinced yet. One of the things I do like about USRPT is that there are inherent guards against overtraining. If you are using race efforts (i.e. at race "intensity") but you are nowhere near your race pace, then there needs to be a reason. It might be that you are tired from previous sets or workouts, which may be okay. But if you can't hit race pace at the beginning of a workout, after a good warmup, then something's wrong. - learning your race pace and having good technique at that pace (not just stroke, but things like turns, underwaters, and breakouts). You need to be able to hit your desired pace in the race. USRPT does a good job with this but it is definitely not the only way to do so, people have been doing this for decades. But I do feel like many coaches don't realize that this is a valuable training goal.

I think USRPT is clearly better than non-race pace training(which is what most Masters and USA-S workouts seem to be.) My question is about comparing it to HIT, like Leslie was posting in her thread on HIT training,especially for 50& 100 swimmers. I am basically training for the 50,100,and 200 BR. Doing 50s at 200 race pace on 20 sec rest is mostly doable for me for up to about 10 before failure,on a very good day. 4x(6X12.5) on the 30 is also doable and I like it,except that it is hard figure how to work in pullouts. My problem is 100 pace. Doing 25s at 100 pace is OK,but either I don't get turn work,or I can't(yet) get any repeatability on the time if I finish with a turn.Also,I do think that lactic acid tolerance is important( I know Rushall doesn't,but I think the data to support that is scant.)I really like doing 50s at 100 pace,but I can't do more than 3 with 20 sec rest before failure.My prior solution was to give myself enough rest to keep 50s at race pace. Are there any Masters swimmers over age 50(I'm 65,like Glenn) having success with 100 race pace with USRPT? Are any of them BR or Fly swimmers?(I find repeats are much easier free than BR or fly.)

I think USRPT is clearly better than non-race pace training(which is what most Masters and USA-S workouts seem to be.) My question is about comparing it to HIT, like Leslie was posting in her thread on HIT training,especially for 50& 100 swimmers. I am basically training for the 50,100,and 200 BR. Doing 50s at 200 race pace on 20 sec rest is mostly doable for me for up to about 10 before failure,on a very good day. 4x(6X12.5) on the 30 is also doable and I like it,except that it is hard figure how to work in pullouts. My problem is 100 pace. Doing 25s at 100 pace is OK,but either I don't get turn work,or I can't(yet) get any repeatability on the time if I finish with a turn.Also,I do think that lactic acid tolerance is important( I know Rushall doesn't,but I think the data to support that is scant.)I really like doing 50s at 100 pace,but I can't do more than 3 with 20 sec rest before failure.My prior solution was to give myself enough rest to keep 50s at race pace. Are there any Masters swimmers over age 50(I'm 65,like Glenn) having success with 100 race pace with USRPT? Are any of them BR or Fly swimmers?(I find repeats are much easier free than BR or fly.) Allen, Rushall suggests 25s for training for the 100. I wasn't having much success with the 75s at race pace for my 400 so he suggested I use that day, Wednesday, to do 25s at 100 race pace. I'll try that this week. He also suggests that on 25s to do it to a foot touch. Easier when doing a flip turn, but on ***, I don't know, do the pullout and as soon as your head pops up look at the clock. Or do the turn and rather than a pullout, just look at the clock. I'm am not sure on this one as I am very BR handicapped!