Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

Overall, I loved the training. It was much easier to do on my own than trying to slug through a distance set, and I usually left more exhausted doing USRPT than on days when I trained free sets with the team. I also think I was just getting the swing of it at 3 months, and would like to do it longer and see what happens. I didn't think I would get that close to my 2013 times after the way I trained that year, so I was really happy with the times and think the "dabbling in USRPT" that I did was fully responsible for a good State meet this year. For me, three months was definetly not enough. As I have mentioned, it took me six months. I'm nine months on it now and more convinced then ever. Since you "love" the training go for it and keep reading Rushall's stuff and you will see a difference.

Curious about the successes and/or disappointments of those who used USRPT this season and competed in the SCY Masters Nationals. Here is my experience so far. I starting playing around with USRPT at the end of Jan. In Feb, I committed to 2 times a week (plus one more swim a week but not doing USRPT), only doing sets of 25s, and not going to 4 failures or 30 reps, but limited sets of 12-16 intervals (not swims, intervals). I swam Y-nats in mid-April. I had a pretty successful USMS nationals in 2012, then got pregnant and had a baby in Feb 2013. I was back swimming a few times a week for around 9 months prior to starting the USRPT in January, but had absolutely no speed and had completely forgotten how to race. I am not getting continuous sleep (3-4 hour blocks) and still nursing. Additionally, in 2012 I was lifting heavily 2x a week and I havent lifted in over 1.5 years at this point. Needless to say, I wasnt expecting much out of the SCY season. My times: 2012 (40 yo)/ 2014 (42 yo) 50 free - :25.2 / :25.8 100 free - :55.3 / :56.5 50 fly - :27.1 / :28.4 100 fly - 1:03.0 / 1:05.1 I was definitely lacking endurance in my 100s and my fly in general is just off, but overall I was pretty surprised and happy with my swims. For me, USRPT - even in the very limited way I followed it, seemed to get me close to back to speed in a short time even with the many barriers to good physical performance I faced. Most importantly, I found the workouts very motivating because I always had a way to judge improvement and conversely had little room for slacking off else I wouldnt make my times. Caveat for me, I found a few people to train USRPT with and that has been awesome. Im not sure I could keep doing it all by myself. Im plan to keep at the USRPT thing. Since the meet I am doing it 3x a week and added in some 50s sets and am working on increasing the number of 25 repeats. Im looking forward to a more rested and energetic SCM season.

Question to practitioners of USRPT: What do you do if you can't make any (or just a few) swims at the target time? For example: My most recent rested and tapered 100 back was 1:05.79. Let's call that 1:06 to make the math easy. My target time for a 25 would be 16.5. My target for a 50 would be 33.0. Suppose I show up at the pool, warm up and start into a set of nx25 shooting for 16.5, only to find that I can't break 17 to save my soul. What to do? This does happen from time to time. Sometimes I can identify a reason: did drylands/weights the day before, not well rested, recovering from an illness etc., but sometimes there is no clear culprit. I'm just writing checks my body does not seem to be able to cash. What? Do I just give up and go home? That's kinda not in my character, and I'd bet I won't magically improve the next day if I do. To improve, I need to swim, (except in the illness recovery case of course). Also, this seems to require a precision in timing that is unrealistic in practice. Despite my best efforts to be systematic with my pushoffs, it would be hard to believe that I am consistent to better than 0.3s or so. Similarly, the clock is read from a different position depending on the finish end of the pool. At one end I may have to look over my shoulder whereas at the other I merely need to look up. Clearly I'm not getting the finish time consistently. Also, one pool where I train has an analogue clock, another has a digital one, further confounding my attempts to be consistent. I've taken to figuring that if I am within 1s or a little more, that's "close enough" and I keep going. It seems to me that it is better to do a fixed number of swims aiming to get as close to the target as possible, but accepting that some days will be better than others. I've actually completed 20x25@16.5 or better, (i.e. 16 with a lot of hang time) suggesting that I should change the target or tighten the interval, but then some days I just never even see the 16. This situation is worse for 50s. 50s at 100 pace are bloody freaking hard in-season. Doing 20 on 20s rest seems pretty unbelievable. If I could do that, it would be my 200 pace. Should I be targeting my in-season 100 pace instead of my season-ending target pace? That doesn't seem consistent with the USRPT philosophy that I should be training at the pace at which I desire to race.

Thank you tetleystam & swimkat for your input. It seems that most people who are doing USRPT are doing a hybrid (exception being Glenn) because they are swimming with a team swimming a tradition type of workout, and using USRPT when working out on their own. I feel that if I'm working out on my own USRPT is ideal, because I'm competing against the clock, otherwise I get bored and shorten my workout.

Question to practitioners of USRPT: What do you do if you can't make any (or just a few) swims at the target time? For example: My most recent rested and tapered 100 back was 1:05.79. Let's call that 1:06 to make the math easy. My target time for a 25 would be 16.5. My target for a 50 would be 33.0. Suppose I show up at the pool, warm up and start into a set of nx25 shooting for 16.5, only to find that I can't break 17 to save my soul. What to do? This does happen from time to time. Sometimes I can identify a reason: did drylands/weights the day before, not well rested, recovering from an illness etc., but sometimes there is no clear culprit. I'm just writing checks my body does not seem to be able to cash. What? Do I just give up and go home? That's kinda not in my character, and I'd bet I won't magically improve the next day if I do. To improve, I need to swim, (except in the illness recovery case of course). Also, this seems to require a precision in timing that is unrealistic in practice. Despite my best efforts to be systematic with my pushoffs, it would be hard to believe that I am consistent to better than 0.3s or so. Similarly, the clock is read from a different position depending on the finish end of the pool. At one end I may have to look over my shoulder whereas at the other I merely need to look up. Clearly I'm not getting the finish time consistently. Also, one pool where I train has an analogue clock, another has a digital one, further confounding my attempts to be consistent. I've taken to figuring that if I am within 1s or a little more, that's "close enough" and I keep going. It seems to me that it is better to do a fixed number of swims aiming to get as close to the target as possible, but accepting that some days will be better than others. I've actually completed 20x25@16.5 or better, (i.e. 16 with a lot of hang time) suggesting that I should change the target or tighten the interval, but then some days I just never even see the 16. This situation is worse for 50s. 50s at 100 pace are bloody freaking hard in-season. Doing 20 on 20s rest seems pretty unbelievable. If I could do that, it would be my 200 pace. Should I be targeting my in-season 100 pace instead of my season-ending target pace? That doesn't seem consistent with the USRPT philosophy that I should be training at the pace at which I desire to race. Do what you can. Don't get hung up on timing precision. (By all means, DO get precise with your technique, breakouts, SDK counts, etc.) Don't do 50's on 100 pace!

Don't do 50's on 100 pace! Yeah, forget those! I would be one and done. What interval are you using for your 25s @ 100 pace? Remember :20 rest may not work for some masters. I would opt for slightly more rest, maybe :30 instead. And I think the prescribed USRPT set is actually 30 x 25 @ 100 pace if you're doing 25s. I do some USRPT sets (for 100s), but use a hybrid approach to training. I don't think USRPT alone is the best way to train for sprints anyway; you need mega rest HIT work too. Does USRPT even apply to long course or have sets designed for long course? I like what Bob Bowman said about USRPT recently: It's good for you, like spinach is good for you, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing you eat.

Do what you can. Don't get hung up on timing precision. That's pretty much my philosophy. Don't do 50's on 100 pace! Sometimes a do a few over the course of a workout. A set of them on any non-effectively-infinite interval just hasn't worked for me.

What interval are you using for your 25s @ 100 pace? Remember :20 rest may not work for some masters. I would opt for slightly more rest, maybe :30 instead. And I think the prescribed USRPT set is actually 30 x 25 @ 100 pace if you're doing 25s. ... I like what Bob Bowman said about USRPT recently: It's good for you, like spinach is good for you, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing you eat. I find that on a good day I can do 20x25 bk on the :40 interval and make most of them. I think my best effort to date has produced 18. Sometimes I go on the :45 interval. The choice of interval depends on whether I am swimming alone or with others as much as anything else. That gives 24-29s rest depending on how fast I swim and which interval I choose. I'm definitely using the Bowman approach. This is just something I mix in with my training, not my only kind of training. I suppose USRPT purists would say that's my problem. If I did only sets like this, I would be seeing more consistency in my performance and not have those days where I don't hit my target much if at all. Maybe, but there are other things that I am dead certain have worked for me before and I'm not about to drop those from my training.

I have a meet May 31 where I want to swim well in the 200 BR without any taper(aiming for Montreal.) I have been doing more USRPT since it supposedly doesn't require a taper. Secondheart's comment about rest have really helped. Swimming 50s BR on the 1:20 have made for challenging but doable workouts,instead of frustration. Doing some free sets( if I do all BR sets my knees hurt) I have found that,for me, BR needs more recovery. 20 sec rest for 200 pace 50s free seems about like 40 sec rest in BR.

Let me just say using a tempo trainer for this is a brilliant idea.