Long Course Training in Short Course Pool

If you dive in to a LCM race without ever having swum long course, before you get half way down the pool you will be wondering "where the heck is the wall"? Or, in my case, when I swam at my first LC Nationals in 2011 at Auburn as a long course newbie, I was saying on each stroke of my 200 breaststroke, "Are we there yet? ARE WE THERE YET???" Thankfully, I had Allen Stark & Seal Girl cheering me on at the blocks to pullllll me home on that last 50! :whiteflag:

I've prepared for a LC meet a few times without access to a LC pool. My greatest success came when I swam repeat distances greater than what my race distance was going to be. In my case I was focusing on the 200 Free and did a lot of 250's in an SCY pool to prepare. I had competed and practiced in a LC pool before so it wasn't entirely foreign to me, but I had a good race and felt I had prepared myself reasonably well. I'll add that if you could add in at least one workout per week in a LC pool you would perhaps be a bit better prepared but surely you'd have a little more confidence going into your meet which is at least equally valuable.

The best way to prepare for LCM racing while training in an SCY pool? Prayer, if you are inclined to that; else, practice sleeping on your stomach on a bed of nails ;) On a serious note, it's totally doable ... and less about the preparation than about pacing your races appropriately and just being prepared for the LCM racing to be a particularly sublime way to remind yourself of all the muscles you have in your body ... you will feel things the next day you never knew you had. On a really serious note, train as much LCM as you can!

I love LCM, but rarely can get to a LCM pool. If you can get to one a few times it will help. In a SCY(or shorter) pool I agree that over distance is important In a 200 BR I take 1/3 more strokes LCM to SCY. Swimming 125s instead of 100s etc is good. Another thing I do sometimes is not push off on every other turn. You get half as many turns LCM and this way instead of an acceleration off the wall you need to work more to get back up to speed.

If you have access to a long course pool it would be in your best interest to train there at least a few times. When standing on the blocks looking down the length of 50 meters you will understand the vast difference in the two venues! If you are only used to SCY, LCM seems like a different sport. If you dive in to a LCM race without ever having swum long course, before you get half way down the pool you will be wondering "where the heck is the wall"? It's like the difference between miniture golf and a regular 18 hole course.

Will you folks forgive me if I thought this thread was an April Fools joke, a couple of days late? (I'm a Newbie, so I am totally prepared to be SCHOOLED for my ignorance/ineptitude/temerity. Hit me!! Hit me hard!!!) How can SC swimming be inadequate for LC? I was a runner for 45 years. How can road/trail/indoor (200m) track running be inadequate for outdoor (400m track) races? My brain is not wired to understand this thread. You experienced swimmers will no-doubt help me understand the errors of my thinking.

Will you folks forgive me if I thought this thread was an April Fools joke, a couple of days late? (I'm a Newbie, so I am totally prepared to be SCHOOLED for my ignorance/ineptitude/temerity. Hit me!! Hit me hard!!!) How can SC swimming be inadequate for LC? I was a runner for 45 years. How can road/trail/indoor (200m) track running be inadequate for outdoor (400m track) races? My brain is not wired to understand this thread. You experienced swimmers will no-doubt help me understand the errors of my thinking. You hit your highest velocity in the pool when pushing off a wall, while also giving your arms a few seconds rest while you're in streamline. In LCM, you only have half the number of walls, so you're missing that opportunity to relaunch. You're swimming more, turning less. Not to mention that meters races are approximately 10% longer than equivalent yards races, which dictates adjustments to your pacing. Not a huge deal with 50 meter sprints, but it compounds as you move up to longer distances. It's a very different feeling when you first do it, and takes some time to adjust. I actually enjoy it, because I feel I can get into a better rhythm with my stroke. My former coach used to have us swim 125 yd repeats short course when preparing for 100 meter long course events. But the best thing is to just swim as much LCM as you can. We're fortunate that our club swims long course 2-3 times per week during the season. All that being said, the absolute scariest moment in my Masters swimming career came when I climbed on the blocks for a 50 meter butterfly race and stared down the length of the pool, wondering if I could even do it.

While everything everyone has said so far is great, let me give you some more advice that is often overlooked: Just keep doing what you are doing and believe in your training. If you get in the water every day and think, "gosh darn it I am stuck swimming yards and I am going to be competing meters," you are holding yourself back. Trust the work you put in every day. I have had to race my big taper meet in LCM several times, after training all fall/winter SCY. The better I got about not stressing the difference in pool distance, the better prepared I was to race at the end of the season. Also remember reading an article about Eddie Reese and his summer team with his college swimmers. They only did LCM 3 times a week. Everything else was SCY. I apologize I can't find a copy of the article right now (it was from probably 8-10 years ago). The point was that developing speed and fine tuning it is best done SCY. The LCM training helps to get rid of that "long course meters hangover." TL;DR Believe in yourself and your training, and it won't matter what pool you train in versus what pool you race in. You got this!

What Calvin said: train hard and trust your training. I've trained exclusively short course, gone to a LC meet and been very happy with my performances. That said, here are some things that I think help: 1) Lots of training pushing your aerobic/anaerobic threshold is your friend. In LCM, even the 100 has a huge aerobic component. 2) Tombstone kick drill. With the kick-board in the tombstone position it takes an eon to kick a 25 - excellent LCM training. 3) 100s where you flip and intentionally miss the wall on turns 1 & 3. I call them phantom turns. (I think this has already been suggested.) 4) a SCY 225 is a pretty good proxy for a LCM 200. If you intend to race 200 LCM, practice scy 225s. 3x75 on :10-:15 RI at 200 pace is also good. 5) SCM is good training for LCM. If you don't have access to an LCM pool but can find a SCM pool, take advantage of it. I once saw a video of a lecture by Bob Bowman about training Michael Phelps. He said that Michael did almost all of his training short course because it is better for "energy management" in practice. In simple terms, with LCM training it is very easy to get run down and the training becomes counter-productive.

In simple terms, with LCM training it is very easy to get run down and the training becomes counter-productive. In simpler terms, LCM = evil.