100 Free - SPEED IS MOST IMPORTANT

Saw this email about training plans and "mine" was missing ...

USMS showed a great "traditional" swimming way of training - but this teaches you very little speed. If you give this training plan to the most elite 400 dash runners - swimming to running distance is simple 4x - if you give that to the best 400 runners in the world they would just laugh at you - 10-12K workouts for them running a 400 dash - NO WAY !!!

www.usms.org/.../six-week-swim-training-plans

SPEED focus for doing 100 Free - not for "new swimmers" this is for people who have been swimming for a few years - rule number one - never count total yardage EVER - only count how many yards you do at 1) real max effort (max effort needs lots of rest before - not easy swimming - just rest) yards at 2) 100 race pace ... if you want to break 60 seconds in 100 - you will probably go out in 28.5 and come back in 31.low ... hopefully - race pace means 25s at 15.5 level - and 3) you can count any 25s or 50s if you can do them at 16.5 or faster -

3 day plan - all warm ups are 15-20 min long - doesn't matter how many yards - sculling while floating is my most important warm up drill - and I don't move much doing it ... do make sure you can 2-4 bursts of explosive speed - means 10-15 yards.

ONE - 3-4 rounds - 15 yards all out on 3 min / 25 all out on 5 min (best if you can do a turn after the 25 but learning a finish is also important !!

TWO - 2-3 rounds of the above - and 1-2 ALL-OUT /// next set just 1-2 of these 8-10 min rest): 50 at 100 pace - real 100 pace - 10 seconds rest and all out 25 -- if you can do more than 2 of these you are going too slow

THREE - goal is to learn 100 pace without total exhaustion - build over the weeks - 6-10x 25 on 2 min at 100 pace / 2-5 x50 at 100 pace (not all out ideally but will be close to it) 5min

Get starts and super-speed turns into the workout as much as possible - DO TIME CHECK IF YOUR underwater kick doing fly is actually faster - mine isn't ...

ALL easy swims - pulling - kicking and so on - either take a shower or do it after .... not gonna make much difference.

Allen Stark 8 days ago

YES!!!!!!
ForceDJ 8 days ago

Erik —I’m not sure what you’re saying WRT to the plan for swimming vs. running. BUT…I will agree that what I know about training for swimming seems odd compared to training for running. Like you, I’ve always equated swimming distance (and effort) to about ¼ of running. In high school (late 70s), I wasn’t on the swim team, but was a CC and track distance runner. I was a capable swimmer, but didn’t get into it for training until shortly after h.s. as I became interested in the new sport of triathlon. At first, my swimming was just getting in the pool (or open water) and going for ## distance or time. I felt like I just needed to “get through” the triathlon swim. I didn’t really know anything about structuring a swim workout. But then other swimmers began to tell me that I had good form, and could probably get faster by doing some speed work in the pool. So, without the knowledge of how swim workouts are structured, I did what I knew how, and made up workouts as if I were training for a mile run…with 100 in the pool being equivalent to a 440y/400m on the track; a 450y/400m in the pool is about equivalent to a mile run…and so on. On the track…the coach would have us running lots of repeat quarters. In the pool it’s repeat 100s.

Dan
Erik Hochstein 5 days ago in reply to ForceDJ

Nice experience to share - like the idea to just keep it simple -- training for triathlon 3x a week I would warm up on feel and distance per stroke -- and then do a simple simple set ... like 100s. Problem with my history of swimming and I know it was still done in 2000s and probably still is -- we would actually swim lots of repeat 400s - like 15x400 main set ... not just for a week - I actually like training camp excess weeks but this would be standard for 2/3 of season - train like a marathon runner for 100 and 200 free swim... never again