I saw this in a post: I will swim 200 laps in a 25 meter pool. All free style. Non stop. This is done in 3 phases , !st 64 laps is moderate speed 2nd 64 laps is distance the balance is for endurance.
My first reaction was WHY ? If you swim like this you will never know how good a swimmer you could be !
Reasons why.
1.- Your range of motion becomes less as your muscles fatigue and tighten up. This leads to the long, smooth stroke that your first few lengths have, deteriorating into a short, choppy survival stroke.
2.- You can only train one energy system, Aerobic, the anaerobic & lactic systems are untouched.
3.- You cannot improve your technique unless you use drills in a progressive manner.
4.- Why not put in some drills to check your technique. For example 10 strokes of head-up free every few lengths to check you hand entry ?
5.- By only doing Freestyle you are setting yourself up for injured shoulders, with all kinds of impingement problems.
6.-Where are the Kick sets and fly kick sets to improve core body strength and awareness ?
7.-What about the joys' of fly, back and
*** ?
I put together this poll to see how people out there are training.
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Former Member
The book Swimming Fastest has a good review of much of the research as it pertains to exercise physiology and swimming and I would highly recommend it for this. He cites many references and one of the things I took away is when you are swimming a set you should be asking yourself what are you trying to accomplish.
If you are trying to accomplish aerobic conditioning then continous swimming can achieve this quite well. If on the other hand you are trying to increase your muscles buffering ability then your really need to be doing interval training. The question of non stop vs intervals is again complicated and I would be leary of some posters who have a simple answer.
The book Swimming Fastest has a good review of much of the research as it pertains to exercise physiology and swimming and I would highly recommend it for this. He cites many references and one of the things I took away is when you are swimming a set you should be asking yourself what are you trying to accomplish.
If you are trying to accomplish aerobic conditioning then continous swimming can achieve this quite well. If on the other hand you are trying to increase your muscles buffering ability then your really need to be doing interval training. The question of non stop vs intervals is again complicated and I would be leary of some posters who have a simple answer.
