I have been swimming 3-6 times a week now for about two months. Within the past month I transitioned from 25-3500 meters in a practice to attempting some of this high intensity only training I keep hearing people experiment with. Maybe it isnt so "experimental" and I am just that naive.
I am swimming 3 - 5 times a week and lifting weights twice a week. I am doing mostly the weight program that Jason Lezak recommended, with some modifications. Mainly only lifiting twice a week not three(Tuesday/Thursday). My pool time has been split. MWF I am doing all high intensity sprinting with about 300 warmup and 1-200 cool down. Usually swim about 1000 after I do weights to help with muscle recovery.
I do not have a benefit of a coach blowing a whistle at me or setting up my intervals. I have been trying to "cram" as much sprint yardage into my high intensity training as possible. I have been surprised at how quickly the my body is adapting to this type of training. The first week I could not do but 4 x 25 all out sprint, without the vomit feeling. Monday of this week I was able to 8x25s, 4x37.5s and 2x50s. With 3 minutes rest in between each. I was holding around 12secs on the 25s and 28secs on the 50s, I didnt get the time for the 37.5s. These are all from a push by the way no diving blocks at the pool I practice at.
All of that just to ask if anyone has any recommendations or insight on a way forward. Or am I headed the wrong way. I wont actually get to swim in a meet until Nov.8th. I just found a pool in the area that will let me use their diving blocks!!!
Please let me know if there is any adivce. Thanks in advance.
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Former Member
I believe your well oriented on what things to do in order to get good results in sprint training. It's important to know that if you want a speed performance that gets good results, you train fast untili you can! This means that once your times start falling behind your goal times you STOP the exercise, swim some recovery for a while and then try once again at least one more if your able to continue.
You definitely need more W-UP!!! And ofcourse more COOL DOWN!!! This helps promote early recovery. Also the weight progrma of Jason Lezak I can say for experience is brilliant!!! I had great results with my sprint swimmers when I tried it. I think theirs also other things that could be added to make it more complete in a sense. Or maybe not add, but change a bit like add excentric work to the program. I noticed that my swimmers were even more explosive once they tried this type of work. Though it was a great result for power which I think it was, you can't train excentric in swimmers for more than 2 weeks without having a feedback of extreme tiredness and lack of energy which is important for the main exercise (sprint swimming).
One other thing is that I would recommend that you try lifting weights the same day you train sprinting and right after the water workout. Reason for this is that if you sprint swim M,W&F's and do the weight workout T & TH's, since their both predominantly anaerobic workouts, probably your body would drop in performance at some point in the season. This is not a drop you would want, thinking that you want to keep on going fast. You could rest your body the days in between and work on technique, plus it helps on recovering at the mind set for the next sprint bout.
I'm a Personal Trainer and been a Swim Coach for the last 6 years. I have 2 B.S. one in Physical Education the other in Sports Science. I'm also an ASCA member for the past 5 years. At this moment I also am studying my Master's in Exercise Physiology at the University if Puerto Rico. I hope to do complete my thesis in this type of theme. Any questions or even suggestions will be greatly accepted.
I believe your well oriented on what things to do in order to get good results in sprint training. It's important to know that if you want a speed performance that gets good results, you train fast untili you can! This means that once your times start falling behind your goal times you STOP the exercise, swim some recovery for a while and then try once again at least one more if your able to continue.
You definitely need more W-UP!!! And ofcourse more COOL DOWN!!! This helps promote early recovery. Also the weight progrma of Jason Lezak I can say for experience is brilliant!!! I had great results with my sprint swimmers when I tried it. I think theirs also other things that could be added to make it more complete in a sense. Or maybe not add, but change a bit like add excentric work to the program. I noticed that my swimmers were even more explosive once they tried this type of work. Though it was a great result for power which I think it was, you can't train excentric in swimmers for more than 2 weeks without having a feedback of extreme tiredness and lack of energy which is important for the main exercise (sprint swimming).
One other thing is that I would recommend that you try lifting weights the same day you train sprinting and right after the water workout. Reason for this is that if you sprint swim M,W&F's and do the weight workout T & TH's, since their both predominantly anaerobic workouts, probably your body would drop in performance at some point in the season. This is not a drop you would want, thinking that you want to keep on going fast. You could rest your body the days in between and work on technique, plus it helps on recovering at the mind set for the next sprint bout.
I'm a Personal Trainer and been a Swim Coach for the last 6 years. I have 2 B.S. one in Physical Education the other in Sports Science. I'm also an ASCA member for the past 5 years. At this moment I also am studying my Master's in Exercise Physiology at the University if Puerto Rico. I hope to do complete my thesis in this type of theme. Any questions or even suggestions will be greatly accepted.
