Cesar Cielo is fastest swimmer in the world -- 25 yards in 8.88 to the foot -- he was just trying to "maintain" on the second 25...
There are 3 ways to swim faster in any given race:
1) Improve your technique -- if you become more effecient in your technique, your times will drop across the board
2) Maintain a pace as close as possible to maximum speed -- You can hold your maximum speed for 6-8 seconds. There are no swim races of that length - so when training for any swimming race (50 up the mile), you are trying to maintain a pace as close to your maximum speed as possible.
3) Get Faster = improve your maximum speed
I would say on average, Masters swimmers (and age-groupers) spend their in the water workout season according to the following breakdown (rough guess):
1) Improving technique = 20-30%
2) Maintaining close to max = 65-79%
3) Improving Max Speed = 1-5%
Think about it -- if you swim 4-5 times per week, that equals about 20 hours a month. Did you spend more than a full hour in October on maximum speed ?
This Thread is all about Category 3 -- Improving your Max Speed --
Thanks for starting this thread and the advice so far. As a former distance swimmer determined to have some fun this SCY season sprinting, this is great. I've been told about the tempo timer and encouraged by one coach to get it. This might be the first "toy" I invest in. I've generally done well via stroke length, but never really focused on stroke rate.
Mind you, while I do want to get more competitive in the 50/100, my longer term goal is still to be a faster mid-distance swimmer (200/500), but, for me to reach my goal times in those events, I figure I need to get "easy speed" for the first half of the race much more built into my muscle memory.
One question for Erik: are you using the tempo timer throughout workout or only on your speed sets?
First things first...get your ass back in the pool and quit avoding my workouts!
Thanks for starting this thread and the advice so far. As a former distance swimmer determined to have some fun this SCY season sprinting, this is great. I've been told about the tempo timer and encouraged by one coach to get it. This might be the first "toy" I invest in. I've generally done well via stroke length, but never really focused on stroke rate.
Mind you, while I do want to get more competitive in the 50/100, my longer term goal is still to be a faster mid-distance swimmer (200/500), but, for me to reach my goal times in those events, I figure I need to get "easy speed" for the first half of the race much more built into my muscle memory.
One question for Erik: are you using the tempo timer throughout workout or only on your speed sets?
First things first...get your ass back in the pool and quit avoding my workouts!
