Speed Zone

Thanks Ande - Great tips. I am going on a vacation for 2 weeks - but here is my "end of the year" sprinting advice. Actually, I am taking this from one of our sprint heroes - Alxander Popov. While we are Masters swimmers and of course can not reach the volume mentioned in this article -- we can add the philosphy "Athletes must be able to swim fast anytime, any place, and under any condition" Importance of Competition/Race Experience One of Touretski’s core philosophies is that race velocity swimming and competition experience is crucial for elite athlete development. He feels that this stimulus is important for physical development, skill development, and psychological development. Athletes must be able to swim fast anytime, any place, and under any condition and that translates into consistency in their competitive performances. He emphasized several times that the training plan must include the correct amount of race rehearsal swims, and should be designed around the competition schedule not vice versa. The number of “starts” is tracked for each athlete during a season. A “start” is considered an off the blocks effort that is performed within 4% of the athletes goal time. It is not always performed under competitive conditions (approximately one third are not). He also incorporates an intense 10-day competition microcycle into training cycles, during which there are several “starts” in each practice session. The athletes also are required to compete in numerous events at the competitions the team attends (sometimes more than 15 starts a weekend). The key to Touretski’s interest in this component of training seemed to be research done in Russia on the training loads of track athletes. In this study they found that the most successful track sprinters in the world carried a competitive volume of 64,000 meters (between 1-4% of max velocity) a year. This lead him to convert the distance to a relative volume for swimmers (divided 64k by 4-swimming races take approximately 4 times as long for a similar distance) and come up with a target volume of 16,000 meters of race performance for sprinters each year. The goal is 100, 100 meter starts, and 100, 50 meter starts for Popov. They have attained this level two of the last three years. This was an area that Touretski pointed out the weakness of our college swimming as related to International competition. He pointed out that when Popov steps on the blocks at the Olympic for the 100 meter freestyle he will have 90+ starts in that event over the last 12 months at that relative performance level while the top American swimmers will likely have less than 10 starts at that level, and less then 20 total. The microcycle focusing on competition (see Appendix**) is 10 days long alternating 3 days on and 1 day off. The training is all race intensity usually beginning practice with a 600 warm-up followed by 1 dive effort then switching to pace work and broken swims.

Thanks Ande - Great tips. I am going on a vacation for 2 weeks - but here is my "end of the year" sprinting advice. Actually, I am taking this from one of our sprint heroes - Alxander Popov. While we are Masters swimmers and of course can not reach the volume mentioned in this article -- we can add the philosphy "Athletes must be able to swim fast anytime, any place, and under any condition" Importance of Competition/Race Experience One of Touretski’s core philosophies is that race velocity swimming and competition experience is crucial for elite athlete development. He feels that this stimulus is important for physical development, skill development, and psychological development. Athletes must be able to swim fast anytime, any place, and under any condition and that translates into consistency in their competitive performances. He emphasized several times that the training plan must include the correct amount of race rehearsal swims, and should be designed around the competition schedule not vice versa. The number of “starts” is tracked for each athlete during a season. A “start” is considered an off the blocks effort that is performed within 4% of the athletes goal time. It is not always performed under competitive conditions (approximately one third are not). He also incorporates an intense 10-day competition microcycle into training cycles, during which there are several “starts” in each practice session. The athletes also are required to compete in numerous events at the competitions the team attends (sometimes more than 15 starts a weekend). The key to Touretski’s interest in this component of training seemed to be research done in Russia on the training loads of track athletes. In this study they found that the most successful track sprinters in the world carried a competitive volume of 64,000 meters (between 1-4% of max velocity) a year. This lead him to convert the distance to a relative volume for swimmers (divided 64k by 4-swimming races take approximately 4 times as long for a similar distance) and come up with a target volume of 16,000 meters of race performance for sprinters each year. The goal is 100, 100 meter starts, and 100, 50 meter starts for Popov. They have attained this level two of the last three years. This was an area that Touretski pointed out the weakness of our college swimming as related to International competition. He pointed out that when Popov steps on the blocks at the Olympic for the 100 meter freestyle he will have 90+ starts in that event over the last 12 months at that relative performance level while the top American swimmers will likely have less than 10 starts at that level, and less then 20 total. The microcycle focusing on competition (see Appendix**) is 10 days long alternating 3 days on and 1 day off. The training is all race intensity usually beginning practice with a 600 warm-up followed by 1 dive effort then switching to pace work and broken swims.