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 Erik and Rich,
Actually swimming the event you plan to race in your focus meet makes total sense.
We become what we do.
We want our bodies to adapt to the stress of racing.
We want to train to race.
Most people and programs train to train.
Plus you have plenty of time and chances to experiment with
variious SDKs, breathing and splitting to figure out
what works best
Erik,
Outstanding article. I've got 15 months till I age up and I'm thinking of making this the basis for my training beginning in Jan. I've already calculated the speeds I'll need to attain in practice for my various events. I figure 100 efforts for 50's and 100 for 100's is the equivilant to about 2 efforts a week for each distance (100 / 52 weeks).
enjoy your vacation.
Rich
Thanks Erik and Rich,
Actually swimming the event you plan to race in your focus meet makes total sense.
We become what we do.
We want our bodies to adapt to the stress of racing.
We want to train to race.
Most people and programs train to train.
Plus you have plenty of time and chances to experiment with
variious SDKs, breathing and splitting to figure out
what works best
Erik,
Outstanding article. I've got 15 months till I age up and I'm thinking of making this the basis for my training beginning in Jan. I've already calculated the speeds I'll need to attain in practice for my various events. I figure 100 efforts for 50's and 100 for 100's is the equivilant to about 2 efforts a week for each distance (100 / 52 weeks).
enjoy your vacation.
Rich
