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 --
Erik,
I hope you enjoyed your vacation. It sounds like you're remotivated.
I've got a question for you based on you last post. I don't swim in large group workouts and I'm usually able to tailor my workouts pretty specifically to my needs. However, some of my training partners do swim in large group settings occasionally with lots of tri hammerheads and I suggested (after consluting with the coach and their lanemates) that they could lead their lane and go at a much higher intesity but just not go the full distance. With the example you used of 3 X 200 on 3:00 - or whatever- what if they just cranked the first 100 and then moved out of the way for the swimmers following them. In effect they would be doing 3 X 100 on 3:00 and thus be able to swim at a much higher intensity while not disrupting the actual set.
Would this be considered kosher? Would it piss lanemates or the coach off even if you explained your particular needs?
I would never do this if I were a guest of some team for one or two workouts, but if you had to work with a tri oriented team would this be an option?
Rich
I would hope that, if you're a regular at your masters' team, the coach would be open to it and/or offering sprint options as part of the workout.
For example, I came back from the SCM season and told the coach that I wanted to do more sprinting. She said she had historically offered sprint options, but had so few takers that she stopped. She's going to try again and see how it goes. She doesn't offer them every day, but did offer one last Friday. Sure enough, most of the people chose the distance workout, but we had three people who sprinted.
Erik,
I hope you enjoyed your vacation. It sounds like you're remotivated.
I've got a question for you based on you last post. I don't swim in large group workouts and I'm usually able to tailor my workouts pretty specifically to my needs. However, some of my training partners do swim in large group settings occasionally with lots of tri hammerheads and I suggested (after consluting with the coach and their lanemates) that they could lead their lane and go at a much higher intesity but just not go the full distance. With the example you used of 3 X 200 on 3:00 - or whatever- what if they just cranked the first 100 and then moved out of the way for the swimmers following them. In effect they would be doing 3 X 100 on 3:00 and thus be able to swim at a much higher intensity while not disrupting the actual set.
Would this be considered kosher? Would it piss lanemates or the coach off even if you explained your particular needs?
I would never do this if I were a guest of some team for one or two workouts, but if you had to work with a tri oriented team would this be an option?
Rich
I would hope that, if you're a regular at your masters' team, the coach would be open to it and/or offering sprint options as part of the workout.
For example, I came back from the SCM season and told the coach that I wanted to do more sprinting. She said she had historically offered sprint options, but had so few takers that she stopped. She's going to try again and see how it goes. She doesn't offer them every day, but did offer one last Friday. Sure enough, most of the people chose the distance workout, but we had three people who sprinted.
