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 --
Today... March 21st, I saw Erik Hochstein at the Santa Clarita Meet.
I told him we missed him on the forum - we didn't care if his gear bag was missing pieces - and he should tell us how the heck he can swim the sprints, middle and distance so fast.
Ah well... he swam in the lane next to me in the 400 IM (oh God...) and beat me by 59 seconds even though it was my best time.
Hope he comes up with something to share with us during the upcoming Championship season.
He had some pretty FAST SCAQ boyz swimming with him today!
Today... March 21st, I saw Erik Hochstein at the Santa Clarita Meet.
I told him we missed him on the forum - we didn't care if his gear bag was missing pieces - and he should tell us how the heck he can swim the sprints, middle and distance so fast.
Ah well... he swam in the lane next to me in the 400 IM (oh God...) and beat me by 59 seconds even though it was my best time.
Hope he comes up with something to share with us during the upcoming Championship season.
He had some pretty FAST SCAQ boyz swimming with him today!