A sprint experiment

Thanks for these tips. I am actually planning on doing fast paced workouts in the pool with most of my focus being 25s type distance and kick intensive workouts (my main technical (and overall) weakness I believe) As for technique, I swam age group on strong teams and high school from 10-17. . I was never a great swimmer but my technique while I'm sure can use improvement is at a relatively high level (other than my weak kick!) ..the reason I have difficulty swimming non-stop is more of the lack of swimming for 12 years than very poor technique and will come back very quickly. Jumped in the pool yesterday and already I feel much better in the water (post my last swim which was a meet and about 100m warm up before my 2 50m races) As an example of what I did yesterday so you can have a sense of what might evolve into a typical workout is something like: (note pool is 18yards unfortunately) This is on a day of heavy lifting so it is on the shorter end of what I plan 6 lap warm up 4x18 underwater dolphin kick (on stomach) as fast as possible 4x18 free style kick drill 4x18 free style w/very slow arm and all out kick the above 4x gradually increase arm speed but focusing on kick Not much pull intensive work as my pull has (and I think still?) always been my strong suit and the extra upper body strength makes it even eaiser. It can obviously improve and I may consider adding some stretch chord work per your suggestions but bringing my kick up to par (and just getting used to swimming again) I think will give me the most bang for buck at least to begin with... I plan on racing in a meet on Oct. 1 so hopefully I will be able to have some good data to compare to my 17 year old times and the meet I did a week ago. Maybe...but he still swims 15k a week, which is perhaps somewhere around the median for masters swimmers. (I'm sure his gym workout is harder than the vast majority of masters swimmers.) But weekly yardage is a poor standalone summary of a training plan. Foster's approach seems to be to eschew aerobic and lactate-tolerance training in favor of building strength and raw speed, and working on technique. He does full-speed work in the pool and lots of easy swimming. Seems like a fine approach for training for 50s. I wish you luck in your experiment. A few things that raise red flags in my mind: -- you say that you cannot swim (say) an easy 200. This implies either that your muscles are not used to swimming or that you have poor swimming efficiency. A key point in your experiment is the ability to transfer strength gain from the weight room to the pool. I don't doubt that lifting weights can hit the major muscle groups that propel swimmers, but there are probably many small muscles that swimming depends on that might only (or best) be exercised by actually swimming. Maybe 2k per week is enough to get them properly conditioned, but perhaps not. The saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link may apply here. -- Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you plan to avoid or only do minimal race-pace training (or any hard swimming) because it might interfere with your strength gains. If true, I think this is a huge mistake. While there are a variety of training philosophies on this forum, I think perhaps the one thing almost everyone agrees on is the need for race-pace training with adequate recovery between sessions. Both Mark Foster and Jazz Hands (to choose a masters swimmer with a comparable philosophy) do plenty of race-pace work. -- you mention you don't have the "cardio" to complete a 50 at full speed. I am not sure how you are using the term, but if you mean it as "aerobic fitness," I would strongly disagree. I think the aerobic component of a 50 sprint is very small. Again, IMO the best way to train in the pool is to do race-pace 15s, 25s and 50s as well as work on technique (drills, starts, breakouts, turns). One thing I found interesting about the article Jazz linked to was that assisted swimming (eg, swimming with a stretch cord) can be as effective as resisted swimming or weight training. I can certainly see the value in encouraging/developing a fast turnover. Another useful tool to develop a fast (but still efficient) turnover might be a tempo trainer. These sorts of swim-specific things are hard to replicate in the gym. Enjoy.

Thanks for these tips. I am actually planning on doing fast paced workouts in the pool with most of my focus being 25s type distance and kick intensive workouts (my main technical (and overall) weakness I believe) As for technique, I swam age group on strong teams and high school from 10-17. . I was never a great swimmer but my technique while I'm sure can use improvement is at a relatively high level (other than my weak kick!) ..the reason I have difficulty swimming non-stop is more of the lack of swimming for 12 years than very poor technique and will come back very quickly. Jumped in the pool yesterday and already I feel much better in the water (post my last swim which was a meet and about 100m warm up before my 2 50m races) As an example of what I did yesterday so you can have a sense of what might evolve into a typical workout is something like: (note pool is 18yards unfortunately) This is on a day of heavy lifting so it is on the shorter end of what I plan 6 lap warm up 4x18 underwater dolphin kick (on stomach) as fast as possible 4x18 free style kick drill 4x18 free style w/very slow arm and all out kick the above 4x gradually increase arm speed but focusing on kick Not much pull intensive work as my pull has (and I think still?) always been my strong suit and the extra upper body strength makes it even eaiser. It can obviously improve and I may consider adding some stretch chord work per your suggestions but bringing my kick up to par (and just getting used to swimming again) I think will give me the most bang for buck at least to begin with... I plan on racing in a meet on Oct. 1 so hopefully I will be able to have some good data to compare to my 17 year old times and the meet I did a week ago. Maybe...but he still swims 15k a week, which is perhaps somewhere around the median for masters swimmers. (I'm sure his gym workout is harder than the vast majority of masters swimmers.) But weekly yardage is a poor standalone summary of a training plan. Foster's approach seems to be to eschew aerobic and lactate-tolerance training in favor of building strength and raw speed, and working on technique. He does full-speed work in the pool and lots of easy swimming. Seems like a fine approach for training for 50s. I wish you luck in your experiment. A few things that raise red flags in my mind: -- you say that you cannot swim (say) an easy 200. This implies either that your muscles are not used to swimming or that you have poor swimming efficiency. A key point in your experiment is the ability to transfer strength gain from the weight room to the pool. I don't doubt that lifting weights can hit the major muscle groups that propel swimmers, but there are probably many small muscles that swimming depends on that might only (or best) be exercised by actually swimming. Maybe 2k per week is enough to get them properly conditioned, but perhaps not. The saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link may apply here. -- Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you plan to avoid or only do minimal race-pace training (or any hard swimming) because it might interfere with your strength gains. If true, I think this is a huge mistake. While there are a variety of training philosophies on this forum, I think perhaps the one thing almost everyone agrees on is the need for race-pace training with adequate recovery between sessions. Both Mark Foster and Jazz Hands (to choose a masters swimmer with a comparable philosophy) do plenty of race-pace work. -- you mention you don't have the "cardio" to complete a 50 at full speed. I am not sure how you are using the term, but if you mean it as "aerobic fitness," I would strongly disagree. I think the aerobic component of a 50 sprint is very small. Again, IMO the best way to train in the pool is to do race-pace 15s, 25s and 50s as well as work on technique (drills, starts, breakouts, turns). One thing I found interesting about the article Jazz linked to was that assisted swimming (eg, swimming with a stretch cord) can be as effective as resisted swimming or weight training. I can certainly see the value in encouraging/developing a fast turnover. Another useful tool to develop a fast (but still efficient) turnover might be a tempo trainer. These sorts of swim-specific things are hard to replicate in the gym. Enjoy.