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Just read this article over at Floswimming:
http://www.flocasts.org/floswimming/floswimmr/profile.php?u=26685&v=blog&id=1097
Although we’ve probably heard these points before, I think its ok to put it up for discussion. I agree with a lot of what the writer has to say. I think that at the heart of coaches pounding yards and short rest is a resistance to giving control over the athlete. If you give an athlete 10×100 on 1:05 and that athlete can hold at best a minute this is great for their fitness as the writer states. When you give them 10×100 on 2:00 and expect them to go fast, it transfers a lot of control to the athlete about what “fast” means, unless the coach gives guidelines to each individual swimmers as to their pace. What does everyone else think?
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Well I liked the article and I agree with most of it as well. My college swimming experience was a great one. I had a great coach who knew how to motivate me. At the college level you better be motivated yourself as well. The coaching staff can’t force you to train hard, you have to want it. The best thing about swimming is “if you don’t put in the work you won’t see the results you want”. If you attempt to half ass it, your results will be half assed.
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@DonCheadle wrote:
I swim by myself alot and have to come up with my own sets. It is SOOO much harder for me to convince myself to do a set hard on 2:00 than on 1:25 (insecurity coming out here: I swim my 100’s on 1:25 in meters). Am I alone on this? Does anyone actually prefer lactate sets?
I definitely prefer lactate sets, but I agree it is so hard to get yourself motivated to do them on your own.
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I absolutely agree that a good drill set can be much more valuable than pounding yardage for the sake of yardage. I think a good mix of drill work and intensity is the best approach. I think the article misses the point a bit about short rest sets though. It’s not just about fitness. It’s about pacing and maintaining technique under those conditions. This is a valuable concept for all swimmers. The bottom line is that you can give swimmers rest when you want them to recover and be able to give an all-out effort or you can give short rest sets if you want them to learn about holding pace and maintaining technique when tired. Both are valuable.
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I agree that this is a very good blog post. I think that the most important aspect of the article however is something that hasn’t yet been mentioned and that is KICKING.
Kicking is so important now as the writer says. I know on my team in college we would have mornings where we would do 10 minutes of warmup followed by an hour or so of straight kicking. Its not fun to do, but it really helps. -
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doesn’t this fit into a traditional workout progression through out a season? Usually in the first few months, a lot of coaches hammer the aerobic/anaerobic threshold stuff (and kicking), so in the latter half of the season they can do the 4-5k workouts with long rest, short yards, lots of drills and be successful on both ends?
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@Rudy Shingle wrote:
I think the article isn’t saying that you need to get rid of all the short rest sets, but that there needs to be varying sets in the practice.
You’re right, I don’t think it advocates getting rid of them. I just think they can be valuable for more reasons than just for the sake of fitness. Also, the part about kicking is something I’ve been trying to hammer for years. The kick is so important. The majority of the great swimmers are such great kickers.
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But what about a swimmer like Peter VanderKaay. I think he has a pretty sluggish kick while swimming. I feel it is making the kick do what it is meant too. Having the kick help with rotation and pull is ideal. If you are pulling with your left the right like should be kicking down. This would maximize power.
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@Rudy Shingle wrote:
But what about a swimmer like Peter VanderKaay. I think he has a pretty sluggish kick while swimming. I feel it is making the kick do what it is meant too. Having the kick help with rotation and pull is ideal. If you are pulling with your left the right like should be kicking down. This would maximize power.
There are exceptions to every rule. Not every great swimmer has a great kick but the majority do. Even the distance swimmers are kicking more today than they did 10 years ago. I agree with the timing aspect. With my younger kids, we slow down the arms and speed up the kick in order to find the timing. I always tell them the faster they kick, the faster they can turn their arms over. Once they can learn to kick fast with slower arms, then they can learn to speed the arms up.
You have two platforms with which to gain power, the pull and the kick. In order to maximize the rotation, you can’t be deficient out front or in back. I think it starts with the kick. The kick seems to be the toughest aspect of swimming to get right. It’s like being a drummer. The feet and the hands are going at different speeds at the same time.
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