Reply To: Location and USRPT Status
Hi! From Northern Wisconsin here. Exposed to usrpt in Indiana and actually had a bit of a heart attack when my daughter came home telling me they did 30 X 25s at practice. Honestly, I sneered my nose and actually said something like “I did NOT just pay a fortune for my children to swim 30x25s at practice!” They swam For a full winter season this way and interestingly enough, with crazy winter roads and facility closings, they probably only avg 3-4 practices a week. I was panicking for my then 15 year old daughter bc she had already begun plateauing and I certainly didn’t expect this program and sporadic days at practice to have a good outcome! Yet, at her state meet where she didn’t even “taper” she swam faster than she had over several seasons and years on a traditional training platform. My other two children also swam exceptionally well and furthermore, they were all happy and definitely not bored! Rather they were energized and interested again! We then took leap of faith with training it exclusively with those three (ages 12-17 now).
We are 50 minutes from the nearest club team and so we only go twice a week and they train by themselves at a local YMCA on the other days. My kids were becoming disillusioned with the traditional format of “work yourself to death and maybe or maybe not hit your taper at one or two meets a year”. My 12 year old girl and 14 year old boy have little interest in that. My 17 year old girl was tired of watching all her Wisconsin swim friends from other teams drop so much time year after year while she dropped time in much smaller increments. Whereas she has the tenacity to see anything through to completion, I worried about burnout and frustration.
So Last spring and summer, upon careful consideration, she trained usrpt mostly with a spattering of some longer t-pace work. I work a lot at that time, so we spelled out her micro and macro cycles at the start and she went to it all by herself. By the end of the summer she had gone from a 2:49LCM 200 breast to a 2:40.04 and got her junior national cut and first place at state. She also went a 1:13.97LCM in her 100 breast (previous time of 1:19LCM) and got that cut also. She’s swimming those two events plus bonus cut events in 50 free and 200 IM this week at junior nationals and she couldn’t be more excited. Her success caused 3 other high school coaches to implement usrpt in their programs. Our local club also turned their program upside down to try something new based on her results only. The kids love it at the club level and it has breathed new life into the program. The kids who were never standouts are getting attention they deserve and improving by leaps and bounds. Eager to see how the end of the season will turn out. Eager to share ideas and results. Nothing like experience to keep moving forward.
