Reply To: USRPT DVD set discussion
Your training sounds like low yardage traditional training with sprint sets mixed in. If so, that’s different than USRPT. The most amazing thing to me is that swimmers do not have to b tapered to swim personal beats. It can happen anytime. Does that happen in your program?
There is a taper phase. It’s similar to what’s described in the Ernest Maglischo book. It’s simply not “high yardage”. Our season starts in sept and ends in july. With a peak in winter towards a big meet (regional championships) and a peak towards the summer for national championships. However, most swimmers do improve throughout the season. We’re talking 11 until 14 year olds, so that seems normal.
We tried the mostly underwater, no breathing breaststroke at the end if the girls season. It was a bit disruptive to their rhythm. We may try it again next year earlier in the season.
I’ve been experimenting with this myself. One of the consequences of no-breath breaststroke is a shorter arm movement. You simply cannot bring the arms/hands under the body, as that requires the body to move upwards, almost enough to breathe anyways.
So one has to start with the hands in front at shoulder width, move slightly outwards with the hands, then go to a high-elbow phase followed by a very short power phase. Then finish with a (wider) recovery at shoulder width of the hands.
You end up with a wider stroke. It makes me think of the technique of Agnes Kovacs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDv03qswT6c). Except the head stays down of course, and no recovery above the water.
