USRPT & Traditional Training?

[jjjust]

My son is 16 years old and is a Sprinter but not against training for the 200 events. The teams he has been on really don’t train for any events , just traditional training. His Coaches sprint days are geared more towards aerobic. He is totally against USRPT.

After researching and reading about USRPT, I am thinking about creating some sets for my son so that we can do USRPT in the Morning time. (Free, Back, IM)

My question is will the traditional training hurt him when trying to get adjusted to USRPT? And once he is adjusted will it hurt him even more? Any help is appreciated.

[jjjust]

Posting a little more about my son. He has some days where he says he can’t get going in the water, usually at the end of the week. He is 16 about 5’10”, still growing, just getting some muscle. His goal is to swim in college and more. He struggles with Fear when he gets on the blocks. The fear is just now fading for him. I think he could be good at the 200 fr and back. He really hasn’t swam it that much nor has he even trained for the race at any club he’s been in. His most recent times are good and bad, in his eyes.

100 Fr 50.86
100 Back 56.17
100 Fly 56.27
50 free 22.20
50 back 23.12

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[ryanupper]

It really comes down to overtraining at that point. If you schedule some USRPT sessions for him and he slowly improves in the USRPT sessions it’s fine. If not, or he becomes more fatigued then he’s overtraining and something needs to be cut out (in this case some of the traditional days).

There’s no research on traditional to USRPT transitions so everything is individual. Plus he’s in a growth phase of life which creates different stresses (mental, emotional, physical).

With all that said, If the coach is “against USRPT” then that really means they aren’t good technical trainers since the first pillar of USRPT is technical development. If he’s not learning better racing techniques then the traditional training practices are borderline worthless (except for general fitness/hanging out with friends).

[jjjust]

Thanks for the Response! You are correct about the coach. There is a lot of over training already. My son has a lot of days where he says he can’t keep pace at practice. He’s one the top 2 or 3 swimmers on the team. Fortunately, we already have a team to go too that primarily trains for speed.

I am going to use Doc’s training system as it looks like the best training method with data to back it up!!! I just need to figure out how NOT to run the speed out of my son. If you have any suggestions for training sets, that would be great!!

My son is excels in backstroke and freestyle, trying to improve his breast so that he can excel in the IM. He sometimes gets in the finals with 200 IM, but his breast stroke, keeps far from top 3.

Thanks again for the response, I really appreciate it!!

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