billratio
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Thanks Doc! All of your help was greatly appreciated. I married a Packer fan so I will forgive your comment. But I don’t have to like it. Here is a video my wife and I made for our wedding 5 years ago.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
We did not have a single swimmer make finals (top 16) last year at state. This year went much better.
200 free relay – 6th (with a 24.5 lead off from our flyer)
400 free relay – 12th (with a 53.2 anchor from our flyer)
100 fly – 7th (59.37 with 27.7,31.6. She wanted to break 1:00 and I wanted her to break 59 because she was training 14.5s at the end)
200 IM – 7th (2:14.0 with 27.7 fly, 33.5 back, 41.7 breast, 30.8 free)
100 Free – 6th (53.17 but 53.00 at sections. With 25.3, 27.6. Was very sad not to break 53.)
50 Free – 6th (24.40 and this is another one that makes no sense to me. She was swimming so fast in practice that for her to only go .12 faster than our flyer led the 200 free relay makes me think I did something seriously wrong. When they would race off the blocks on 25s it was usually 11.4 for this girl and 11.9 for our flyer. She has a great start and good turns… I don’t know how she was this slow. I feel like I let her down.)
Our diver amazingly took first in the state by 0.3 points so that gave us a boost in points. We wound up placing 7th in the state as a team with 105 points. The most our school had ever scored in the past was 30 something and took 20th. Last year we placed 35th but that was with no swimmers scoring… only the diver.
We broke 8 of 12 school records this year and many pool records throughout the season. Overall it has to be the best swim season in school history.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
A lot of my swimmers swim slower against slower competition. Did you take a bigger rest before your good meet? Adding over 3 seconds in a 100 is pretty big. Not time to panic though.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Mondays are the worst!!!!!! I tell myself I’m going to quit every single Monday. By the time Wednesday rolls around things are much better.
Just don’t let yourself freak out too much. Though I am freaking out at the moment and just told my wife that I quit. I know they will be fine. Today was much of the same. Maybe had 3 swimmers doing well out of 18. I need to find a way to eliminate Mondays in the future. Maybe Saturday practices.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
That’s super exciting! I love hearing updates from people so keep them coming. I agree with you about the tech suits. I will be able to post results in two weeks after sections but I think tech suits and full rest is going to be close to two seconds for a 100. It will probably depend on the swimmer and what paces they have been holding in practice but I would feel very good about those results if I were you.
Keep it up.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Thanks for the input. I was going to talk to a few of them about holding back in prelims but now I think I’ll just let them go for it for the most part. I’ll let her know she doesn’t need to go crazy on the last 50 if she’s winning her heat.
Maybe going fast in prelims will strike fear in the hearts of the other teams.
We did have 4 swimmers qualify first in prelims last year and wound up getting 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd at finals. It’s much more fun to be the team that holds back than the team that looks like they got worse at finals (though they all went faster).
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Not a college coach but I deal with the same thing in high school swimming. My number 1 frustration here is that our girls can only swim two events at the final meet and with their club team they can swim 7 events at their final meet. So they only wear a tech suit for 2 events with me and then 7 with club. They wind up thinking they got a lot better in club in 5 of their 7 events when in reality they could have gone pretty good times on everything in high school season if tech suits weren’t frowned upon so much.
At the last few meets of the year I encouraged some of my swimmers to wear tech suits to break some records and see how fast they could go in off events. I swam them JV so it wouldn’t change the outcome of the meet but still managed to upset the other coach at one meet.
I wore a tech suit in college in off events and it was frowned upon by my teammates and probably other teams.
From my experience in college and high school the reason coaches don’t want their swimmers wearing tech suits is they don’t want to give up the huge taper drop. It gives them a rush of excitement when their swimmer can drop 3 seconds in a 100 at the final meet. They also probably don’t want to risk someone not getting a season best time at the final meet. It would reveal that their taper isn’t all that they say it is. Tech suits have been hiding bad tapers for years.
I also find it funny when a coach has one 500 swimmer drop 15 seconds at sections (with a tech suit) and a similar swimmer only drops 4 seconds (without a tech suit) and they say “Swimmer A just had a great taper and Swimmer B was just okay.” In reality Swimmer B probably got slower with her taper and Swimmer A improved minimally. No one wants to credit the suits.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
I tend to agree with both of you. I’ve been debating what to tell my top sprinter who will be the number 1 seed by far in her events and her slowest time from this year would still get her 2nd in prelims. I don’t see any scenario where she would swim too slow to make finals but as I think about it more I think it’s better to just have her swim fast so we can see if there are things to be improved for finals.
My 500 swimmer I am still unsure about. You don’t think swimming a 500 all out on back to back days is going to hurt her a little at finals? Doc, you would still have a distance swimmer go all out at prelims if she was a near lock for top 8?
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
A lot of swimmers don’t give tech suits the credit they deserve because they want to believe it is all their abilities and not the suit that made them fast.
A lot of coaches don’t give tech suits the credit they deserve because they want to believe their magical taper is what made their swimmer drop all the time at the end of the year.
I believe a good tech suit gives a 2% improvement and that might be conservative. Depends on the swimmer’s body type. Just let my flyer wear her tech suit for our last dual meet of the year in her 100 back to go for the school record. It was a 1:01.70 and she broke it with a 1:01.3. Her time this year without a tech suit was a 1:03.5 (though that was coming out of the 200 free relay).
All I’m saying is your swimmers might be a lot closer to lifetime bests than you realize.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
I would lean toward building volume at faster paces. I never like to have them slow down if I can help it.
My top 100 girl was going 58 almost all season last year even though she was training at 55.0 pace. She did hit 57.41 one time during the season but even that is 2 seconds off what she was training for. She wound up going 55.3 at sections so pretty close to pace.
I think if you are within 2 seconds of the time you want for a 100 you are doing okay. Are the times from the meets you sited with or without tech suits?
This year if I go just off of what she is swimming in practice for 25s @:40 she is really training 51.8-52.4. Best swims were this week (almost 3 months into season) at 54.29 and 54.65 tonight. So for us if we get within 2 seconds (or whatever percentage that is) of our race pace for 100s we are doing pretty well. Really hoping she’ll be under 53.0 when we rest. It’s almost time.
I don’t know how she was able to come into this season and swim so much faster than last year. Maybe that it’s the second year in the system? More likely that she came in having swam this off season and last year she was coming in after 9 months of nothing. I think having done it before does help though because those first few meets were kind of rough last year for everyone.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
KngLenny,
We’ve always counted mulligans as part of the total. As you said about your swimmers, most of our swimmers make their mulligans. It’s just so much easier this way. We have a goal of completing 4x race distance before first failure. So 16×25 @:40 beofre the first failure is considered good for our 100 swimmers. Out top 2 girls can do that easily many days though so I’m not sure doing them @:40 will give exact correlation to the 100 they swim at Sections.
Our top 2 100 girls did a recent test set where the top girl went 30 straight 25s @:40 holding 13.1. We’ll see if she can go mid 52 at sections. She was 55.3 last year so that’d be a crazy drop for a senior girl.
Our next girl went 22 straight on :40 holding 14.0 or faster. She went to 37 before her 3rd failure (when I say 37 I mean that is the number that was done at that point but really she sat out twice before then so it would be 33 that were swam). I just record the number that the set was at when they failed out. I know what it means so I don’t think it is necessariy to do all the subtraction. So much simpler to just mark “first fail occurred here, third fail occurred here. let’s go further next time.”
I expect the second girl to hit her pace and break 56. Her best time is 57.40 so she is swimming far faster than her actual race pace at this point. I’m hoping for a miracle swim and a 2nd place finish at sections. I just don’t know what is going on with her 50s @2:00 because she just never goes great times on them.
Do you have a particular example of a swimmer and what her best tapered time is and how she is training?
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
We recorded 50s @1:00 with partners timing every repeat on Wednesday. The amount offered was 20. Had a girl go 29.5 or faster for 19 out of 20. She’s usually closer to 30.0 or high 29 when there isn’t a partner timing every single one.
Also recorded 50s @2:00 for back half of 100 pace and my top girl was swimming 27.2 or faster for all of them. A few 26.9s. I could see her bringing her 100 back in 27.5-27.8 at sections but it would be insane if she came back in a low 27. Her times on these sets have dropped a ton throughout the season. It was considered a good set last month when she was holding under 28.5.
If we’re going off of her 25s @1:00 for her first 50 she’ll be out in 25.7. That would maker her potential splits 25.7 and 27.2 for a 52.9. I’ll be a very happy coach if she can do that when we rest.
My top 500 swimmer went 42×50@:50 before first failure holding 32.0 average. She got to 54×50 before 3rd failure. This was a big confidence booster since we only try to hold 32.2. I’m hoping she can hold 32.9 on her middle 50s in the 500 when rested and go 5:22. My more realistic guess would probably be 5:23.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
I would pretty much do it the same way as you would with a 25m pool but it’s going to be much harder to train for 100s. See if you are able to hold 1/3 of your 100 time on repeat 33.3s for a decent amount of repeats @10-20 seconds rest. As long as you are swimming race pace it should work.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
I have stayed away from the 2 weak peaking that Rushall recommended somewhere. I think it was Doc who told a horror story about when he tried that. So for my first “taper” we were pretty close to the “3 day protocol” that Doc has talked about. Our big meet starts on a Friday so we go 4 days so that I’m able to tell the swimmers “we’re tapering for a week.” They fragile psyches could not handle it if I didn’t give them that much time at least.
It depends on the swimmer but we do 50-60% the first day, 25-50% the second day, 25% the third day, and meet warmup the fourth day. I don’t remember the exact percentage but we were something like 85% lifetime bests and 95% season bests. I was happy with it and have used it every big meet since.
We just had our final JV meet and were 70% best times but that is a small sample size (5 swimmers).
Note: The percentage means how much we offer for each set (so 24×25 becomes 12×25 for 50%). I cut more than the percentages that Doc recommended because we were offering a ton and multiple rounds last year. “When it doubt, error on the side of rest.” – Ernie Maglicsisilclcho (spelling?).
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Okay, I’m back now. One other note/story on the pace thing.
I’ll use my top 100 girl as an example. She came back this season in much better shape than last year. Started out able to make good numbers at 13.75 and with a lifetime best of 55.3 that was technically her pace. She quickly reached the point (within 2 weeks) where she could hold 13.75 or faster for extremely high numbers. Pretty much never had to sit. Even though her best time was still 55.3 we moved her pace down. We’ve kept moving it down even though her best time is 54.9 now so she really only would need to swim 13.75 to be at her pace.
Yesterday in a test set she swam 30×25 @:40 all at 13.25 or faster. That’s the best set she’s done all season but she’s holding under 13.5 consistently. We’re probably going to need to move her pace down if she comes in next week holding 13.25 for big numbers again. I don’t expect her to swim a 53 at any of our next 3 meets but when we rest and put a suit on for sections I’d be very disappointed if she doesn’t do it.
So here is my main point/thought. You don’t necessarily want to have everyone swimming at “best time race pace.” You need to be swimming at a pace that will create failure. If they don’t reach the point of failure there will be no training effect. For a swimmer that can hold 33.5 on 50s for 40×50 and not have a problem with it, they need to be at a much faster pace. If a swimmer is holding 12.0 on her 25s and never failing, ask them to hold 11.75 or else sit out. We determine pace more based on what they are doing in practice than on what their times are. You need to keep everyone failing. Oldschool says if they complete a set twice at a certain pace then they have mastered that pace and are ready to move on.
I think that could also be the reason for exhaustion if they are swimming at a pace that is too easy and completing tons of yards without failure. I suppose our other option would have been to lower the interval but that isn’t the way we have gone. I guess we’ll see at sections how it works out.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
