[billratio]

KngLenny,

I have several thoughts but not a lot of time to respond. OldSchool’s advice has always served me well in the past so I’d recommended valuing his input highly. I hope your meet goes well today.

I think if they are truly resting when they miss their pace they should be fresh all the time. Just had my top girl break our school record on a “get out swim” at the end of practice on Thursday. They are ready to swim fast any time.

I think you should be willing to change their paces whenever you think it is too easy for them. If your 500 swimmer completed 30 without missing then the pace is too slow. My best 500 swimmer has gone 5:36 this year with a best time from sections of 5:28. But her training pace is 32.2 because she has proven that she can complete pretty high numbers at that pace but it is still a huge challenge for her. One day she went almost to 40×50 before her third fail holding 31.9-32.1. If we had her going 33.6 based on her 500 she has swam this season, she would swim 50s for 2 hours straight. Just find the pace that is right for them even if it is faster than their actual 500.

Same goes for the 100 swimmers. I’ll add more later.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

Thanks for sharing this! I’ve just watched the race for the second time. It is very encouraging to hear/see.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

Marlin,
Thanks for sharing! That is very encouraging to read and thanks for the shout out! Those a great results! Especially considering that it wasn’t that long ago that you made the switch to longer intervals.

Can I asked what kind of suit you were wearing? Can I ask how old you are? What are your lifetime bests in those events?

I tried to make a comeback a couple years ago and was happy to go 22.1 in my 50 free. I consider it a good time. 😉 I didn’t know about USRPT at that time though.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

We do our best to train 3 times a week for each of their main events. It’s tough to get all of the IM training 3 times. The back and breast sets are usually only done twice a week now.

We don’t do recovery days. If they are missing their pace all day it ends up being a recovery day for them.

I wouldn’t worry about doing a pretty hard practice before a meet. My top 100 swimmer got her best time this year the day after a very hard practice (completed close to 2,000 yards at race pace).

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

Don’t lose heart. My first time doing USRPT was a spring season with my swim club and the head coach said I could try it. It was pretty much a disaster across the board for various reasons. I think the short season just didn’t give them enough time to adapt to the different type of training.

Last year with my high school team we saw hardly any lifetime bests from the experienced swimmers. We didn’t hit the best times and race paces until we rested for sections and put on the tech suits. This year is going much better and I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps we’ve had better buy-in, they came into the season in better shape, or it just works better once your body has done it before. I’m not a scientist so I don’t really know. All I know is I am thankful that I didn’t give up after the first 2 month trial was a failure.

We’re not doing exactly the same things we did last year and next year I will probably change some things slightly as well. I’m still super new to this.

We do a little less recovery when doing multiple rounds on the same event (10 minutes usually). In between other sets we do 10-15 minutes.

We do race pace swimming every day. That’s all the yards we get unless you count warm up, turns, and DK. And those usually amount to 800 yards or less per day.

It’s so frustrating to hear people talk about needing more yards, an aerobic base, etc. Peter Andrew did say that he felt like training MA for the 200 when coming back from a break helped him get back to being able to make his 100 sets more quickly. We did a lot of 200 training at the start of the year even for our 100 and 50 girl. I’ll tell you what her weeks look like right now though.

M,W,F

20×25 @:40 holding 13.4 or faster, Then might do some @1:00 after a rest

nx50 @2:00 holding 28.2 or faster (we do these to 3rd failure which comes almost right after the 2nd failure)

16×25 @:40 holding 13.4 or faster (we might offer more or else do a second round. These are usually done with the whole team so she can race our flyer who is also a faster 100 freestyler)

(Wednesday we are actually still doing the 50s @1:00 and holding something in between 200 pace and back half of 100 pace. She can hold 29.5 for a high number on a good day. She has swam 2:02.4 both times she has done the 200 free this year which is a best time by 4 seconds. Friday we are dropping the final 100 pace work to do 50 training. 25s @2:00 from a push or off the blocks, 12.5s, etc.)

I think I have a lot to learn/figure out about training for the 50. You can probably tell from the questions I’ve been asking on here the last few weeks.

T, Th (Sometimes we’ll do more than this but it is always sprinting at her paces. If she is slow we stop. If she is going really fast we’ll just keep it going.)

8×25 @2:00

12×12.5 @:40

8×25 @2:00

We do 25s off the blocks at the end of every practice M,T,W,Th,F. She likes to do it just to see what her times can be and test different things out. She’s consistently swimming 11.5 now and can go a couple 11.4s almost every day. Peter Andrew told me that Michael does stuff off the blocks at the end of almost every practice on no interval. It’s a fun way to end practice. I often tell her “You can leave when you swim 11.4.” Then when she swims 11.4 she feels so good about it that she wants to do another one. We usually do 2-6 of these each day.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

Those are the most common way we offer the yards but it isn’t always exactly set up that way. Occasionally we will do more 25s @1:00 or change how the 50s @200 pace are offered. Sometimes we’ll offer higher numbers to make sure every single swimmer reaches their third failure.

About once a week we’ll do a set where we have them partner up and time each other with stop watches. It’s amazing how much better they perform on those days. It’s nice to get a fairly accurate time for every single repeat.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

This is the basic plan for our “Main Group” which includes our top Flyer/IMer who I have posted about a bit on here.

M, W, F

Warm up: 200 choice, 8×25 @:40

100 stroke RP: 16×25 @:40 or :50, recovery, 8×25 @1:00 (first 50 of 100 pace or just faster than 100 pace)

Recovery/Skill/Underwater DK: 15 minutes

200 Free RP: 16×50 @1:00, recovery, 8×50 @1:00 (sometimes we have a lot of swimmers who can do well on the second round and sometimes we just have everyone stop after 16 because they all are doing so poorly)

Recovery/Skill/Underwater DK: 15 minutes

100 Free RP: 16×25 @:40, recovery, 16×25 @:40 (again, on the second round we have almost everyone fail out before 16)

Recovery/Skill/Underwater DK or just cool down

On Monday and Friday we do 100 stroke first and on Wednesday we do 200 free first.

Right now we are training everyone for the 200 free as a way to get in shape. Most of our swimmers don’t swim in the off season. Even those who do come in having had a month off from swimming with the exception of one girl.

Everyone also is training for the 100 free because everyone is going to swim on the 400 free relay many times throughout the season.

Tuesdays and Thursdays would be very complicated to explain in detail. The USRPT sets our IMers do on Tuesday and Thursday are…

12×50 back @1:00

12×50 breast @1:10

Will probably increase these numbers soon.

During that time we have the other swimmers are mostly doing 25s at pace for secondary strokes.

Otherwise we do a lot of sprinting, technique work, videos, etc. We have meets on a lot of Tuesdays and Thursdays so it has changed how we’ve done things a bit.

As much as I love to say I do USRPT, when I look at it I know it isn’t true USRPT. We offer multiple rounds of sets because I often have people reach their third fail and then when we try the set again in 10-15 minutes they can do better than they did the first time. I think it makes it easier on them psychologically as well.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

There are a couple of things that would concern me. Training Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday leaves them 4 days straight without major race pace sets. That’s a big break. Will you eventually be able to do some every day? Or at least spread it out to Monday, Wednesday, Friday?

I haven’t had much success training for 200s with 25s. My swimmers can go forever with 25s at 200 pace and it doesn’t translate to their races. I think 50s are the way to go for primary 200 training. At least for freestyle. I haven’t trained anyone for 200s of stroke. I will say that switching our 200 IM training to only 50s for back, breast, and free has seemed to work better so far.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

This is somewhat related to longer rest intervals and the n x whatever @whatever is related to “fill in the blank.”

My 100 swimmers have been swimming 16×50 @2:00 (Most made is 12 for my top girl). She has had a goal time of 28.5 so far this year though I will be moving it down. Monday she made 10 of them holding 28.0-28.2.

Her 100 Free last night was 55.1 with 26.6 on the first 50 and a……….. 28.50 on the second 50. We’ll need to improve that quite a bit by sections. I’m hoping she’ll be able to get that down close to 27.5 in practice before sections.

Our 2nd 100 swimmer is having similar correlations. Trains to hold under 30 on the back half and just had her first 2 100s these last meets where she came back in 29 high.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

Thanks KT! I have been disappointed with most swim technique DVDs I have purchased in the past. I’ll give the David Marsh DVD a shot though. 🙂 I definitely need to spend more time on turns and underwaters.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

I agree that there is some crossover with aerobic work in other strokes. All of our swimmers have been doing 200 free training so far this year and I’m hoping that has some carryover for the swimmers who aren’t getting as much aerobic work on their stroke sets.

How much does the aerobic system come into play when the race is under 1 minute? I read about this a while back but I don’t remember exactly. I think it matters but I’m not sure to what extent.

That is an amazing resting heart rate! I need to workout more.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

I’m sure there must be a limit on the amount of rest you can have and still expect a good correlation. Our team is a very small sample size.

Take everything I say with many grains of salt because I’m a fairly new coach (just started 5th year) and have only been doing USRPT for a year and a half.

How often do you do training that is faster than race pace? I don’t think there would be anything wrong with swimming 25s @:50 and letting yourself go quite a bit faster than race pace for a while.

I’ll often have swimmers swim way faster than race pace on the first few reps and I’ll say “These aren’t sprint” and they’ll respond “I don’t even feel like I’m trying right now.” If they feel like they are swimming 14.0 but wind up going 13.5 for the first 4 reps I’m okay with it. I think it can only help. Everyone eventually settles into their pace… or dies and has to rest.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

I’m afraid my breaststrokers aren’t great examples but I can give you the data I have. They just aren’t very high level swimmers so I don’t know how much can be drawn from their results.

They all swam their 25s @:50. Sometimes @1:00. Our top breaststroker got pneumonia the week of sections and wound up going 1:13.mid. She was trying to break 1:12 and was swimming mostly 18low and some mid-high 17. Overall still a decent correlation. Our second girl went 1:14.9 and was training 18.5-19 on her 25s. Good correlation. Our other two were 1:22.5 and were training 21.0. So they went a bit faster than their training pace. I don’t know that I would trust results from swimmers at these speeds though.

I don’t have great data for any of this. I could try to dig some things up but I know I do a poor job tracking.

Had a boy with club training 19.0 most of the season and started swimming 17.high a week before Regionals. He went 1:15.low. Had a club girl going 19.0-19.5 and went 1:16.6.

And that is all the 100 breaststrokers I have had so far. I don’t have many swimmers…

I will also add that our IMers last year trained 25s breast for the IM and none of them were close to their training pace. We’re now doing 50s breast for IM. We’ll see how it goes.

I apologize if I have said a lot of this before in other posts.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

I forgot to mention when she fails. She can get 8 on a good day before her first fail. Sits out 9-10 and get maybe 4-6 more. She usually sits out once on the 8×25 @1:00.

Last year we transitioned a little more slowly from traditional training to USRPT. Now we are pretty close to being 100% USRPT almost right from the start of the season. Obviously our biggest difference is the longer rest intervals we use. We don’t do any kicking, pulling, etc. All of our sets are either race pace, underwater work or skill/recovery.

Our normal day consists of 200 choice warm up, 8×25 @:40 (they mostly swim freestyle and we just use it as an encouragement to do some fast warm up… pretty much non of them swim actual race pace). Then we’ll do Race Pace set, Recovery/Skill work, Race Pace Set, Recovery/Skill Work, Race Pace Set, Cool Down. We don’t have many swimmers doing 3 big race pace sets on Tuesday/Thursday though.

On the short rest intervals I believe one of the biggest justifications given by Rushall is there is less lactic acid buildup when you are in the 10-20 second rest range. My swimmers haven’t looked like that has been a problem when we have them going on 25-30 seconds rest so I don’t know that it is that big of an issue. I think Rushall might also talk about how it is good to be 10-20 seconds on rest so that the aerobic something something something. I haven’t read the papers in a while. It might be better to be in that lower rest range but I can’t get them to hit their paces with 10 seconds rest.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[billratio]

Marlin,

I’ll first speak about the flyer. As I said she improved a lot over the summer and swims for a very good club with very good coaches (even though they do traditional training. :)) She went a 1:02.3 with them at the USA short course state meet 4 months after our sections. So not much improvement there but she had some other good times. As I said her fly time over the summer from long course state converts to under 1:01 so most of the credit for where she is right now should go to her club coaches. She strikes me as a better long course swimmer though because she’s about 5’4″ and doesn’t have amazing turns. She also isn’t as good at dolphin kick as you would expect from a girl who goes 1:01. She’s okay but it isn’t her main strength.

So far this year her fly time in meets has been 1:05.5, 1:04.1, 1:03.1 and 1:01.7. Has gotten faster each meet. The splits from her 1:01.7 were 28.7 and 33.0. I’m not sure she’ll be able to go much faster than mid-1:01 before we rest and put a tech suit on. At that point my goal is low 59. She wrote on her goal sheet that she wanted to break the school record (1:01.9) and her next goal was to break 1:00.0. It’s looking good so far.

One other not on her improvement. When she went from 1:03.1 to 1:01.7 we did a technique change in between those times. I went to the Peter and Michael Andrew USRPT clinic and talked to the coach of the host club about her fly. He recommended a change and it seems to be helping.

For fly sets she is typically doing 16×25 @:40 then we take a break and go 8×25 @1:00. This is M,W,F and I also count it as 200 IM training for her fly. She goes the same first 50 on her IM as her 100 fly. Once in a while we will do a test set where every swimmer has a stopwatch on them for every single 25 but we don’t usually record every number. I just try to keep them as honest as possible with my watch. When she’s swimming them on 1:00 we have just been saying “Faster than 100 pace” or “Overspeed.” We’re now saying it is “first 50 of 100 fly pace” like Doc has said. So 14.low for her.

Honestly she hasn’t had many sets for fly that have looked great so far. We’re saying we want to hold under 15.0 so I let her know whenever I clock her at 15.1 or higher. At her best she is able to go 14.75-14.5 but is usually training at close to 15.0. So far she hasn’t made it to 16 without failing twice. I know we’re supposed to always go to 3rd fail but running practice is too hard if we do that every set of every day. We’ll start offering 20×25 soon.

I’m sorry I can’t give more exact numbers. She definitely is swimming faster than a 1:01.7 pace in practice but we’re not quite holding 14.75 for 16 straight 25s to get that 59.0.

I’ll get to breaststroke in the next post.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

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