dmuecke
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If you can create an environment where your swimmer can simulate races that would be beneficial. USRPT doesn’t prevent you from experimenting. And it’s also not correct to assume that everything not mentioned in USRPT bulletins should be avoided. Sometimes it’s worth to go to http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/ read the abstracts yourself and draw your own conclusion.
Hello emma1701,
I guess you know your interval times and that you’ve to swim race pace all the time.
I’m not sure USRPT is the best approach for you but if you have a specific question this is the right forum.I followed your advice and let my swimmers decide the stroke for all sets now except butterfly. The first week was a little bit rough but now it works like a charm. Thanks.
I would recommend to analyze first the path of your swimmer’s center of mass during the complete backstroke start. You can manipulate the COM at the start by tilting the head or moving the hips to heels. Improving the backstroke start should be possible by changing COM trajectory.
I used rest time progression with my team. Starting with 60s for 25m reps or 90s for 50m and than went down gradually to 20 and 25s.
Another option for progression would be to add stress during rest by solving simple tasks.After reading the post from @doc I added 3 times a week hypoxia training into the workouts. My group consists of 8-12yo swimmers. I also tested hypoxia training with a triathlete. Hypoxia training set was 12-16x25F at 200F pace 20s rest with exhale-hold breath technique.
After the hypoxia training swimmers had some rest followed by one USRPT set.We had a swim meet the weekend before I started with hypoxia training so I used the race times as a starting point. Last weekend was our last swim meet for the saison. Race times from there have been compared with the first meet. I have found an improvement of 1.96% for the swim group.
The performance improvement from the group was better than another group in the same club which didn’t use hypoxia and USRPT training but went to the same swim meets. Details of my group can be found in the attached file.
Triathlon race times are hard to compare but I could find some competitors in the same races and tried to asses if there are any positive affects with hypoxia training. The improvement for the triathlete was better than the swim group’s improvement.Hypoxia training might be beneficial if you use the exhale-hold technique. Based on my findings parts of the improvement of my group could be related to this kind of training. If you look for scientific proof I would recommend to order the book from here http://www.hypoventilation-training.com/.
What I read in your post is that you’re worried not to be in the USRPT circle hence not successful.
According to all experts most important task for a successful coach is teaching swimmers the correct technique. You should ask yourself how can you transfer your notion of a perfect swim stroke into the brains of your swimmers. The skill to teach perfect swimming technique isn’t claimed by USRPT. That means you can be successful as a coach with or without USRPT.
To teach your swimmers the correct technique I would recommend deliberate practice sessions. There’s scientific evidence that deliberate practice is much more effective than every other method.Do you apply results from psychology studies to your training? With the knowledge from such studies you get more often the results you want from your team. How to use psychology in your training sessions isn’t written down in USRPT bulletins but the knowledge is vital for the success of your swimmer.
Conditioning even though not as important as technique and psychology is the most discussed topic. Your swimmers do USRPT sets and you can’t reproduce the straight line of improvement as shown in the bulletins? You’re not the only one. Fact is adaption comes to a halt when getting the same stimulus over a longer time. You need a new stimulus. Get creative and put in some variations in your conditioning training.
Hello Andy1,
I think every person adapts to training stimulus differently. Your female swimmer might require more meters at a slower pace than your target race pace that’s my conclusion from your original post.
I.e. you might add more Nx50@200 pace if you target 100m etc.Hello Andy1,
it has been discussed a lot and I think all here would agree there’s no magic rest time. There’s nothing wrong with 30s or 40s rest if it allows your swimmer to swim more meters in race pace.Did you let your swimmers exhale and hold their breath and swim supra maximal as mentioned in the study or did they swim maximal? I’m going to try this with my swimmers tomorrow.
As a scientist you work with larger groups and proof of your claim is based on statistic relevance.
If you look at the data you’ll always find individuals in the control group doing better than average and individuals in intervention group below average (non responder). For a scientist the individual doesn’t matter.
As a coach you care for the individual. Whatever someone has found out with other individuals it might not 100% apply to your swimmer. Use what USPRT offers as a starting point and see if it works for your swimmer. For the things not working you’ve to be creative. In case of your swimmer have you considered a different technique for 200fly (i.e. https://swimswam.com/the-evolution-of-butterfly-is-yuyas-dolphin-diving-the-next-big-thing/ or look for the Hungarian Cseh swimming 200fly). Might be worth a try.I’m facing the same issues with a triathlete.
I stumbled over this article http://sisyphusrunning.blogspot.de/2011/08/law-of-diminishing-returns.htmlI think the author has some valid points which apply to all kind of sports. I might explain why sometimes swimmers make little or no progress even though training was by the book.
Congratulation. What do you think were they key factors for her improvement? Did you train more in the last 12 months?
One of the reasons why swimmers fail is they think they can’t do it. 16×50 on 1m is intimidating. I would suggest to ask her if she thinks she can swim 4×50 on 1m. If she swims it without failure do a longer rest and then try again 4×50 etc.
To keep a constant pace I would also suggest to work with tempo trainer.
