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Kevin,
You got it! BT is “best time”. Some use PB.6 months ago we were just starting the college season and swimming yards. I had never seen these kids and had really no idea what they could actually do or not do. Spent a tremendous! amount of time teaching them the system.
With regards to the number of times I schedule the sets you asked about. The Sprint group would do them 6 to 8 times a week. So, pretty much every day. The Mid-Dist. kids where 4-6 and Dist. 2 to 3 (very one needs speed) Your 500 will not get faster, if your 100 and 200 don’t progress.
Just an FYI. For those that are trying to reach the max. number Dr. Rushall has published. You will swim them right out of speed. If you understand how the body treats exercise you will figure it out. The Aussie Coach Bernie Wakefield(now deceased), years ago wrote an article about “endurance thru speed” that you start with speed and progressively move it to endurance. Sound familiar? Think!
? All that is not shared... is lost.I’ll take a shot at saying under 1:06 in the 100 and it may seem a bit of a reach but under 2:20 in the 200.
Now that’s if you don’t screw it up 🙂 🙂
Nothing like pressure to make you feel ALIVE!
? All that is not shared... is lost.I’ve done something similar. I wouldn’t give them almost 2 mins. between (100 recovery). But 1 minute kinda like an automatic out. It helps keep set in a rhythm. We also do “make X number in a row and done with the set” It is usually 2+ more than they have done before and for some they have never done that many in a row and surprisingly many make it.
Based off her 1Ba BT of 1:06.??, and she wants to go 2:19.?? in the 2Ba. She is speed deprived. She will need to be out in the 2Ba in say 1:07.47ish and her best time 1Ba is 1:06.??. There is not enough “speed reserve” Think about it. Might want to rethink doing 16 x 25 or add a set of 4-6 x 25 on 2:00, help with speed. This is one problems with speed first systems. They tend to run the speed right out of them after a while. Especially when numbers get high.
Breaking down her 50s set. overall avg was 33.53 with .43 stdev. So, I’d say 33.96-33.10 pace range. Problem is that appears to be “n x 50 on 2:00” pace. I think the roughly two minute plus break is clouding the data. Note: helps if you go to the 100th .00 and .09 are actually a long way off.
In the 2Ba, she is out 32.01 and then goes in the neighborhood for 50s 2,3 & 4 of 35.55. she might have a shot. But again the speed reserve is low.
I think you are correct in targeting the under 35 as training pace and there is nothing stopping her from holding 34s. Just make at least one more than did last time. Remember the 35s are a “no slower than pace” faster is fine.
Make sense?
? All that is not shared... is lost.I’ll reiterate what Marlin said “Just aim for 11 next session, 12 the next time and so on”. That is a huge key to the puzzle and how you sequence your work has a huge impact on how well they do.
I don’t even write on the workout anymore “12 x 50 fr on 1:00”. It’s just “50 fr on 1:00” and they have the numbers done posted within the workout from at least the last 4 times they have done the set and a rolling average. All I’m asking them is try like !@## to be better than the last time or better the average. I’m not going to tell you this was easy to do, especially with kids that come from traditional training programs (welcome to college swimming). But they actually enjoyed it and the responses we got back on the end-of-season surveys was extremely positive. A take away from the surveys was they liked the objectivity. Here’s the expectation (TP) and now get it done!
I know short reply! Shocking 🙂
? All that is not shared... is lost.These are a snapshot of a total of 10, I track for a 48 member team. Let’s look at the attached file labeled “v2” which is “n x 50 on 2:00”. We’ll take swimmer #1, has a training pace (TP) of 24.71, this is a no slower than speed. Early season (each column is a meet performance split off official results). You can see that performances ebb and flow but not far off from (TP) the one that’s 29.41 is actually a 2IM back split as we were contemplating swimming 2IM. You can see the conference (conf) split lines up pretty well with (TP) and what they had done all season (2nd place and BT 100fly and 1st place, conference record and BT 200fly).
There is no reason to “expect being 2 seconds slower” is acceptable. BE on PACE. All 50s are from a push and mimic the race with regards to underwater work, turn speeds, cycles and tempo. It has to or they are unable to make their time. It forces them to think under fatigue and execute and the body to deliver energy at that speed. If you look at attached file “v1” you see roughly the same ebb and flow.
The most interesting information is the #O (number offered), #M (number made) and % of TO (percentage of number made from number offered) columns. Especially, the #M. You see that it really doesn’t take much to create an improvement in performance. Just because you can do a boat load of 25s at a speed that is to slow to the actual race so what.The problem is the majority of coaches don’t write down nor track this information and really miss out on some critical adjustments that can help avoid or at least try and avoid a disaster. This is all easily set-up in Excel. Don’t need to be an accountant or IT guy. I have a degree in Physical Education and I figured it out. (YouTube great resource) 🙂 Now you hopefully see why it’s a 3 season process to gain the data.
With regards to the “warm-up” Do whatever you (the athlete) think you need to, to get yourself ready to swim fast. Be it at the club or college level. I hate the “What should I do for warm-up?”. They swim some type of warm-up ever day before practice. Pick one. Second most hated is “How do you want me to swim this race?” the answer is “You will swim it very close to how you train it”. It’s a learned helplessness (T.Mc). Take OWNERSHIP.
Again it’s not that hard. You just have to work at it.
Sorry for the long diatribe. I’ll stop.
Kevin,
I didn’t do them with the college kids as we competed so often with back to back weekends, a weekend off and then another competition. I figured it was too much. Worked out fine and was still able to make adjustments when needed.When I was doing them. Yes, they had a full recovery between say 4 x 25 on 1:00 and 6 x 50 on 1:00. Lot of times it was just one test per day.
In-season evaluations. Currently I’m using “number made” especially when they make depending on the set 12-16 in a row. In fact we’re experimenting with the group staying over the summer with sets like “make 16 in a row say 50s stk on 1:00” you’re done with that set. They have responded very well and when they rattle off 12-16 in a row it’s time to adjust pace. Then comes the tricky part of “How much of an adjustment?”
Hopefully this makes sense 🙂
? All that is not shared... is lost.Don’t sorry for venting. If you look back at post from doc or oldschool you’ll see I get on my “soapbox” every now and then. It’s OK.
There are a number of coaches, master swimmers and parents that now coach their kids that think that just because they have read all the bulletins it’s just “plug and play” (if I just follow this everything will be great and wonderful) and that is the furthest thing possible. You have to remember they don’t have any data and if they did they would have posted it! He’s a researcher, and knows better. Their “n” is still one. Which was one of the problems coaches had when this first came out. Look it up.
I’ve attend clinics on USRPT and not one time did anyone post anything about the ebb and flow of a season, not once. We’re just suppose to except this because they have published 51+ bulletins. I wish it was that simple, boy do I wish. They give the impression that everyone just progresses thru and bingo gets faster.
It will take roughly 3 seasons to gain reliable data. You can take some wags and swags based off the data from practice before then. But just keep good notes.
“behind the curve” All sports look for the early maturing athlete. Think about it you’re watching college football on TV and they tout “this kid is a “true” freshman, 6’6′ and 300+lbs. and has a full beard. Really, you don’t need to have a PhD in Exercise Physiology to figure that one out. When the average HS lineman is 5’8″ and 175lbs. You have to be creative and look at lower DI or II schools. That’s the reality.
I still believe you need to adjust the training to the race specifics. “n x 25 on 1:00” as 1/2 of first 50 pace and “n x 50 on 2:00” as 2nd 50 of 100. Everything from a push.
I’ve attached some files for your review of our past season for “n x 25 stk on 1:00” and “n x 50 stk on 2:00”. Some explanations “early season”, we’re “accumulating potential” (money in the bank) “Mid S” is our mid-season shave meet and “Conf.” is what we did at the conference meet. You do have to remember that we’re old guys with a stop watch in practice versus electronic timing 🙂 and faster is always better.
It does work. But you have to work at it!
Sorry for the lengthy reply.
? All that is not shared... is lost.Let me guess. You’ve had a couple of bad days and a meet or two and YOU are ready to throw in the towel.
Did someone tell you this was easy? If they did they lied! You have to be diligent in your record keeping and not just 3 months. You need at least 3 seasons i.e. scy – lcm – scy. So you can see patterns develop, and they do. After that you might have enough information to make some sound adjustments or have enough data that someone with more experience can help you.
I think YOU are way ahead of yourself without any practical experience. Sure you’ve studied all that Dr. Rushall has posted like a number of other posters on the site and used it as your bible (blind faith is dangerous and the lack of understanding of human physiology is equally). Out in the field of human performance things don’t always happen the way it’s written (most coaches understand that). You had said you were an accountant, life is pretty orderly, rows and columns and everything adds up. But what happens when things don’t add up? You just throw up your hands and quit? Or you do you back track and see where the problem is? Welcome to coaching and most of the coaches out here are working with 24-30 swimmers, not just one, again welcome to coaching!
Coaching is like investing in the stock market. You invest your money in a couple of stocks named Fr50, Fr100 and Bu100 and at the end of the year you get a return on your investment of Fr50 3%, Fr100 2.6% and Bu100 -1% and so you either make adjustments to try and improve your return on Bu100 or maybe you change the portfolio and drop the Bu100 and add the 2IM. As coaches we are always trying to maximize your returns and we make adjustments accordingly to help our client.
Really! 3 months.
? All that is not shared... is lost.Not sure exactly why that is happening. But I do have to adjust the rest interval for my sprint male swimmers. It can be a couple times a week some weeks. Just the individual.
“Stroke cycle pace” We call it “Tempo” or Stroke Rate” e.g. 1.00 tempo would be 60 rate. You get the arithmetic. We use tempo trainers all the time in practice and there a number of different ways you can set them up and get pretty creative and the kids seem to enjoy it. FINIS makes them and Swim Outlet usually has the best price $35-40. The Pro has more functions and you can change the battery yourself. With the old ones once the battery went out you had to spend another $40. Pissed a lot of coaches off because some of us had 30 of those things.
As you get better with this you can start adding more metrics to generate “outs” miss if you can’t hold cycle (we have done sets that cycles and tempo are the objective), miss if you miss tempo or if you miss cycle and time your out. You can screw it down to the point they have to be perfect. Not sure I’d go that far with a younger swimmer and coach.
You can play what we call “beat the beep” works very well for 25s. The kids say the 50s sets (BTB) we do give them nightmares and it’s mentally stressful. You want pure 1:1, use a tempo trainer.
? All that is not shared... is lost.I have done it with club kids and college kids numerous times. I do it to keep them from over swimming the first 4 and (exploding the set) seems to help manage their speed. e.g. 50s on 1:00, with first 4 on :50. That 10 second difference gets them a little more focused and then when you give them back 10 seconds they think that’s great and do a really good job the rest of the set.
There is nothing “magical” about the rest interval. We’ve tested, as in lactate testing, and found little to no difference in lactate readings with 50s on :50 or 50s on 1:00. So, it’s not going to hurt him one way or the other.
Find something and stick with it. Record the information for a season and see what happens. The key indicator is always does it line up with what they do in a race? That’s the bottom line and you make your adjustments from there.
? All that is not shared... is lost.Lefthandedswimmer,
We don’t do “test sets”. I’m the Director of Performance for a division I college program and am responsible for the performance of 48 swimmers, 24 women and 24 men. I’d spend all week ever week just testing different swimmers. Like my response to Marlin was KISS.
Having been a club coach for 35 years,the last 23 years as CEO/Head Coach. I get what is happening and understand the frustration.
Now with a little more information about your son. You might want to consider dropping the maximum number to 10-12 especially the 50s. I have very heavily muscled massed sprinters and I have to adjust max. number for and keep a close watch over. I can tell you that there is NOTHING worse than a slow sprinter. They make your life miserable 🙂 I’ve coached and worked as a consultant for World Record Worlders, World Champions and men ranked in the top 50 in the world and SLOW is not in their vocabulary and any time they went slow in practice and didn’t achieve the objective it was miserable.
Sorry, I have to go eat dinner. You know the routine “orders from headquarters”
? All that is not shared... is lost.Marlin,
You are dialed in! You come at from a different angle. But get the results and that’s really all that matters. Many different ways to skin the cat. Sorry cat lovers 🙁Something I find interesting is that lately the posts have just been master swimmers or parents that are coaching their own kids asking questions. Yet in the beginning coaches were all over this forum and now “crickets”.
Master swimmers are more willing to post what their training pace is and what the rest interval is and have no problem playing with the rest interval in order to GO FASTER! Something coaches might learn from! Most master swimmers can’t devote 2.5 hours to training every day. The serious ones have maybe an hour, hour and half (damn families and life :)) So they need to make their time as productive as possible and the “thinkers” KISS 🙂
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ready to start coaching master swimmers :). I’m just not ready to do “battle” with people that get their training information from some “one shot wonder” that posts on the internet.
? All that is not shared... is lost.The 6.2 is what his average was per set over the course of the season. He did have days that were great he’d make 8 to 10 and then we’d have bad days and make 3 or 4. But on average 6ish. This is something I was tracking during the season just to see what it really was. I have some thoughts. But it could be just another rabbit hole and been down a few of those before.
What it shows is real data done with a group of swimmers and not one of them was able to go the “double or triple” the distance. Again when they reached the 12-16 in a row we adjusted pace so that prevents that from happening. Oh you can OFFER 30 x 25 on :30. But if you track the number they make you’ll see they aren’t even close. So, if you’re working off “I wrote a 4K or 6k workout” and you track the numbers I believe you’ll see they aren’t even close if you add up what they MADE.
“but I thought we were woefully below the expected volume”. Whose volume? What some scientist states was a guess (he even admitted that it was in one of the bulletins)?. Again, where is the data to prove or disprove? It’s what he can make. Are you going to force him to do 20 x 50, even if he can’t hold pace? You want slow, you’ll get slow and you’re really right back to traditional type training. YOU HAVE TO LET THEM STOP (addresses neural fatigue and decay of skills) WHEN THEY CAN’T HOLD PACE!, end of set and move on to the next skill session/recovery and then next set. I’ve written about this on the forum before. IT’S MESSY! IT LOOKS LIKE A ZOO! But actually is very structured once the athlete understands what it is they are trying to accomplish. YOU HAVE TO TEACH THE SYSTEM long with recording the data and making adjustments.
Yes. They make 12-14 of any set in a row “no misses” then pace is adjusted. You also have to take into consideration total numbers with different groups i.e. Mid-Dist., Sprint and Distance kids.
? All that is not shared... is lost.Here’s what I will tell you. I’d stay away from 50s fly for an age grouper as the first thing that fails is stroke technique and now you are practicing a crappy stroke. Stay with the 25s and great technical skill i.e. underwater work, perfect breakouts with “line” moving forward and great surface skill. You’ll both be OK 🙂
I’ll give you one example of a swimmer I coach that’s a 1/2 flyer. Best times are 46.34 and 1:42.78 (conference record holder).
50s on 1:00, training pace was 26.66, he did 144 at pace with an average of 7.2 per set (he did it 20 times over 22 weeks) Race split average for 50s 2, 3, & 4 of the 200 was 26.61 with a stdev of .23.
50s on 2:00, training pace was 24.74, he did 138 at pace with an average of 6.2 per set(he did it 22 times over 22 weeks) I adjusted his pace twice during season, Race splits for 2nd 50 of 100 was 24.51 and his first 50 of 200 fly was 23.89. FASTER IS NEVER A BAD THING 🙂
Just a side note: This is just one of 48 swimmers we have data on. It can be done.
Hint: once we have swimmers that can make 12-14 of any set in a row. We adjust pace. The idea of going to 30 or 40, you’ll run them right out of speed. But again great aerobic capacity. Dr. Rushall’s numbers to achieve are a SWAG and nothing more. Neither he nor MA’s dad Peter has posted anything that coaches can use with regards to results of USRPT.
I’m on my soapbox here and this is NOT directed at you.
It honestly is not that hard. We as coach just have to pay attention to the numbers and “let them talk to you”. The “weak” link in the process is coaches. I posted this at the beginning of this forum and it’s pretty much held true (having recorded data for over 20+ years) If you do a search on the forum and see how much objective data is posted other than by doc/oldschool. Coaches just won’t do it. We are great at following the “flavor of the month” we go to a clinic and some big name coach posts a couple of workouts, gives us a bunch of anecdotal information (anecdotes are not data) and we’re all in, not stopping to think what the hell was the objective of the workout, where it was in the season and what were the results. Just that it sounded neat. I know I was that coach a long time ago. Couldn’t tell you how to avoid my failures and duplicate my successes if I tried. But it sure was entertaining.
Again this was NOT directed at you.
And for those that read this and disagree. Prove me wrong.
Just don’t going hunting elephant with a BB gun.
? All that is not shared... is lost.You don’t need to tell him to slow down. You need to tell him speed up. If he can actually hold faster than the pace time you need to make an adjustment to pace. All swimmers like to have that “cushion” E.g. pace time 14.0, but they constantly go 13.6. I even see it in college swimmers. I have a couple of theories why that is. But that’s for another time.
Your “wondering” is correct and I would add adjustment to pace also. The 16-20 x 25 is 400 to 500 of 100 pace and that is the rough beginning of loss of power. True, great aerobic capacity. But not so on power. That’s been a problem with USRPT and Parametric System training. Coaches get “focused or locked in” on making high number of repeats and forget or don’t understand that they still have to address the power issue. May times early when I started using the systems I had kids say ” I can hold pace, I just can’t get up and go” and that’s where the long rest intervals come in 1:2 or >> with a set number of reps e.g. 6-8 x 25, or it may have to be 20s a distance they can cover in 8-10 seconds. Power = W/t and ATP-PC energy roughly lasts 6-10 seconds depending on which exercise physiology book you read.
The “glide” is a “survival stroke” They will make adjustments to their stroke to survive the distance. They create a platform to balance off of to breathe. Fit the breath in the rhythm of the stroke, not the stroke around the breath. Get the platform out and tempo will increase. Just a SWAG
? All that is not shared... is lost.an idea. look at his race splits and see if they line up with 100 divided in to 4th’s or 50s pace is 100 divided in half and that equals 100 pace. I know it sounds good. But it’s not that simple and most of the time not even close.
A very simple way is to use 1st 50 split and divided in 1/2 becomes 25s pace and 2nd 50 becomes 50s pace. Now you have real race numbers and how he actually swims the race and design your training speeds off those numbers. Not some WAG or SWAG.
Example using the above and a 58 LTB. 1st 50 is roughly 27.51 and 2nd 50 is roughly 30.25. Divide 1st 50 in half 13.75, now 25s speed and the 30.25, becomes 50s speed. This is mimicking the race.
Set your rest interval to whatever you think is going to allow him to achieve those times.
Technique and energy are delivered at the velocity it is swum.
Curious, how do you know that 16-20, 25s made is “pretty low”? Based on?
? All that is not shared... is lost.
