doc
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Billratio,
If you stop and think about it. We/you ask them to swim far more then a 500 at race pace everyday in practice and then we get to a meet and all of a sudden they somehow can’t repeat efforts. Does make you think.If it were me and I did that type of strategy I’d have them swim no slower than 3% of LTB in prelims as a target time.
Just thoughts,
oldschool/doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Billratio,
I think you swim fast all the time. You get cute and it may bite you in the ass. To many things could go wrong and they miss the opportunity to swim fast. In 23 years of coaching senior swimmers never told a swimmer/s just make finals and then go fast.We swam fast in prelims and then we’ll think about what adjustments we need to make for finals.
oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.KngLenny,
Not to be a jerk about this. But if you search for “unloading” you’ll see a number of discussions regarding the subject and some ideas regarding “unloading”.
I’m NOT trying to be a smarta$$. But you are asking guys that took the risks to just give you what they know. Billratio and Kevin and a couple of other guys have worked very hard with the USRPT system and with modifications/experimentation have done very well.
oldschool aka Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Knglenny,
Boat load of questions here.Not sure I understand ” fresh” the system will keep them fresh. When they can no longer hold pace they get to stop. If you have them keep on going for whatever reason then good luck.
Workouts: I know that is what you wrote. What did they accomplish? i.e. of the 16 x 25 the average made was? Again, I get you wrote it. but how much of it did they make? I really have a hard time believing that kids new to the program/system are making everything. If they are then the speeds are to slow.
If you are just starting out. Your beginning numbers are a little high and are mentally hard on the swimmer because they think that they have to complete all of them or they failed. Control them in 2 week increases adding 2-4 depending on how the swimmers are doing with the work offered. (the ART of COACHING)
4 x 25 on 1:00, should be 4-8 starting out.
6 x 50 on 1:00, should be 6-12 range.
3 x 100 on 2:00, should be in the 3-9 range. This may take 4-5 weeks to get to 9.
3 x 200 :30 rest, should be in the same range of 100s and will take as long.
2 x 400 :15 rest, should be in the 2-6 range, if you have distance swimmers.This is NOT some over night adaption curve that in a week will have kids swimming best times. It takes time for them to adapt to the training.
I took over as Director of Performance for a college program with kids that were some what use to swimming at race pace. But had a recovery day in between and now have NO recovery days and they swim 3 and sometimes 4 race pace sets in a workout and really have no complaints. Sure they are tired. We just came thru a stretch where we had 3 meets in 3 consecutive weekends, traveled over 5,300 miles in two weeks and all swimmers swam within 3% of LTB each weekend.
Just some thoughts,
oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.Try and give some thoughts to both posts.
Billratio, Nice. It’s fun when you start to see the picture in the puzzle. It’s been there all along just needed to look at it differently. You will add so much more value to practice and when the kids get it. It’s a blast. Sure beats guessing or not even having a clue.
again nice job!
Rick,
For the girl swimming the 200. You could test 6 x 50 on 1:00 figure avg and stdev (this would be roughly 50s 2, 3 and 4 of 200). Keep the 4 x 50 on 2 as this is very close to what they go out in for the 200 and also 2nd 50 of 100 (kinda a bonus, 2 times from 1 set) I’d guess had you done 6 x 50 test she would have been closer to the 28s. You can also do 3 x 100 on 2:00 for free (if you do it in stroke I’d do 75s better speed and quality of movement) and it should come very close to her back 1/2 100 of the 200. If I read the post correctly you took her 4 x 50 on 2 time and had her try and hold that with 20 rest? Better believe she’s not going to make many and the wheels will spin off the wagon. The boat is sinking. She is probably VERY thankful you had this paradigm shift.Years ago I spoke with PhD types from USA Swimming, East Germany and a few other countries and almost to a person they believed that holding the time was the most important thing and that you adjust the rest interval so that it’s on the shortest possible interval that allows them to hold the time. i.e. 4 x 50 on 2:00, could be 1:30 or 1:20, etc. as long as they can hold the time.
I think, not knowing anything about your 4 kids, that you are making the right decision.
I’m coaching college now and have a couple of kids (internationals) that believe that “more work” is somehow the answer to getting faster. I finally convinced one to drop down and improve his speed and guess what he went faster. I just tell them I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.Again I think you are making the right move.
Keep us posted
oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.BINGO! Now we’re cooking with gas! You’ve established a program to work off of which is USRPT. You know it works and have had good results and now you can start to “tweak” it a little. If your hunches don’t pan out you just move right back to USRPT and no one is the wiser. That’s how systems/theories move forward.
You will get no argument from me on the fundamental principles of USRPT. Dr. Rushall has done a ton of work for swim coaches if they would just stop and think about.
The key I think is race results to the sets. If you notice that “n x 25 on 1:00” doubled is the time +/- .2 equals the first 50 of their 100, then you have something. Maybe you look at “n x 50 on 2:00” and notice that comes pretty close to the back ½ of their 100. Maybe you notice that “n x 50 on 1:00” is the rough average of 50s 2, 3 & 4 of a 200. All of this will have a certain standard deviation and you just have to look at it and say 34.67 race result and a 34.13 training pace. You’re pretty dang close. You can use this information in so many ways to help the swimmers understand why it is important to hold pace and make more. It creates numerous teachable moments.
Say, you look and see that we’re not taking out the 200 fast enough. But you know that they may have a hard time swimming a high number of “n x 50 on 2:00” might take “n x 50 on 2:00” divide it in half and have them swim 25s on :40, maybe 12-16 and see what happens.
Side note. I’ve moved from club coaching to college and interesting you mention swimmers being sore. The first week I had the kids doing this some of the comments were, “I’ve never been this sore from swimming. But it feels good”.
Let us know how it goes,
oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.you are right about the “always being tapered” comments. A rough average is 1.5 to 3% improvement over the course of a season for the majority of athletes. Regardless of if it occurs a little at a time or you try and win the lottery at the big meet. Looks impressive all the big time drops but when you put pencil to paper still 1.5-3%. Each season I would ask my kids “do you want to try and drop time during the season or wait until the end?” to a swimmer that said they wanted to improve a little throughout the season. “it made the work they were doing worth it” Basically they want to get paid on their investment. Didn’t matter to them that they didn’t have huge time drops at the season end meet they had gone fast all season long. If they are making adaption they should improve at anytime during the year. We are so stuck in this “well you’re in the aerobic phase or heavy training and you’re not going to swim fast now. But just wait until…” and then until doesn’t happen. Now what?
the 100 free question. You’re going to be about dead on. I figure 26.41/28.18 for the 54 flat.
This would be a very typical division of total time to race splits for the 100fr. Hang in here. the splits you can figure by a percent of total time and use that for swimmers races. Example the 26.41 is 48.90% of the 54.00, the 28.18 is 52.19% of 54. So you can make an Excel sheet and just plug in a time and it will come VERY close to what they need to be holding or go in that event. You can do it for any event just depends on how detailed you want to get. i.e. 500 and 2IM all works. You can “tweak” it for each swimmer. But what you find is they are all pretty much in the same %.Off to sway some recruits.
Let me know how it goes
oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.I would agree with “ryanupper” on a recover day. If you don’t let her/them stop when she/them can no longer hold time. I’m pretty sure you do, so the issue of a recovery day while maybe beneficial (mentally) is up to you.
This has been the biggest adjustment for the “college” swimmers I work with. They think that they need a recover day about every two days. I spent over a week in a classroom explaining the system in detail and still have individuals (Eastern Europeans mainly) that think they have to spend 2+ hours working at below 80% and that this is somehow the way to faster performance. It will drive you crazy! All I hear is “more work” and they can’t hold times for !@#$ on 14 x 50 free on 1:00. But they need more work. Distance swimmers are the worst! I’ve even had them read an article from track (speed first) about marathon running and you would think I was the Antichrist.
The ideas/theory/system Dr Rushall talks about can be used in any situation. We as coaches have to think and apply them to our situation. Example: distance swimmers. In order for you to keep your job (just kinda of important) they need to do 400s. Then have them do 400s at use mile pace and when they can’t hold pace they stop and move to something else i.e secondary stroke say 200 fly and you do a set of “50s on 1′” at 200 fly pace. I think you guys get the idea. We have to be thinkers! Using sound fundamental principles of physiology (Dr Rushall’s work has saved coaches that are really interested a ton of work) and designing our workouts based on that.
Sorry for the rant! but we just have to be better! We have to be THINKERS!
Oldschool aka doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Billratio,
We will train both on the same day. The primary emphasis maybe the 50 so we’d do 2 x starts to foot touch be under “25s on 2:00” pace. They then would work on skills for the next set which might be “n x 25 on 2:00” so they would work on underwater speed to and through the breakout carrying speed to surface we say “work from low to high energy” right now they can do eight on or faster than target time. They would recover and come back with 2 more starts as above. Then we would move on to 100 emphasis which could be “25s on 1:00” or “50s on 2:00” back ½ speeds. The “50s on 2:00” they have been offered 8 and the average number made for the group is 6, pretty solid for this part of the season. They do their recovery/skill and finish with maybe “25s on 1:00” stroke, recover and go home. The next time the primary emphasis could be the 100, so the order of the sets would change to give them the best opportunity to improve their numbers made.
I have no correlations of “n x 50 on 1:00” to 100 pace. My guess is if you do them keep the numbers offered low in the 8-12 range.
Lactic Acid is going to be there. But in that recovery time frame will drop quickly in the first couple of seconds if they are fit. It’s what is causing some of the failure to maintain speed and disrupts the CNS ability to fire. Not sure you can really avoid it. Happens to part of the race. It hurts with LA levels in the 12-16 mmol/L range and you have to get use to “being comfortable being uncomfortable” I get the USRP research. But sometime you have to feel the “sting” doesn’t need to be a lot. We say “at some point in the race you have to face the demon”
Long time ago I was into d/S, cycles or stroke counts. But what was happening the kids thought that it was better to reach (actually they would overreach) out in front and then finish hard in back and we had some shoulder issues and I quit it and the shoulder problems went away. Now I just tell them. Let gravity put the arm/hand in the water, swim with no tension and when you can see your hand start the stroke. No swimming goes on in the first 8-10 inches from the top of the water and applying pressure then only creates shoulder issues (they rotate the head of the Humerus into the long head of the bicep) and now you have shoulder problems. Really try and keep it pretty simple any more.
Some things to think about
oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.Billratio,
Replied to your other post before I read this one so my bad.
I just retired from club coaching (35 years) and have moved (in town) to work as an assistant for a DI school so been a little busy. Just as a reference. I have 4 girls under 23.52 in the 50 and 51.21 in the 100, which I do the planning and work with on a daily basis. I also work with the guys but you asked about women.
We do “25s on 2:00” speed is determined by dividing their 50 time in ½. I use their 1st 50 split of the 100 divided in ½ for “25s on 1:00” The 100 back half pace is determined by using the 100 back ½ split for “50s on 2:00” or your 1:30. Only 2 of the girls regularly swim the 200 free and I use their average speed from 50s 2, 3, & 4 to determine pace for “50s on 1:00” All work is from a push. All times generated are “no slower than speeds” and USRP rules apply for all sets.Because the majority of them don’t really swim anything other than free they are on a cycle of four days where primary event is 50/100 free and 2 days primary is 200 free with any secondary work being “25s on 1:00” and “50s on 2:00” of a stroke other than free. (Need them for relays).
Your question on doing both 50s on 1:00 and 1:30. It’s fine. What I would do is just have one day where she goes “50s on 1:00” and devote 2 days to “50s on 2:00 or 1:30” whichever one gives her the best chance at holding pace.
The question of “one better than the other” depends on what you’re training for. I would caution you that spending a lot of time with “50s on 1:00” can run the speed and power right out of a true sprinter, especially with high numbers. You have to be careful in how you sequence the work within the workout and the number you’re asking her to do.
Just read your reply.
I remember this girl. We had some correspondences about her.
The whole speed thing is a tough nut to crack. Couple of years ago I went to track websites and looked at what the top sprint coaches did for development of speed. The common dominator was shortening the distance to achieve the speed needed then they slowly move the distance out to where they could hold that speed i.e. speed constant and distance increasing. Sounds easy enough but in swimming we have all kinds of issues e.g. can’t hear, 4 people in a lane, could you see 4 track guys in one lane all going at roughly the same time and we have this thing about always having to finish at a wall. You get the idea.
So we have to get creative. I use highway cones (Lowe’s or HD has them) on the bottom of the pool to at least give them an idea of where they have to go to and for use in deep ends. I made a device that just clips on to the lane line that again just gives them a reference point. Perfect no. It’s better than nothing and cheap to make.
On the 20s or any distance that doesn’t finish at the wall you can still figure a time for that use “Distance divided by Time” will equal Velocity in y/S and you can plug that in to any distance. Example: use her 50 BT of 24.84, 50/24.84 is 2.012 y/S. Then take the 20 and divided it by 2.012 and it would be in the 9.94 second range. She now is no longer annoyed Excel can do this in a heartbeat and you can do it for all kinds of distances 20s, 30s, etc. Just put your highway cone in and go.
On “flag to flag” work. I’ve used this to develop power. They start from under the ba flags (Hwy cone) in a prone float position and must immediately get to full speed and finish under the opposite flags. If you can you can go off a whistle (most places have a heart attack because of the LGs) or off first movement. It’s about being explosive.
Just some thoughts,
Oldschool aka Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Billratio,
Well 11.75 and 4 weeks later 11.75 I think answers your question.
How many do you have her do?
What kind of recovery time 1:1 or 1:2 etc.
Do you do any 12.5s or 20s at race velocity?
Any mid-pool work i.e. flag to flag type work.Just trying to get an idea before creating any thoughts
Oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.Kevin,
Thanks for the article!After having read both articles from Beliaev and Rushall I’ve come to the conclusion that neither knows what the other is really talking about. My guess, neither wants to.
One is selling a program so they can make money and one I think their ego has eaten their brain. Always has to be right and sends that signal anytime I’ve heard him speak.
Here comes the rant.
If one truly understood the Parametric System they would know that they never mention periodization and then would know it’s far from “traditional training”. Yes, they use energy system terminology and who cares! If it helps coaches’ better understand or visualize that something is occurring then so be it. Because something is occurring 6 x 50 on 50 holding 30 sec. and 40 x 50 on 50 holding 30 sec. are not the same thing whether you call it shift in energy systems or whatever, again who cares!.
If one knew about what they were speaking they would know that technique is also a huge part of the system. In fact they have used the metrics of d/S and tempo in set construction along with pace. So is the mental aspect and fatigue is also addressed with some pretty damn interesting computer software.
The attitude of it took USRPT to enlighten everyone about the importance of technique and the mental approach because never before in swimming did anyone think of that before USRPT. Really interesting.
I’ll ask some questions: where did the number of repeats recommended in USRPT come from? What are they based off of? I have my guess. How does USRPT address the issue of development of power? It is also a concern in the Parametric System if you’re not paying attention.
The use of references to backup “claims” of what it does. When the Parametric System was being developed in the USSR at that time it was considered a state secret. They didn’t have independent research where it belonged to the team that worked to develop it. It belonged to the state. One doesn’t just go around publishing those things and expect to not piss off the higher ups which had very serious consequences. When it first came to the US, I want to say late 80s to early 90s it caused all kinds on commotion within the sports community in Russia and believe it or not still does. Funny thing about those Russians, they appear to hold a grudge for a very long time.
In the article Rushall uses 17 references 8 of which are his? Does make you think.
USRPT is well researched, down and dirty with minimal effort or any detailed understanding to implement it. Nothing wrong with that what so ever. It has gotten more coaches to think about what it is they are doing and that’s a positive, every time.
If each would just stop and think about it I think that there are more similarities than differences.
Looked at the European Championships and seen what the Russian are doing?
Doc aka oldschool
? All that is not shared... is lost.Kevin,
Interesting question, your controlled example is Parametric System Strategy I with “speed constant, distance increasing”.Your question regarding periodization within the USRPT/Parametric Systems is also interesting. If you are coming from a more traditional approach say Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky’s “Programming and Organization of Training” or Dr. Tudor Bompa’s “Theory and Methodology of Training” You will struggle big time. I know I was there. It’s a totally different paradigm and one that takes constant attention to.
In the Parametric System (PS) development of the energy systems really happens in unison with each set (there are defined sets in the PS) and as you move through they will roughly progress together over the course of the season. We call “it climbing the mountain”. There is no singular emphasis on early season aerobic phase followed by anaerobic threshold, then Vo2 and on and on.
If you understand energy systems (I know bad words for the USRPT purists) both systems utilize endurance through speed. If you think about it low numbers with high speed to start, whether you control them or they are uncontrolled, as the athlete makes adaptation defined by increasing numbers made it becomes more endurance e.g. 4-6 x 25 (hurts like a 100) at the start of the season but is not the same as 20 x 25 later on (hurts like a 500). I hope that makes sense.
I think you are right with the mental approach in it’s a lot easier to face in a controlled approach of 8 x distance then may be 12 x distance then constantly seeing 20 x distance. We’ve done it both ways and the input from the kids is they like stating out with small numbers and build throughout season. “Climbing the mountain”
Thoughts on your “note” “incrementally adjusting performance criteria in a set to stimulate improvement” “The big question is how do you plan this, and do/can you plan this at all? Any and all adjustments we make are based off the athlete’s improvement in numbers when they can achieve “maxing out” twice in a row. e.g. 12 for 12 then may be later in the week 12 for 12 again. We will either adjust speed/pace or increase numbers never both at the same time. This gets REAL messy if you have say 20 plus kids in a group all adapting at different rates and at different times in the season. I guess short answer is no
Thoughts on peaking/unloading question. We use 3-4 days much like Salo, time to drop the bottom out then drop the bottom out. Day 1 a 25% reduction in set volumes or number of sets, Day 2 another 25% Day 3 is an extended meet warm-up and Day 4 is meet warm-up. There is nothing you can do in those 4 days that going to change the outcome of their performances. Years ago Ernie Maglischo told me “when in doubt error on the side of REST.
Just another idea and does work well for an in-season meet that you would like to swim fast at without too much disruption to the cycle.Parametric System, I’m afraid that boat has sailed unless you want to pay 3S. Over 17 plus years ago it was the “flavor of the month” and the guys doing it had very good results even with a little knowledge of how the whole system worked. But you have to be diligent in your record keeping and I’m afraid to say that for the majority of swim coaches that’s not a strong skill and most went on to something else. I know of only two coaches that still use the PS (not thru 3S)and they mainly stick to teaching it to their staffs and may be do an occasional clinic.
Soapbox here. I see the same thing happening with USRPT. Sounds great “let the kids’ record numbers and time themselves” and all you have to do is stand back and watch technique. RRRRRight. I think there is a post just recently that talked about the kids started out recording numbers and it’s become hit and miss. My question is how do coaches make adjustments if they have no data? Just because you wrote down 20 x’s something doesn’t mean that’s what they made.
Just thoughts.
? All that is not shared... is lost.
