lefthanded swimmer
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Hi Demuecke:
I watched the race you mentioned with Yuya and it’s interesting about him doing something different and still holding his own. Cseh has always puzzled me how he goes as fast as he does with practically no kick. He also has such a high arm recovery that I am also surprised his shoulders aren’t toast!
If my son is able to do anything with his strengths it would probably be stay under longer on ways. He is too heavy to pause like Yuya and needs his kick so Cseh style isn’t an option.
Thanks for thinking outside the box!
I agree with you Doc on data. I don’t want to know what sets Michael Andrews can do (although that might be interesting, it’s just not likely applicable). I want to see a team of 150 or more average to above average swimmers with the data for ALL of them! Thanks for sharing your data Doc.
Thanks on the float test. It kind of makes sense though, on 200 fly your natural position would be more apparent at the slightly slower tempo (although the elite swimmers swim 200 fly at a pretty damn fast tempo!).
My son has been doing better by figuring out that day 4 is a rest day and we just don’t swim on that day. If we swim 4, it’s a waste and likely to make 5 or 6 weak too.
FYI: I just got back from vacation where we swam in a 25M pool. It didn’t have a line in it. My son always has some trouble losing tempo into the wall. In this pool without a line he didn’t loose tempo AND it was even a longer distance (25M rather than 25Y). It’s a mental thing, I suppose with knowing the wall is close..anyway, something to work through and thought it was worth sharing!
No disrespect or tongue lashing meant. You are correct that I said he was a late bloomer (14 no man’s voice, no adams apple but 5’9″, 165). When you grab his wrist or knees you quickly know that he is larger framed. You have been very very helpful and I appreciate it! On the prone float he was at the 30 degree legs with upper body floating. That was a good test. He probably will be borderline for 200’s. Overall he hasn’t shown a lot of aptitude for 200 fly when looking back over the years. He actually prefers to focus on 100’s and is pretty solid on fly, back, and breast. I just didn’t want to limit him or for him to limit himself. I guess he can try to add it back when more physically developed or not??
Thanks Doc.
Thanks for the numbers Doc and I agree with you on Rushall lack of data. I don’t think you know my swimmer well enough, understandably so, to know that I am using what you say for his 50 pace. I’ll forgive your angst as I know you work with fully developed college swimmers exclusively and I do not! I do take exception to what you say that I don’t know what I am doing (You sound a bit like a pious traditional coach spouting out a years worth of training systems mumbo jumbo). Maybe my swimmer will succeed is spite of me much like the best ones do with coaches all around the country where the coaches think they are playing a huge part in that success (which is largely untrue).
As for tempo. I don’t see why you attack this. My son developed slow tempo doing traditional/survival swimming. Part of starting USRPT was to develop faster tempo (thus faster swimming). We started out doing mostly 25 repeats and got his pace down and speed way up (on the 25 repeats). However, in a test set for a 100 he is fading AND not replicating personal bests. He practically couldn’t do a 200 fly test set and goes out way too fast. Letting him swim the “race” is causing him to not even being able to hold finish the race. I think it’s a byproduct of USRPT (that I was hoping was fixable or I wouldn’t have posted!).
As for Michael Andrews..I don’t get a rats ass about his training or Michael Phelps training. They are outliers and anyone with common sense will know not to try to replicate the outlier.
The second part of my post is simple (and also data driven). Is it unusual to get less production out of the 50s set versus the 25s? This part I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t have a clue. You are right. It’s why I am here. I don’t know if it matters or if it is unusual. If I had 15 kids in a group I might be able to figure this out, but I don’t. I have one kid.
I am not too emotional about this. I am looking for data and ideas not a group hug or anything else of that nature. I understand data more than ANYONE here having been a CPA for a multinational managing 7 currencies, 400 Million in debt (also multicurrency) while compiling actual results, Forecast x 10 for 70 entities. I also am not a swimmer but played an explosive sport-tennis on a very high level and I bring a different perspective. These characteristics should be embraced by others on here. If it’s a forum for just coaches then it should say so. I am interested, well read and participating in a forum where there are mostly crickets chirping (not a lot of people here..get it?)
Rushall did make some interesting observations about traditional training in that kids don’t do what the sets say to do. They don’t complete things, they cut corners, cheat, pull into the wall, skip sets, sandbag sets to “whip” someone on another, go to the bathroom, miss days because of school or whatever and the coach thinks it’s a good set because no one is fading into oblivion. He had a few good nuggets in the bulletin but his numbers on USRPT sets is what conflicts my data. I am here because I am a data of one.
Hi Kevin.
I am traveling in CA this summer and was hoping to try to find a place for my son to practice on vacation. He does USRPT and is 14. If you don’t mind me asking where you are, I might want to join you or someone you know that does some sort of sprint type training. Thanks!
Thanks for the additional information Doc. He took a day off and is ready to get back to work! I reminded him that test sets off the wall could be at LEAST 2 seconds off for a true 100. What are your thoughts? I guess it could be even more if you are training anaerobically under USRPT. I also wonder on test sets what is the best producer of results in regards to warm up. Moderate warm up no sprints. Short warm up with some short sprints. What’s your experience on meet warm ups?
You’re obviously a voice of reason. The swimmer is frustrated and I am too. Sorry for venting. It is hard for me to realize anything we do is a 3 seasons out process when the swimmer is a late bloomer. Once 3 seasons are over, it’s time for college and too late. He is already behind the curve. During 12’s, while everyone winning is either lithe as a butterfly or man sized with a new prominant adam’s apple, my son turned into Bobby Hill overnight. Now that he is changing physically we aren’t seeing a lot of results with USRPT. It’s frustrating to see done with 25 repeats at 14.5 when his 100 test set (rested) is at 15.3 for laps 2-4 which is slower than when we started USRPT!
My take away from your helpful comments is to look at the data and make adjustments.
Hi Marlin,
I realize the mixed rest periods aren’t ideal but, for some reason, at the exact same pace, 20 seconds shuts him down in about 10 repeats and he hits over 25 at 30 seconds easily. I switched the set in the middle to get him a little more race pace work as this happened with 2 of the 25 sets. Probably not ideal but made it where we weren’t just swimming 800 yards race pace for the day! 🙂 We will try 25 second rest (in between) for the next repeat of the set.Doc,
I see your reply on rest times. Any idea why the above would happen? Is it normal? My goal was to nail a time with an easier than 1:1 ratio of work/rest and try to duplicate that with a closer to 1:1 rest before dropping a target time.
Does anyone look at stroke cycle pace a lot? I like to look at it. My son has had such a slow pace from “survival swimming” and we have put a lot of emphasis on it.
USRPT seems very suitable for short course with heavy use of under waters. We really have focused on exactly the number of kicks we want, where are we surfacing, what is the time underwater, kicks per second (ideally around 2 kicks per second). Things he could never ever think about until race time before.
I wish there was a program that offered anything remotely sprint training here, but there isn’t. I coached my son when he was 6-9 so he could do soccer too. We never did a lot of yardage and it was all technique work, lots of fins with fly (obviously short yardage). Top 5 in state at the time. We then moved to the vaulted club team that was distance oriented. He worked so hard, struggled and had very little to show for it (part of it was being a late bloomer). He did well the first year with the club team but fell off the last 3 years. He wanted a change himself. He is getting to present USRPT as a school project actually so he understands it better than the average swimmer and has actually studied it a good deal himself.
Doc…thanks for your insight from a collegiate level..wow. You wouldn’t happen to have a list of colleagues that have low yardage high intensity sprint programs would you? 😉 My hometown team isn’t an option!
Best regards,
Patrick
Athens, GAThanks Marlin and Doc. So great to get numbers from you both and real data on what works! Thanks for confirming about the 50’s. 3-5 x race distance just didn’t make sense for those and we thought we were doing something wrong!
Doc…when we fail, we fail…no junk yardage. I get your point. I’ve painfully watched all the junk yards I can stand from the stands for years! 🙂 Watching my son with 22″ thighs and weighing 30 pounds or more than any lane mate not do a single dolphin in practice to survive (when he dolphins as far as possible in a meet) and the coach wondering if he is giving it his all. (It’s been my observation that the kids that struggle or even quit the high yardage program are more muscular sprinter types).
We retrenched a bit with times on sets to make sure we weren’t pie in the skying too much. Example: Sunday, he kept time at 14.75 for 25 fly with 30 second rest to begin, modified to 20 seconds rest as he progressed. He cranked out 28. Today, we kept the same time with 20 second rest to begin, modified to 15 seconds as he progressed. Failed 24 and 28. Thursday when he repeats this set, we will keep 14.75 with 15 second rest, if he gets > 14 without fail, I’ll drop the time the following time.
How often do your kids do test sets? Are they before a regular practice? Being that it is long course season we won’t have many meets to track progress. (We are focusing more on short course and replicating short course racing because of being bigger build and good off the walls and no plans for the Olympics!).
Thanks again!
I try to alternate sets since he is still 14.
Well the data part is easy as I am an accountant armed with a spreadsheet (I’m not a real coach). We wanted to do USRPT so here I am coaching! 🙂 Just so I understand your data above: Are you saying your above swimmer averaged 6.2 repeats per this 50 fly set? I thought this didn’t comply with the 3 to 5 times race distance per set. Your numbers are more in line with what my son is doing (6 repeats on a 50 but I thought we were woefully below the expected volume).
Also, you are saying a 12-14 (no fails) made of a 25 set with 1:1 rest/work, you adjust pace? My son wasn’t able to hold the same time he could do on the above set when performing a test set (pushing off the wall).
These questions are the kind of things I am struggling!
Your breakout and reply was SUPER helpful! Especially the breakdown of the components.
Thanks for your help!!!
Thank you guys for your insight! I will also add that for 2 months we have almost exclusively done 25’s and a few 15s. The reason behind this has been to develop tempo (again..coming from survival swimming sets). We have achieved this goal. His tempo now is great for the 25 repeats and I’ll add that at sprint pace he has very good technique for all strokes. He is sound. HOWEVER, we just added back 50 sets and he failed on the 5th or 6th with a 1 minute rest! I just need an experienced coach to tell me “this is expected. Add the 50’s back to the sets you are doing and he will be fine!”. He and I are a little bit in panic mode. He was swimming first 50 pace of a 200. The stroke was fly and the fails look like he had a stroke (pun intended).
Thanks for your reply. Your suggested pace calculations are pretty close to what he is doing. I will admit he goes faster than that pace at times (maybe 4 times per set). I also admit I like seeing him enjoy going faster than the true desired pace! How do you tell a kid to slow down?
I don’t really know that 16-20 of 25’s is low. I played with USRPT sets with his older brother at times in the past and noted two differences: the brother stayed tighter within the prescribed time range and typically cranked out mid 20’s before 3rd fail. I have no knowledge base to say 16-20 is low other than after 2 months we haven’t seen a real change in time improvement for 100 times which leaves me wondering if our training output should be increased by: 1. sticking closer to the prescribed calculated interval (not blowing past it) 2. doing more sets of 1:2 rest.
Despite the lack of time improvement there has been an adaptation period of improvement of stroke pace. From doing long (traditional) training, he had a lot of “glide” to his strokes. He really had around a 1.5 second pace for his 100’s pace. Most data shows that good swimmers swim 1.1-1.2 seconds per stroke for 100’s. He now can at least swim at that pace. He just didn’t hold it during the recent test set.
