ryanupper
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looks like the site has been infected with chatbots
moving to myofit[dot]ai
Will have all the training material and more on there soon
some of the books are older versions of the current book. The technique macrocycle and the masters swimmer handbook are the most recent. I don’t have the baseball manual. Email me for a copy ryan@myodurham.com
I’m building a custom GPT with the technical training material. So far it’s getting better each instance and I should have a beta demo for the community by January.
Ryan Upper
USRPT Coaching InstructorHi Scott,
At his age a 50 is not really a sprint. I would train the 50 as an adult 100. Of course, technique and muscular development are the primary factors in development so don’t focus on conditioning (he’s 11), focus on efficiency. If he can complete a lap with 1 less stroke every few weeks you are on the right track.
email me ryan@myodurham.com for the training manual
Initially, It will be a lot of the same traditional workouts because the “AI” is really an “LLM”. It will see 99 workouts of 10×100 on a 1:20 and negate the 1 performance-specific workout.
Long-term, unless the collecting program realizes that major improvements come from technical adjustments the model will continuously recommend conditioning-based workouts with little regard to understanding swim-specific technical/muscular improvements.
Ryan Upper
USRPT Coaching InstructorThe first training workshop is this Thursday at 3 pm EST! It will be recorded and reposted on Substack and the discord channel. Some things I will be going over:
A brief overview of the 4 pillars of MyoFit swimming and USRPT
Technical Excellence at Specific Speed
Race Psychology and Instinct
Conditioning and Energy Delivery Architecture
Coaching Development
How to build a workout
An overview of the USRPT manual
Future workshop topics and scheduleHop on the discord channel for any questions, invite friends, and help build the community!
Hey Swimmers,
I’m glad to introduce a new learning-focused community for swimming.
What is a “learning-focused” community?
Almost all other communities in the swimming world (and other sports) are unstructured groups spitting out pieces of sometimes useful information. Ask a training question, and get a bunch of anonymous folks throwing in a tip or two. This is not an efficient way to learn a new skill, especially a complex skill like swimming. Those groups are better at simplistic instant information like “where’s a good pizza joint in Durham?”.
A learning-focused community uses formal, and non-formal learning structures to develop a deeper level of skill in a particular subject. In this community structure, qualified coaches will be designated and will answer questions with insightful answers usually including additional learning materials like research studies or videos. The community will also provide opportunities for your own learning through lessons, posted training material, and workshops. Essentially, if you present a lot of material in a logical order with skill progression, you will learn a difficult topic faster.
What will you see in the community?
There will be different free and paid tiers in the community. Initially, everyone will be in the free community channels and premium services like personalized training plans, video analysis by qualified instructors, and coaching certifications will be added. Every tier will see monthly video workshops that will teach a skill, discuss a coaching concept, or improve knowledge about swimming.
The first free workshop will be on Thursday, November 17th at 3 pm EST. The workshop will be via Zoom and coordinated in the Discord service. The first topic will be: “Explaining the pillars of Race Pace Training and how to build a basic workout”. The workshop will be recorded and posted in the community channel as well.
Future free workshops will include basic swimming technique overviews, how-to train different skill levels and scale the intensity of workouts, and basic dryland training with the proper use of equipment.
Hope to see you there and the first rule of the community is to invite a friend!
Join the USPRT discord: https://discord.gg/MVdYvvFZam
New info is coming to the newsletter and community:
sign up for the USRPT newsletter:
https://myofitswim.substack.com/Coaching a team means improving the biomechanical, mental, and psychological capabilities of athletes in a sport/race/competition. Improvement is prioritized – Work output is coincidental.
Managing a team is simply showing up and giving athletes things to do to fill the assigned time period. Work output is prioritized – Improvement is coincidental.
Sounds like the team has a bunch of managers. This is reinforced by swimming websites that post workouts from “top coaches” that are just sets and distances without any explanation of what was being instructed or improved. “World Champ coach says 10×100 k/d/s/blue zone is his favorite [random time of year] set for improving [any stroke].”
Oh, I don’t have time to find this but there was also something about in order to maintain depth while moving forward you need to angle your body down 3-4 degrees anyway. I think this was to counteract buoyancy. If this is the case it means you would be applying some energy in the vertical component just to maintain depth.
I know the one study that looked at this. It showed the reduction of drag at certain levels of water depth and the 3-4 feet had the least drag coefficient, that’s great, unrealistic but great. Because if you are 3-4 feet down, then you have to come back up 3-4 feet.
I’m sure we are thinking of the same study. I think Rushall commented on it. I would say 3-4 feet isn’t that deep if you look at the center/bottom of your torso to the surface – your upper body thickness is probably 6-8 inches deep.
I see it as an energy conversion and conservation problem. I have the most energy pushing off the wall and I can hold a streamline to conserve that speed. This is the best time to get a little deeper and into a lower drag area without expending more energy. I have noticed when the underwater kick is strong, that I feel like I’m accelerating to the surface maybe with help from buoyancy.
Caveats: If at any point you feel slower underwater than on the surface somethings not working for you and you’re better off just getting to the top after a turn. Also, I don’t think this is going to get studied anytime soon so I would use whatever is fastest for each athlete. I think a higher level athlete can get away with adding a little “arc” to extend their underwater distance but most will benefit from fundamentally simple underwater streamlines with kicks to the surface.
For fun debate, Dressel underwater: https://youtu.be/wy6HzIwKL9A?t=58
Rushall’s technique macrocycle advocates a narrow fast kick with a still upper body. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom (which doesn’t bother me at all), but also what the best swimmers in the world are doing and what seems to be more effective in my swimmers (a wider kick trying to generate more propulsion and slightly more upper body movement).
He was more than likely advocating for minimizing movements during the era when everyone was doing full-body super-undulation. That style has faded away. Kick from the hip and keep the upper body “quiet” and streamline if not still. Sprinters can get away with moving the upper body more if the tradeoff is generating more force from the kick than the frontal drag from the upper body’s drag shadow.
As for the feet distance, Rushall didn’t do a ton of writing on turbulence. He was mostly focused on drag reduction and combating the lift force theory (which he was 100% correct on, we aren’t a wind-powered hydrofoil). From my own testing, the feet should be about hips distance apart. This is backed by research in a number of other areas: 1) injury reduction and efficiency in cycle pedaling where pedals contain spacers to align with the hips, 2) separating the fingers by 5-6 mm during the swim pull to increase the compression surface of the hand (increasing the turbulent area around the hand) and 3) the law of least resistance – when an object travels through a medium it will find either the shape or path of least resistance.
What all this means is that when the feet are together they are probably pressing against mostly the same water and it is flowing around a smaller object. When the feet are separated enough there are 2 turbulent pockets that compete for flow around the feet. Widening the feet outside of the hips creates a muscular or biomechanical inefficiency and increases the leg drag shadow.
What I notice in my own training is that when my kick gets tired the feet start to get closer together to use the same pocket of pressure which allows them to travel through the water easier. This is just like the wrist bending back or the elbow “dropping” during the pull when you start to fatigue. A vertical forearm with a stiff wrist is harder to maintain but also generates more force and thus more power.
As for underwater swimming, there has been a lot of research on this. Push off the wall at 12-18 inches, streamline glide at a 10 degree down angle for 4-6m to about 3-4 feet underwater (depending on pushing power), start kicking when you feel your speed drop to your kicking speed, then rotate to a 5-10 degree up angle with smallish-fast kicks. You should feel like the kicking and buoyancy are accelerating you to the surface.
Ryan
