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#2079
billratio
Participant

Our season was only 13 weeks long for sections swimmers and we didn’t start going full USRPT until about 2 weeks into it. I don’t think the intensity fell off but by the time we were at 11 weeks we were already resting so I can’t say that it wouldn’t have.

For most of our swimmers we did something close to 3 day protocol. Sections was on a Friday so most of them went 75% on Monday, 50% on Tuesday, 25% on Wednesday and just warm up, a few turns and a couple starts on Thursday. Most of these girls were used to starting some kind of taper three weeks out so they were not happy with only one week. I cut yards a little more for a few of them (75% on Thursday/Friday then 50%, 40%, 25%, warm up).

One other important thing to note is that most of these girls were only doing 1 or 2 events at sections (3 or 4 for some). So when we really started focusing on our section events we dropped all the other training. So with a good 200 swimmer who we ultimately decided to have do the 100 back and 100 free we cut all her 200 training out and wound up offering more 100 fee/back work. So for the last 4 weeks before sections she was just doing 30-40 25s free and 30-40 25s back(each through 2 rounds). I think that might have tricked her into thinking she was getting more rest but she just was dropping irrelevant training. We had a few swimmers only doing 1 event at sections so they really had very little to do for a 2 hour practice so upping the turns and starts made it feel more like taper for them too.

I can go back and post more exact numbers if you want me to but I don’t have my workouts with me right now. I really don’t know that I’m the best person to ask. I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just thankful it worked out for them. As long as your girls are consistently swimming at race pace, I’d feel pretty good about it.

Our intervals stayed pretty much the same the whole year. The backstroker I talked about in an earlier post moved to @:50 instead of @:40 for the last 2 weeks because she was struggling so much.

It was pretty much free and back @:40 and fly and breast @:50. With a few exceptions. 500 free 50s @:50 and 200 free 50s @1:00. The reason we did more rest for the 200 50s was they were the same swimmers doing the 500 and the 200 at sections and they felt like they couldn’t go any faster than 500 pace when doing 200 pace 50s. I cave too easily as a coach but when I gave the extra 10 seconds I think it helped them psychologically.

I wish I could say we stuck more to exact USRPT but I’m just giving you what we really did. Having multiple rounds of sets at the same pace seemed to help us complete more at race pace. My girl who only trained for the 100 and 50 all year wasn’t going to complete 60 straight 25s at 100 pace. But when I offered 2 rounds of 16 at the start of practice and 2 rounds of 16 at a different point in practice she was able to do it (just an example, didn’t do that every day).

Hope that helps some.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."