Reply To: Do you think USRPT is same as HIT or HIIT?
60% is in each stroke. There is VERY little cross over. It’s apples to oranges or the principle of specificty. Riding a bike doesn’t make you better at swimming.
We will move from 100 to 200 work with either an increase in volume or we may need to repeat the same number due to progressions i.e. not ever good results and could be just a bad day for them. We are always looking for an increase in race speed i.e. 20×50 @ 200p made 12, then the next time looking for maybe 11-14, you can have huge swings with the numbers. Espicially early season when the are adjusting to faster speeds than the prior season. It can drive you crazy and you have to constantly remind ourself “it will all work out” and it usually does.
If I read your sequence correctly. you have 1 500 set, 3 200 stroke sets, 2 100 free sets, 2 100 stroke sets. I included your “focus sets” in the total.
If you follow the good Dr’s. recommendations you need to have at least 3 stimuli per week to create adapation. What I did at first was “KISS” and not try and do too much. It’s hard because you want to try and do everything for everone and all you do is end up getting fragmented and have a difficult time knowing what worked and didn’t work. We started training for 100/200 free and 100/200 of the stroke and then got a little more creative as I GOT BETTER AT THE SEQUENCE.
Starting out having one set for each distance is a good way to go. It gives you a base to work off of and from there you can start to experiment with different sets. But you work off something you know works and that way you can always fall back and not miss a beat and the kids never know.
Example: 200s free, we may start with 75s, (the kids will not like this. But will say you do have to “feel the sting”),move to 50s and then to 25s at “50s” pace divided in 1/2, and do 30 or more (we may use a tempo trainer for this type of set). with the goal of striving for “mastery” (60%). The brain has to be in the “moment” and often to make the adjustment to speed, tempo, distance per stroke and underwater work.
“How important do you think is it to have them train 50s at 100RP or 75s at 200RP?” They will sometime need to “feel the sting” and that will be dependent on you and when you think they are ready. it may only be 2-4 to start or so at the end of a set of 50s and you say “hey let’s try 75s and you explain how to firgure pace and go for it! Then you may ask for feedback and if they are honest they’ll tell you “it feels like the 200 and hurts like hell” but there is value in doing this set. Next question from them is usually “how many will we have to do?” Just laugh. They’ll think you’re crazy.
I have one observation. In a number of forums coaches have stated that they are some how worried about boredom with USRPT. I’ve been doing this for over 3 years now and not one kid has quit from boredom. If they will pay attention they know at pretty much any time how fast they can go and what are resonable expections at a meet. We have a saying ” If you want to be entertained then stay at home and watch TV. This is about performance.
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