[Andy1]

My situation is a bit different to yours. However if you are looking at extending your training time to more match up with what the other groups are doing, I have a few suggestions for you.

Warm up – my guys spend about 20 to 30min warming up on land prior to entering the water, this warm up consists of arm swinging, leg swinging, knee ups, walking lunges, 2 to 4 laps walking round the pool, skipping etc. After this we do a speed specific set ie swiss ball kicks, jumping fast feet, press up with claps etc. When this is finished they get in the water and will do normally a Salo type water warm up ie 200 choice, 2×100 strokes of the day, 4×25 (usually 15m fast or build into a easy scull on back to the 25mm). Some also then like to do some underwater work or some dives or turns, this I also do at the end of the session usually on a rotation basis ie Mon morning underwater work, mon evening dive and glide, Tue morning wall kicks to turn, Tue afternoon dives to 10 or 15m underwater, after this I cycle back to Mon morning.

For the Gym I have a specific core routine with stretch cord sets that my swimmers do, if you are interested I will happily send you a copy of it. The gym core work they do Mon and Fri afternoon after the session and Wed afternoon they go to Yoga, for relaxation, focus and stretching. I do not allow them to stretch before a session only after it which they are supposed to do every day for at least 15min but 20min is preferable.

I hope this gives you some ideas, you did not say much about how you organise a typical session so maybe you do most of what I have suggested already.

[Andy1]

Thanks guys for your replies. I have been reading through the old posts especially Docs as Gary suggested. The variation in rest time while maintaining RP seems to be a very valuable point and one I will be including in my weekly program from now on.

However out of interest as I asked in the title of my post ‘Difference in adaptation to USRPT between men and women’ Have any of you noticed this at all, or do you find there is no particular difference between the sexes. I am asking not only because of my top girl but also out of my junior elites I am noticing that the boys are adapting to the USRPT sessions faster than the girls.

I am interested in knowing if any of you have found the same or not, especially those of you who have been working with USRPT over a prolonged period and may have a larger group of mixed sex swimmers from which to base your observations on.

[Andy1]

Thanks for the reply Gary. Please don’t knock yourself, I am interested in any findings that coaches using USRPT have had with their swimmers, especially in regard to the title of my post ‘Difference in adaptation to USRPT between men and women’

It has been my experience in the last 30yrs that it is not just top coaches who have valuable insights and knowledge and to some extent age group, masters and high school/club coaches actually have a larger subject pool to comment on and are less elitist about discussing a topic sensibly. Especially a topic that many top coaches dismiss too readily in favour of OS out dated methods that tend to use the principle of ruin 1000 swimmers in order to find 1 champion.

Any way I am interested in any comments with regard to any possible differences between male and female swimmers and their adaptation to USRPT, that any of you have noticed. Hopefully Doc may decide to check out the forums as it would obviously be good to get his take on things and for me to hear what he has found on the physiological side of things.

[Andy1]

Ok so I am still not explaining it well but I thought those who read both my posts would grasp what I mean, so I will break my sets down again for you guys.

When I say 400rp in a day that means it can be split up as follows,

2x200rp (can both be done in the morning or afternoon in which case only 1 swim session in the day, or it can be 200rp set morning and another 200rp set in the evening).
1×200, 2×100 ( again this can all be done morning or split however the swimmer feels best on the day)
4×100 rp set ( again this could potentially all be done in the morning depending how the swimmer feels and their other commitments at university etc. Though for this I prefer they do 2 sets morning and 2 sets afternoon).

For an example Monday morning is usually 200rp set morning, 2×100 rp set in the afternoon. The 200 and 1 of the 100s are always main and the other 100rp is choice stroke.

The 200 sets are to a max of 30x50m (in a 25m pool) the 100 sets are to a max of 30x25m. Obviously after 3 failures we stop a set or if there are 2 consecutive failures. Rest periods are 15-18sec for 100rp sets and 20 to 23sec for 200rp sets. The swimmers splits and stroke counts are all recorded and logged daily.

I hope this explains things better for you all.

I have been a coach for just over 30yrs the last 10 of which have been with international standard swimmers. I can assure you I have studied pretty much all the science behind USRPT and never go into anything bilndly. The method I am using at the moment has come from my own experience, reviewing of the science and contact and discussion with Peter Andrews following Michael Andrews plateau for the last 6 months and how they came through it to see him finally now achieving his sub 1min 100 breast in the USA Olympic qualifiers currently going on.

Please I am very interested in every ones finding in regard to USRPT as I need to sort out where my program is going for next season in prep for the world shorts and then the world longs, but dont assume I do not understand USRPT as I can assure you I do and a lot more. I work closely with a sports physiologist (my girlfriend) and performance nutritionist and we are working together to adjust the training to the best possible for my swimmers. This includes not only the full monitoring of physiological adaptation, but also the adjustment of diet to maintain body weight and muscle mass with the reduced distance in training.

[Andy1]

Hi
Thanks for your reply. My swimmers are all sprinters, the way I wrote my post may have been slightly misleading. When I say we do 400 race pace I mean in the day we will do 4 sets of 100 RPT (ie ??x25, where ??= 3 times failure, max reps would be 30 if they do not fail 3 times).
My largest male is 6ft 5 and very muscular as we used to do a lot of gym work and very surprisingly he has maintained the majority of his muscle despite not having done any gym or dry land work, except for core, for just over 3 months now. He struggled a lot with OS and Salo sets but he is thriving on USRPT, he is just having trouble converting his training to the race but it is getting better every race, though he has yet to break his PB. The other boy is smaller in stature and is a 200 flyer, he used to die badly with OS training but since starting USRPT he is a different swimmer and has improved his 200 fly by 5sec, though his 100 fly is still very much in flux, it can be good or it can be a disaster.
Unfortunately only the girl is struggling, partly it is stroke as we have changed her strokes to fit in with the USRPT and when she is feeling good she is crazy fast operating well below her RP with ease. But then she will feel tired the next day, her strokes will be off and her times more what her RP should be or worse. It is very hard to know what to do with her. Unfortunately this has all cost her a place in Rio so I want to get it sorted for next season as it is the World shorts.
Maybe I should have said but the boys are 19 and 20 and the girl is just 18.

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