doc
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jjjust,
I knew his dad. Big Sprint guy
Good to hear your son found a place where he has some confidence in.
I’m a volunteer coach for a high school team. 12 weeks and done which is perfect. It’s my second year and I write the workouts for all groups. First year was a little rough just because they were NOT use to swimming fast in practice, a lot of “aerobic/old school” work shall we say. Boring as hell and no engagement from the kids. This year, even with Covid-19, they swam great. Keeps me tinkering
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.jjjust,
Sorry I missed this! What a great observation! Have you ever ask coaches what their “value system is in swimming?” Here are some thoughts I’d followed for my club/college/HS teams.Thoughts on: Values in swimming from a training perspective. What is it that guides you on how you write workouts and what skills need reinforcing/attention? I thought a lot about how the race degrades/decays over any distance and came up with these 3 values. I know there are numerous others.
1. Turn speeds. What is usually the first thing that goes, especially distance swimmers? They will go from 1.22 in the front half of the race to 1.67 on the back half (times are just examples). They don’t have to train any further or really go any faster in training. Just making the swimmer aware of that focus. I know Bill Sweetenham, uses 1.00 for fr/ba and .77 for fl/br. But I’ve yet to have a swimmer that can hold that for 500/1000 or 1650. Turns are a conscious choice!
2. Underwater work. We’ve all seen it. The breakouts get shorter and shorter during a race when the CO2 light comes on and swimmers bale to the surface and breakouts no longer have a nice horizontal intersect with the surface and speed moving forward. But look like a submarine in an emergency surface. Especially, breast and fly. Again, a conscious choice!
3. Surface Swimming Speed. This encompasses d/S or cycles and tempo or stroke rate. Are my technical drills/skill sets reinforcing great postural alignment, rhythm and power phase of the strokes?
The reason I chose these three as I could have the greatest impact on the athlete’s performance. Simple yes! But if I go back to “Deliberate Practice” it maybe just what is needed
Again sorry to be so late with thoughts, and it is a great observation
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Oophs, my bad. if you’re interested you can find the picture at the Swimming World article on “The Plunge”
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Not exactly on kicking. But the importance of core tension or Posture-Line-Balance. Which have a huge impact on kicking and swimming.
Old Dive and Glide “The Plunge for Distance”
Detailed Swimming on YouTube to see video
Caeleb Dressel 24.9m or 81ftHolds good core tension on entry and during glide phase. Appears to run the LINE or BOUNDARY LAYER 18-24″ to a perfect intersect with surface keeping the “LINE MOVING FORWARD”
Swimming World article on “The Plunge For Distance” in early 1900s
WR in 1902 was 79ft 3inchesHolds good core tension during glide phase. Nice LINE and BALANCE
The more we think how things have changed, the less they really have.
I guess it pays to be old and still have a memory
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.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. Think about that. I think it’s much simpler to just have some degree of mastery in running the “boundary layer”, 18-24 inches (I think in the study, if you did the conversion it was 16-18 inches, which had the second best coefficient) underwater holding that line with as close to perfect intersect, line moving FORWARD at breakout, no vertical travel! i.e. floating/poor angle back to surface because they were to deep. I think with the majority of kids we work with would be well ahead of the game.
Just more thoughts,
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Jared,
Thank you for your kind words.My email is oldrecondoc@gmail.com
Have a Happy New Year and stay well!
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Jared,
The best advice is if you can still find it is watching the Youtube video by Bob Gillett (RIP) “Why kicking underwater is faster”. We worked on this from about 1992 to 2004ish. Mainly used my guys to increase the “N” and teaching sequences.Issues, tempo trainers for each swimmer, and the monofins for 1/2 the group. We had that equipment for free. I wouldn’t do it now with tempo trainers at 60+$ and fin at 65$. You can get away with just a tempo trainer and ditch the fin as I think there are better ways to introduce the undulation action needed and give the swimmer better sensations. It’s also a “crutch” for many of the swimmers and distorts the sensations of flow.
I’ll look through my old notes and if I come up with anything more I’ll post.
Just my thoughts
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Jared,
Think of fish and how they move. When just swimming lazily in the pond they have wide-sweeping movements, not in any hurry. But as soon as there’s a threat things get real narrow and fast in a hurry.I tell my kids you only have as deep as you are thick in the water. so, maybe 12-18 inches. Once you get outside that range you increase drag (the easiest way to go faster is reducing drag).
I don’t like using the word kick. It implies to me up/down movements and we want the water to flow, not try and beat it into submission.
Are you trying to replace strokes with underwater kicking? If so there are problems with kick tempo and matching stroke tempo and distance traveled.
Just some rambling thoughts,
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.JJJust,
Sorry for the late reply (computer problems). Thoughts on “training 50s, 100s, and 200s on the same day”. You could but you’ll need to be careful. I personally wouldn’t do it.I’d pick the ONE PRIMARY for the day. i.e. 200fr/stk and the swimmer needs back 1/2 work so the 50s on 1:00 would be the first set n x whatever number they’re at. Looking for improvement in number made, the next set would/could be 50s on 2:00 for 1st 50 speed at 3/4 the number if the set were first. Then finish with 25s on 1:00 different stroke from 50s1 & 50s2.
Technical skill 8-10 minutes building speed of execution
n x 50s1 free
Technical skill 8-10 minutes reinforcing skills needed for the next set
n x 50s2 free
Technical skill 8-10 minutes reinforcing skills for the next set
n x 25s1 back
Technical skill with attention to regaining balance
GO HOME!
Hope this makes sense
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Hey Jared,
On the use of TT. The target time is 13.00 seconds. Beep leave wall beat the beep which would be the second beep, rest a beep and leave on next beep. So the ratio is 1:2. What’s nice is you can actually set it to achieve 1:1, 1:2, or whatever ratio you choose by adjusting the # of beeps between.Turns. measure back to 12.5m and have them go 1 turn 25s. Real easy if you have TT and can be challenging trying to time, but it can be done. I would put highway cones at the 12.5m mark, it would at least give them something to aim for.
Again, just thoughts.
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Jared,
I think a lot of coaches fall into that paradigm of “we’re training for 200+ in LC” Missing the speed component. True it’s far more difficult to address. Putting highway cones at 25 and trying to time as you have 8 swimmers crossing that imaginary line. I used tempo trainers with the sprinters during the summer, we would do “beat the beep”, not concerned about the rest interval. I would control the rest by the number of beeps they get i.e. 3 beeps, 4 beeps, etc. The problem with TT is they’ve gotten so expensive at $60 ea.I know it’s a pain. But if you don’t address the speed issue you have reduced the pieces to the puzzle.
Just thoughts
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Yeedawg,
Recovery i.e. SLEEP is critical to adaptation . There is a study done by Stanford on the basketball team on sleep and performance, it’s easy to find, just do a Google Scholar search. I tried it at GCU with 5 kids from the Distance grp and had really good results right up to finals week and then the whole thing went to hell in a hand basket. Gota study, they had 9 weeks to learn the material!Two a days. I now firmly believe is a waste of time especially with developing athletes. It is an old paradigm based solely on volume. How fit does one have to be? An athlete that can do 1000 crunches faster than some one who can only do 900. No, absolutely no correlation to performance. Unless you’re in a crunch contest:)
You have the means/ways to monitor adaptation and that will be with pace. Say their 50s on 1:00 pace is 30s and over the season they make 120 out of 200 (roughly 60%) offered at 30s. They go to their meet, swim a best time and avg is now 29.27 (new stimulus) That becomes their new trng spd for 50s on 1:00 and they now start the climb back up the hill (numbers) same for any of the protocol sets.
PHV and women has a huge impact in the training of women. I think an example is distance women come to college that haven’t gone a best time in the 500/1000 in 2 yrs. They still look for the exact training program from a college program that generated no improvement over the last 2 yrs.
Doc
? All that is not shared... is lost.Yeedawg,
Interesting dilemma isn’t it? Training or growth? It’s both. Not sure you could pin down how much of each contributed to the performance. Just be aware that PHV plays a part in performance in maturing athletes. But once PHV has been reached, it can help with determining direction of training program.Yes, they still need stimulus regardless of age in order to adapt. Be it increases in Volume, Intensity or Duration.
It really doesn’t take much to create adaptation, the stimulus just has to be very specific.
Question
Do you measure height on a regular basis? i.e. 2x-3x/yr.This forum got started by a “n” of one
? All that is not shared... is lost.Don’t apologize. This is how you learn. Swimmers should be asking questions.
The kick tempo is kind of critical. If you think you’re faster underwater. You must be covering more distance underwater faster than on the surface swimming.
Stroke tempo is from R hand hit to R hand hit or L to L. But I understand .40 is .80ish and .50 is 1.0ish.
Cycles are R to R. But again, I understand cycle count as hand hits. It’s liking speaking two different languages.
With regards to depth of push-offs. Starting at 1.6m/s velocity and .2m or 7.87 inches drag is reduced by 9.5%, at .4m or 15.7” drag is reduced 12.3% or .6m or 23.62” drag is reduced by 13.9%. and drag is reduced at a greater % as velocities increases and not depth. So, why go deep? Run the line 18 to 24 inches to surface. It gives you the maximum reduction in drag at velocity. Going deeper holds no advantage. Yes, you work realy hard but that doesn’t always equate to speed.
The 200. Think of it as another piece of the puzzle. You don’t need to swim it at every meet, but you need to swim it. You need to work above and below the primary events. Just FYI. Your mom is not trying to go faster! You are:)
thoughts
? All that is not shared... is lost.Liv,
Your questions are good. Ryanupper is correct in be careful making to many changes at once. You shouldn’t change more than 10% over that and you’ll have no idea what worked or didn’t.Couple more questions. 1. what is your stroke tempo? 2. what is your kick tempo and 3. your number of cycles per 25?
Kinda left out some pieces of the puzzle critical to knowing whether it would be better to be on the surface swimming.Here’s where I’m going to differ from ryanupper on the underwater work. Think of your “direction of travel and application of force”. You don’t want the feel of water to be vertical/ up & down. But horizontal/ back towards feet. (flow) This will take some work. You will also have to work in a very narrow space with movements i.e. as deep as you are thick in the water.
I’m a believer in that you “run the line” 18-24 inches underwater traveling in the”boundary layer or blue water” with a perfect intersect (all body parts arrive at the surface at the same time) with the surface and “line moving forward” so you carry your wall speed as long as you can. No angles. Just “run the line”. Again this will take some time to develop.
Try working from just under your armpits to start the movement. Arms and head remain still and you crack the whip and let the energy flow down the body. If you create any angles/bends it’s like tying a knot in the whip and energy stops at the knot and you become a 2nd class lever. Not good espicially in butterfly
Just some FYI that I’ve used with swimmers. These are for females 11 kicks/5 cycles, 7 kicks/7 cycles, and 7 kicks/ 6 cycles.
Your 15m time is on the slower end with a swimmer going 52.82 with fast 6.52 median 6.75 or slow 6.99. So, not terrible.
Your split differential between first and second 50 is fine. I use race data of the top 3 women at NCAAs in each event as a model for all strokes and distances.
The “n x 50fr on 50/1:00” is based on your 50 & 100 and is just the upper limit to as slow as you can go. p.s. I did add 1.5% back into 29.93. You didn’t appear to swim many 200s
My guess would be in the 1:57 range?Just some thoughts
? All that is not shared... is lost.
