ljomccullough
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I also coached my daughter this season with this training. She HATES it. Well, she considers it “less than” what her peers are doing at her old club. She is embarrassed of our program and would LOVE to travel the 45 mins away to our old team. Going into summer training, she wants to know when the real training will start. Sigh.
I would love to know how to change this perception. She placed 6th at freaking state meet in 100 Fly and made States in the 100 Free. Her teammate 7th in Breast and made states in the 200 IM. Both relays made state meet. I mean we are a tiny program doing less than 3K a day seeing great results. We placed higher than other teams three times our size at Districts.
How do we sell swimmers and parents on this when we can’t even sell our own children? I was looking into sending my top swimmers to our old program this summer because I really would love to take a break (I do NOT get paid for coaching this team over the summer.) And speaking with the coach about my concerns with them being exposed to traditional training, he absolutely refused to believe my girl 1:04 Breaststroker and 56 Butter flier went less than 3K a day. Refused to believe it. And this coach is a young, talented coach, I would expect him to be open to NEW ideas. Of course, he has tried USRPT but it just didn’t work (after two weeks).
The good news: my child is the first to call BS on a set that has no specific goal or purpose or even a kicking set now 9 (this is someone who LOVED kicking sets)! So the ideas are getting through somehow. And it is the swimmer that has to 100% be on board with the training. And I think it is harder for our own children than other children who only see us in a coaching capacity. I keep telling her, just wait until you get a real coach, how much faster you will get!
Maybe go over that GAWD awful practice set by set with him and ask him what the purpose was? What event are they training for? How did they get faster that day? Where did they check in with their technique. From a coordination standpoint, what happens when you isolate your legs? YOu get the idea…. I don’t know. The frustration is real
I have a boy sprinter like this. Firstly, are you attempting to do 50s at 100 pace? I find that impossible, especially for drop dead sprinters who tend to have much faster race paces. I also am confused why you are mixing distances during the same practice session for the same event no less. And is the free set a 100 Free set? I suggest you focus on the power of the stroke over the speed for awhile (assuming her tech is where it needs to be). Slow the pace down, WAY down for awhile. So she is holding 16s right now I am assuming. Maybe start at 18s and really, really focus on stroke rate and stroke count. Force her to go at least one less. Do so many of these sets, she is going to cry from holding herself back. She has do them until they are easy and she begs to go down to 17s. Should take around 4 sets so a week and a halfish. The stroke count is KEY. One less stroke. And it has to be relatively easy for them. Intervals will be increased for them (well more than 20 seconds rest probably) Then cut down to pace for the next four sets performed (she may not need four sets or she may need more). But that first fail should start getting well into the set. The main issue with the dd sprinters is getting 20 mins worth of work out of them. It seems to reset his muscles to take on a load longer. But this also may only work for my dd sprinter. And warning once you get them down to race pace: it does not last very long being able to do a set for 20 mins…I await Doc blowing this strategy to smithereens
http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/bullets/47GUIDE.pdf
Scroll to the end for a schedule that may be helpful.
But I also want to suggest that what kills the most time is the mental aspect of it. So develop this aspect a bit– a curriculum even? Visualization, relaxation, breathing etc. That eats of a tremendous amount of practice time so you can “hide” a bit. It does have to be practiced A LOT. It takes a lot of practice from me too! I walk them through exercises and I can get rusty if we skip it for a while. Rushall has a .pdf of the mental development somewhere.
Also, great suggestion above to use the deck space to walk around the pool deck a bit. Once my swimmers got used to this, they enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s an odd thing for me to get used to encouraging them to walk around and talk to each other. But, really great for morale boosting. Added bonus, you can also split the group up with walker/recovers and active set doers for more room in lanes. Other added bonus, the traditional distance swimmers will REALLY hate you.
I find it difficult to get four sets of USRTP training in during a 2 hr session. Once we do skill work, strokework focus, and figure out appropiate lanes a half and hour per set cuts it close.
And while I realize you want to keep your job and not everyone believes this type of training works, YOU have to believe in 100%. If you are only doing in afternoons and drills in the morning, you seem to be wasting some opportunities there and sending a mixed message. The one thing I have noticed when I started this is that introducing EN2 sets or even long distances into the mix almost always ends in terrible strokes and sore shoulders. And for the record, I can’t get away from drills either. I try but that’s my fall back when I can’t think of how to focus on increasing DPS.
Also, is it important to track data for your team? I know its big in this forum. But I have the swimmers journal their previous days highs/lows/reps before practice and expect them to know where they are. I only cycle them up to their next best time so I don’t care too much about data. They either swim faster that day or they didn’t. I know, I’ll be shot here for that statement:} But they all have their current set cards and that’s enough data for me. They know when they’ve stopped failing 2times it’s time to increase.
The weights are a bummer. Perhaps remind him that muscle weighs more than fat and that they are just going to have to drag more weight through the water? Or could you talk him into YOGA? PILATES? instead. We do yoga. I know, it’s a dryland. But it’s about balance, breathing, movement, lenthening muscles. It’s more a seperate activity than dryland.Could not agree more! Honestly, even if this 17 year old does nothing more, he has certainly out performed a signifigant amount of swimmers who used traditional training during their careers. And what I thought most interesting was the back half of the 100 breast. I always hold my breath he doesn’t fade. Not only did he not fade, but he was reeling Cordes in a bit.
USA Swimming does a great job of marginalizing his performances but he has accomplished some great things in his short 17 year span. And you failed to mention the National Jr records and now WORLD Jr. Record he set at OT. So, yeah, if this training can produce even 1/1000 of those results for my high school swimmers, I’ll rish it! Because, honestly, it’s fun and it takes a great deal of intensity that is quite good in life skills department! I do miss creating workouts though.
