Marlin
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Marlin
ParticipantThis is really interesting. It’s interesting that they would drop time right away without having to go through multiple sessions and have a training effect take place. I tried this on Sunday at the end of practice. I was too tired to do full 25’s but I just did underwaters timed with the tempo trainer. I did them on 3.5 alternating inhaled and exhaled. I was surfacing right at 3.5 and looked at where I was on the lane rope right at the beep. It was kind of hard to tell but I think I may have gotten a tiny bit further on the exhaled reps. I ended up getting a calf cramp on an exhaled rep and I had to stop. I rarely get cramps.
For sprint breaststroke a long time ago, I experimented with doing no breathers, at least through the first 25 of a 50. I would take a full inhale on the start though. On a 25 sprint, I was faster by .1-2 than breathing every stroke. It was a normal stroke, I didn’t keep my face in the water or anything like that, I just didn’t breathe on the recovery. I think it allowed me to be a little bit quicker on the recovery portion of the stroke and helped me maintain a quick tempo. Even though you try to take a quick breath I think most swimmers sacrifice a little time on the breath during sprint. I think not breathing made my tempo faster but I had the same dps. If you think about it, if I had a tempo of .02 faster than with breathing and had the same dps, I would get to the wall .16-.2 faster on 8-10 strokes. I had forgotten about this and am going to try doing this again. Thanks for the reminder Doc! The faster recovery with the same dps could be part of the reason why you breaststroker went so fast on those 25’s.
Marlin
ParticipantDoc,
I’m still blown away by not the low number made per set but the low amount of sets per event that some of your guys are doing. Your top 1/2 flyer in particular. You wrote that he did nx50 on 2:00 22 times in 22 weeks and nx50 on 1:00 20 times in 22 weeks. From the looks of the nx25 on 1:00 spreadsheet, he is only hitting that set 1 or 2 times per week. And I guess he’s doing a little bit of work for the 50 fly in the 200 medley relay? That seems like such a low amount of fly sets offered for someone whose best two events are the 1 and 2 fly. How anyone can go 1:42 doing one set per week for 50’s 2,3,4 just blows my mind. I suppose he is getting in additional mid d sets for the 2 free or 2im but still, I would have expected him to be going 50’s at 200 fly pace 3 times per week. Just one set per week on your main event and having the tp correlate with the rp is awesome.
For your sprinters that only swim 50’s and 100’s, do you ever have them do 50’s on 1:00 at 200 pace? I’m talking about the people that are never going to swim a 200 at a conference or championship meet but are still trying to have a great 100 not just a 50, is it necessary for them to put in any 200 work?
Marlin
ParticipantLefthanded swimmer, I wouldn’t put much weight on doing a full race test sets in practice. I’ll do them every once in a while just for fun and my times are usually not close to my best times. I actually did a 100 fly short course meters last Friday. Right now I am training at 16.48 with a tempo trainer so really 15.5 from when my feet leave the wall to when my hand touches. This would estimate me at a 1:02 with a block start. I didn’t do any sets before. I did a warm up and that was it. I did it from a push timing with the digital pace clock starting to drop at the 59 on the start. I went a 1:06. I don’t have 25 splits but I know that front end speed is slower and the last lap is slower than what I would do in a meet. The middle 50 is closer to a real race but still probably a little slow. My fly training has been going decent and I felt like I could have put in a good USRPT 100 fly set that day. You do need some rest to go a top time in USRPT. If I did a 3 day protocol of dropping the distance offered by 50% for 2 days then a meet warm up on the third day I have no doubt that I could go a 1:02 with a block start on day 4.
You don’t need a lot of rest in USRPT but the idea that you can go a best time on any given day without any kind of rest is a little misleading. I’m looking back at my notes. In the week leading up to a meet in January I had a subpar training week but was still able to do well in the meet after resting. The meet was on a Sunday morning. On the Wednesday before I did a 100 free set failing on 12,14,17. Then I did some 15’s from the blocks working on my starts, underwaters, and breakouts. After that I took a full rest and did 2 25’s all out free from the block to the hand touch. This was in scy and I went 10.8 on both of them. That would put me at 11.2 to the feet and something like 11.2/12 for a 23.2 total 50 time. On that Thursday I did 10×25 for 100 breast and turns. Friday I did 10×25 100 free pace and some turns. I took Saturday off completely. On Sunday I went a 22.03 in the 50 free. I swam the 100 free and 100 IM earlier that day. From Wednesday to Sunday going 10.8 to the hand all out to going 22.03 4 days later is a big leap. Honestly, I still don’t get it. I should be faster in practice. I wasn’t concerned heading into the meet because I had been slower than I wanted to leading up to some previous meets and ended up going faster than expected. Echoing what Doc said, you need multiple seasons of data to figure this stuff out. So I wouldn’t worry about a 100 fly in practice in the middle of the season. If you go a really fast time, great. But if you go a little slower then it’s not then end of the world as long as your race pace practice sets are going well. The important thing is steady improvement in practice of actual race pace work, not something close to race pace. You wrote in the other thread that you only got 10 on a certain interval. That’s fine don’t worry about going high reps every day. Just aim for 11 next session, 12 the next time and so on. Improvement might halt at some point which is unavoidable but you just have to power through.
In Michael and Peter Andrews podcast, Peter mentioned that often times they will go down to the pool and MA can’t even get 1 repetition at race pace. I’m not sure how frequent that happens but he used the phrase often times. He said that in the past they felt like they had to do something and they would drop the pace back but when they did that they ended up swimming at that slower pace the next meet. They also said that looking back at the years of training they always have a spot in the season where they stall out and when training isn’t going well they start to have fear, doubt themselves, and doubt the training. This is in episode 5 on their podcast website swimcents.com. They also have a step by step breakdown of butterfly technique with underwater video which you may find helpful.
The fact that doc has been a successful coach for decades and he is experimenting with something should tell you something. This stuff is hard and there will be forks in the road along the way. When USRPT hit the main stream, people got the perception that it was a declaration that it was the end all be all to swim training and everything you ever need to know. That probably wasn’t the intention but that was the impression a lot of people got. USRPT is still evolving. Dr. Rushall added IM specific training to one of the bulletins recently. In the past he was against it and put it in with the category of mixed training produces mix results. I don’t know if Dr. Rushall reads these forums but I am very thankful for his work and publications. I hope he continues to improve on the theory. I think USRPT will continue to improve in the future. I think his work should be used as a guide but not as an exact blueprint. Not even MA follows it exactly. In one of the bulletins it mentioned that he used 20 seconds rest for 100’s and 30 for 200’s for 18 months before dropping the rest interval down. They said they do IM specific stuff with 50’s of fly/bk bk/br and br/fr but they don’t do it exactly the way that Rushall lays it out in the bulletin. They also tried weight lifting even though Rushall is very against it. They may have made more adjustments than those but that is all that I know about. Peter Andrew is a really good coach. He isn’t just sitting back and letting the magic unfold. Michael Andrew will be an Olympian one day because even if they hit road blocks in training, Peter Andrew will adjust and figure out a way to make it happen. Like Doc said it is far from just plug and play. You have to make adjustments based on the long term data and 3 months isn’t enough time.
Marlin
ParticipantLefthanded swimmer,
Are you saying that you are moving the rest from 30 to 20 seconds within the same set? I would keep it consistent at the same rest interval throughout the set. If he is doing 28 reps on 20 rest, he is ready to move the pace down. Go to 14.25 with 20 rest for the whole set. It may be very difficult at first but don’t panic. The first few times he does the set, his body is going to have to adapt to the new stimulus. But he should be able to progress at 14.25 pace if he is doing in the upper 20’s on 14.75.
Marlin
ParticipantDoc,
I think the reason why coaches are not posting on here anymore is because not that many coaches are attempting USRPT with their teams compared to the past few years. I do a google search for USRPT every couple of weeks and filter by past week or past month. I have been doing this for a while and I’m seeing less and less stuff pop up. A lot of the stuff that I see is master’s related or generic training articles that briefly mention USRPT. I don’t know if the coaches that adopted USRPT are moving away from it or if they are just not posting anywhere about it. USRPT has to be really hard to implement with a team there are lots of things that can go wrong. Parents frustrated that their kid is sitting out while other kids continue to swim, kids not giving a full effort, continuing the repetitions even though they are off pace because they don’t want to sit out, and failing on purpose because they don’t feel like going 100%. A one on one coach and swimmer is great but with large group it forcing the kids to have self-accountability. That’s asking a lot. Doc, I think you said something on here like making big changes is really difficult because peoples jobs are on the line and it is really risky to change something if it has been working okay in the past.
Garrett McCaffery just did a pretty good interview on Chris Ritters Podcast http://rittersp.com/podcasts/usrpt-2-0-race-pace-training-and-the-biggest-misconceptions-with-garrett-mccaffrey/ the title is USRPT 2.0 but really he does more of the parametric system. He said that they do mostly 25’s and 50’s at race pace and the goal of the training is to get in as many yards at race pace as possible. He said that the biggest mistake that he made as a coach was telling parents about the type of training that they were doing and the philosophy behind it. There was backlash and people left the club because they were moving away from traditional training. Parents were asking questions about lack of endurance training.
I think a lot of coaches believe that race pace training is the way to go. At the end of the day coaching is a job and job security is important. Implementing a mostly all race pace training program is going to be met with resistance and skepticism if that is not what the swimmers are used to. I think fear of rocking the boat prevents coaches from trying new things.
Marlin
ParticipantLefthanded swimmer,
I don’t think there is a magic number of reps that translates to the race time. Although, I think the minimum needed would be about 10 before the first fail on the 25’s. 10-15 reps may or may not translate, but 15 is more likely than 10. Anything 16 or more will almost certainly translate though. Going to 30 is excessive and you may be waiting forever to get there. Cut it off at 20 and move the pace down once he makes 14-16 reps before the first fail. I think the first fail point is more important than the total of all 3. For example I think failing on rep 13,15,17 is better than 10,14,18.
As far as the rest interval goes, I think it depends on the stroke and the swimmer. I think the ideal rest can vary from swimmer to swimmer. I’ve been doing USRPT for 1.75 years. I have done the strict Rushall intervals on 15 and 20 seconds and I have also done more rest for both 100’s and 200 pace work. I started improving on the 100’s when I adding more rest, especially on the breaststroke. With a 1:1 work rest ratio on breast I just couldn’t generate the power I needed to stay on pace. I wouldn’t even be breathing hard on the fails, I just didn’t have the strength to stay on speed. I got stuck doing around 6-10 reps before the first fail for a while. I switched to a 1:2 rest ratio and improved quickly. At the time, I wasn’t doing any 200 pace work but I was still able to translate my 100 breast practice pace into the meet even though I had a ton of rest.
Right now, I am doing sets for 100 fr/fl/br and 200 br/fl. For the rest I am doing 100 fr-24.7 fl-20.6 br-36.0, 200- br-21.48 fl-24.0. I took off 5 months from fly to train other events and have only been doing fly sets for a couple of months. I have never done 200 fly sets until these past couple of months. I am still struggling doing 5-8 before the first fail on the 200 sets. I think it is helping my 100 pace sets though. I have been steadily improving on the 100 set. I’ve seen on this forum that someone went to USRPT clinic and Peter Andrew said that after some time off, MA gets back up to his 100 pace faster when he does 200 sets. If you have followed his career, you know that when he is in his top 200 form, his 100’s are also at their best.
For your son, I would add a little more rest. 14.5 seconds is probably too short for him. Keep the 14.5 pace but do it on 35. He should be able to breeze through that in a week or two. The difference between 15 and 20 seconds rest is big. Once he gets to 14-16 reps before the first fail move the pace down to 14.0 on 35 seconds. If he still struggles with 20 seconds at the beginning than add some more rest. I don’t think the extra rest will hurt his 100 but the lower you can keep it without sacrificing speed the better. I’m not experienced enough to offer an opinion on the rest for 200 fly sets. I did 33-34 seconds rest for 200 free sets for a while and it was brutal. It wore me down and I swam awful towards the end of the week. Switching to 23-25 seconds rest, I was able to go a whole week without wearing down too much. That’s why I went with 24 seconds rest for my 200 fly set.
Another way to look at the USRPT sets is that you are training yourself to go a certain time at near exhaustion. When doing a set of 20×25’s you are actually training more for the back half of the race. If you break down the splits for the 100’s you will find that your USRPT pace on the first, second, and probably third lap when you adjust for the turn time is actually faster than the time you hold in practice. The fourth lap timed from when the swimmers feet leave the wall to when his hand touches at the finish will be right at or just above his USRPT pace. It’s a big misconception that USRPT swimmers hold a consistent pace throughout the 100. If you break it down, you will find that the last lap of a 100 or the last 50 of a 200 will be pretty much dead on the pace that you hold in practice. I read that the day before MA went 46.95 in the 100 fly he made 20 25’s holding 11.7 and did a 100 breast set holding 13.5 and failed on 13 and 14. If you breakdown the splits on that 46.95 video and time it from when his feet leave the wall to when his hand touches just like it’s timed in a USRPT set, his first 3 laps are faster than 11.7 and his last lap was 11.6-11.8. When he went 54.04 in the 100 breast his third and fourth lap adjusted for turn time were dead on 13.5. When Josh Davis was training 50 frees on a minute holding 25.0’s his last 50 from when his feet left the 150 wall was dead on 25 flat. Another masters swimmer who wrote on his website that he was holding 32 highs on 20 seconds rest for 200 breast was dead on the money for his last 50 and faster on the first 3 50’s. When I was training 17.5’s scm for 100 breast my last 50 was 33.97 in scy. A breast turn takes 1-1.2 seconds. I’m probably on the slower end so 33.97-2.4= 31.57. 31.57/2= 15.785 which would be the average for the last 2 laps. The conversion to meters is 15.785*1.11= 17.52 which is exactly the pace I was training at. So a variety of rest intervals produced the same result.
Whatever pace you are going right before failure is what you are going to go in a meet. Going to failure is crucial. Doing a certain number a reps on the best average is a terrible idea. I see a lot people say that people aren’t robots you can’t just do the same sets all the time. In a way, people are a little bit like robots when it comes to training. Going race pace to failure is like writing code on a cpu. There is so much evident that the pace you hold near exhausted will be almost exactly what you go in the back half of a race. Like Doc said, it is really not that hard.
Marlin
ParticipantAlan,
For the sake of time you may have to go with 50’s or 75’s. If you do 100’s and go for 30 reps on an interval around 2:00, that is 60 minutes right there not including the warm up. You would never have enough time to allow yourself to get to 30. You should start out with 50’s and work your way up to 75’s. Start with something conservative. Try to find a pace that is challenging by not super hard right off the bat. Go for 30×50’s holding 48 or 49 on 1:10. Once you make 20 before the first fail, move the pace down one second.
You could alternate 50’s and 75’s every other day to mix it up. Don’t worry about dividing your best time to figure out the interval. Start with something not too difficult and continue to move the pace down as you get in better shape and make 20 reps before the first fail.
Having only 1 hour may limit you to 500 training but that is okay. If you can condition you self to swim a good 500 with good splits and finishing strong at the end, you should be able to put in a decent 1650. Katie Ledecky has said that she doesn’t even really train for the 1500. She focuses on 400 training and can swim down to the 200 and swim up to the 1500.
Marlin
ParticipantAlbrock, I believe failure is crucial to the benefits of USRPT. I think that Michael Andrew is failing 3 times more often than not. I don’t have that dvd but there was a video from that dvd of a 20×50 fly set up on vimeo for about 3 days that I saw. He made all 20. Based on the times, I think that was right before his spring 2014 explosion. I think he is failing like the program calls for usually, he just had a great day because the cameras were on. Peter Andrew even said if the cameras weren’t here, he would probably fail. Failure is a good thing and you should be going to failure unless you complete all the reps or have a meet coming up soon. Going to failure with USRPT forces you to adapt through a mechanism that you can’t achieve from other forms of race pace training. I believe that I have figured out major breakthrough with why USRPT works. The failure aspect has a lot to do with it. I have thought this for a while, but I’m still researching and I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row before I post it because it’s some wild stuff.
Marlin
ParticipantGreat stuff. I have been looking out for when you would post this.
“We won 5 of the 11 swimming events at sections”
“We broke 8 of 12 school records this year and many pool records throughout the season”
This is awesome. Bill, you are a great coach. Great job.
Marlin
ParticipantThis is normal. Mondays are about 25% bad and 75% mediocre for me. I have a good one every once in a while. I usually get a big improvement on wed and thurs from mon/tues. Friday and Saturday are usually a little bit better or match the performance on wed/thurs. Even if I rest all day Sunday, eat healthy, get plenty of sleep, ect, it doesn’t make much difference on Monday. On the other hand, if you have an unhealthy weekend, it can really set you back. I’ve had some college style weekends occasionally while training. It takes 2 or 3 practices just to get back to where you were.
Marlin
ParticipantThose are some good results for swimming up a distance than what they train for. Josh Davis swam a crazy 500 free after only doing 50’s at 200 pace. A lot people overlook the effectiveness of USRPT for middle distance free just because it’s Michael Andrews weakest area even though he is technically a good 200 freestyler. He does have a NAG in the 200 scy free. Other people have had success in mid distance free like Glenn Gruber who broke a masters WR in the 400 scm free in his age group. Gary P on here has also had success with mid distance free and USRPT. Don’t forget about MA’s 352 400 IM. That’s also swimming up a distance. I doubt he was doing sets of strokes at 400 pace when he did that, probably just 200 stuff. The Screaming Viking swam a top 10 all time ranking for his age group in the 200 LCM breast on very limited yardage.
Recently I have been looking at Tim Noakes Central Govenor Theory again. The “An Advancement in the Concept of Fatigue” article that is linked up on Rushall’s website talks about it. I believe that Tim Noakes is absolutely right that there is way more to fatigue than previously believed. As exercise goes on lactate rises, glycogen depletes, oxygen debt increases, then you get tired and slow down. While there may be truth to that, there is way more to fatigue. I believe I have figured out the missing link in the Central Governor theory and why some people can go really fast times on longer races while doing low yardage. I’m pretty sure that USRPT can manipulate what Tim Noakes calls the Central Govenor through a mechanism that cannot be utilized in traditional training or other forms of race pace training. I was going to write up a post a few weeks ago but I decided not to because it’s some pretty deep stuff that a lot people would call pseudo-science and I don’t want to look like a crazy person. It is based on a few real scientific studies though. It may take me a while to put it all together and have it make sense but I am going to write it up when I have time.
Marlin
ParticipantI’m probably not the best example as I train for only 50’s and 100’s. I have only had one meet where I attempted a partial rest. It was 3 weeks before my focus meet. The goal was to rest enough to be at least 95% but not sacrifice much in training. The meet was on a Saturday. In the week leading up to the meet I did full repetitions offered on Monday/Tuesday on strokes I was doing at the meet and I cut the strokes I wasn’t doing in half. There is really no training effect cutting the reps in half for the strokes I wasn’t swimming but the idea was to maintain technique. I don’t know if that was effective but it seemed like a good idea. On Wednesday I went to the first fail and cut out all events I wasn’t swimming. On Thursday I cut the offered reps in half. I took Friday off. It seemed to work well. I definitely took a small step back in training by doing this. The first Monday back wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t as good as I had been doing. Tuesday was better and on Wednesday I was right back on track and on the same level I was before resting.
For a large team doing something like making the first reduction to the first fail might be better than hitting some landmark number like 25%/50% reduction or 15 reps instead of 20. For a large team, people are going to be at different points in the repetitions especially during the middle of the season. If you offer something like 16 reps down from 24 or something like that, one swimmer may complete all 16, while another swimmer fails twice. That’s a huge difference and those two swimmers really aren’t getting the same amount of rest even though they both went to 16.
Marlin
ParticipantAlthough completing 16 reps will most likely correlate to the race time, I think you need to offer at least 24 reps for the 100’s if time allows for it. I think you will find that if they can’t get at least 24 before the third fail, moving the pace down will be difficult only doing 16 before. If they can get 18 before the first fail or 24 before the third fail, they should be fine to move down. If they can’t get to at least 10 reps before the first fail after the first 2 or 3 sessions on a faster pace, you can get stuck and some detraining will occur. It has happened to me several times where I got stuck at 7-9 before the first fail and I had to scale the pace back to rebuild my level of conditioning. It may not be an issue early in the season because they will get in better shape and the people doing low reps will probably be able to dig themselves out but once they are in good shape mid season they may hit a wall if they are doing low reps. For the swimmers doing low reps, I would make the pace slower so that they can hit at least 10 before the first fail. They should improve fast and will be able to move the pace down soon.
Marlin
ParticipantBill, I’m 28, I wrote about my background in another thread. I didn’t swim year round growing up because I wanted to play other sports. I swam summer league but I focused hard on improving during the limited time I had. I live in Richmond VA. When I was 16 and 17 I made big improvements in swimming because I had a good coach that swam under Matt Kredich at the University of Richmond. Some of the stuff we did was probably off the mark but we were no doubt a practice fast to swim fast type of people.
I wore this suit yesterday http://www.swimoutlet.com/p/speedo-lzr-pro-gold-jammer-tech-suit-24936/?color=9600 I wore this suit one other time at a 2 day meet in april. I went all best times in everything except for 50 free. I went 21.83 at summer league champs when I was 18. It’s kind of frustrating knowing that top speed wise I am better than ever. When I went 21.8 I was lifting weights for football and playing basketball. My vertical leap was much better and I think I was under 5.5 on the first 15 meters. Now I am a 5.8-6.0. I went 22.16 with a bad breakout on the start, jammed turn, bad breakout on the turn, I am really surprised I was able to go 22.16. I was hauling so much ass on the last 15 meters which is really promising. I would like to go a 20.8 which I think is in the realm of possibility. I will be super happy if that happens.
Marlin
ParticipantOver the past few months I had been doing 20×25 18.52 pace with 23.15 rest for breast, always after the fly USRPT set. As I explained in another thread, I have been having a hard time getting a decent amount of reps in breast after the fly set. Originally I wanted to put more emphasis on fly so I put that first so I could be totally fresh for it. Recently I also decided to give fly a chance at more rest. I went from 16 to 19.2 rest. I think less is better on fly for aerobic purposes but breast seem to be a little more anaerobic than 100 fly/bk/fr. I had been hitting mid teens before the first fail on fly, Monday 28 was just a bad day, I had a rough weekend before that.
This is what I did over the past two weeks-
Mon-28 100 fly USRPT (16.0) 30×25 @35.2
fail 9,12,15
100 br USRPT (18.48) 20×25 @49.28
fail 9,11,12Tues-29
100 free USRPT (:14.49) 30×25
@33.81
fail 11,14,17Wed-30 100 br USRPT (18.50) 20×25 @55.5
fail 16Thurs-1 fly sprints
fly/free turnsFri-2 100 br USRPT (18.50) 20×25 @55.5
MadeSat-3 turns
SCY 25 free sprint to feet
starts
2 25 free sprint from blockMon-5 100 br USRPT (18.50) 12×25 @55.5
MadeTues-6 Off
Wed-7 100 br USRPT (18.50) 12×25 @55.5
MadeThurs-8 warm up/turns
I decided to totally drop the 100 free and fly set early last week since I wasn’t swimming those events at the meet today. Doing the breast on 55.5 really helped me a lot with sharpening my technique. I felt like it was more relevant to the middle/end of the race whereas before it was just a bunch of front half speed followed by going all out hoping I make it to the wall before the beep of the tempo trainer. With the longer rest I felt like I was maintaining back half tempo and technique in a controlled way for way longer than before. I decided to cut myself off at 20. I have gone up to 30 in the past but every time, I do that I get hip pain, not muscular but in the joint which is concerning so I just keep it to 20. I definitely made some strides in technique over the past couple of weeks in the 100 breast. With the extra rest I was very strict on the interval. All the makes were no more than 18.6, maybe a 18.7 every once in a while.
If you adjust my practice pace with the tempo trainer to a toes leaving the wall to a hand touch I am at a 17.5 or 1:10 scm pace which converts to a 1:03.06 scy. I was really hoping I could go a little above and sneak under 103 and that is exactly what I did. I went a 1:02.95 splitting it 28.98/33.97. They should be a little closer but I went the pace I trained to go and I’m happy for that. In April I went a 1:04.27 splitting 29.68/34.59. When I completed 20 I felt I could move down to an 18 pace. If I had more time I would have. As I move the pace down, I think my splits will get closer together. I know 1:02 is nothing good but I would like to break a minute eventually and I think I can do it with something like a 27.9/32.0. Now that I know this pace correlates, it’s nice to know that I know exactly what I need to do in training to go a certain time.
My other events today were 50 free, 50 fly, and 50 breast.
My first event was 50 free. I did a track start for the first time in a meet in this event. I had been doing a two feet forward start my whole life. I was taught that way in 1995 and I had been rolling with it all along up until today. I think it’s about the same time as my old start right now. Last weekend I drove across town to practice starts because my main pool doesn’t allow people to use the blocks. I rarely practice starts and as a result they are not very good. Technically, okay…but no power, no explosiveness, just blah all around. When I was 18 my starts and first 15m were awesome. I was a lot better athlete back then and more explosive. I’m a better swimmer now but not close to where I was in terms of vertical leap ability. Probably 6 inches vertical leap deference than I was back then. That’s big on the start. Anyway, I got totally crushed on the first 15m by the person next to me. He kicked out far and I could see him out of the corner of my eye after I surfaced and he had at least a half a body lenth at 15. I jammed my turned, had a bad push off, and a bad breakout. My last 15m was awesome though. I closed with energy and full speed. Probably the best last 15 I have ever done. I ended up going 22.16. I wanted to go a mid 21 which I probably could have done with a better start and turn.
My next event was the 50 fly. I went 23.56. On my start, I didn’t get a full inhale before hitting the water and I took a breath on the 4th stroke. I didn’t take any on the way back. I was planning on just breathing on the turn. That was the only mistake I made. I took 6 kicks on the start and 4 off the turn which is super low. Over the past few months I messed around with kick numbers and found that basically I am wasting time under water because I am so much better on the surface.
My third event was 50 breast. I went 27.82. It was pretty good after the first 2 I work out all the problems with the start. 100 breast was last.
I know this was kind of a long post but I’m hoping if there are any swimmers reading this thinking about trying USRPT. Do it. It’s fun and you know exactly what pace you need to hold to go a best time and that’s a beautiful thing. I just want to get the info out there to anyone curious, especially masters swimmers. The more info out there, the better. Thanks to billratio for putting all his info out there, no doubt it helped me go a personal best today in the 100 breast.
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