Matt
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Sorry to hear about the results. Happy to have another bit of info.
I’m assuming that for your first meet you did the “3 days out 25% reduction…” you described at the end of your post, correct? I see that you mentioned 87% of your races improved. Do you have any numbers on the % time drop?
You mentioned being back in the water right after the first champ meet pushing numbers. I know the need to get back after it for the next big meet, but was there a full day of recovery between the meet and practice? If not did you see any evidence of a meet-hangover in their practice that Monday (or even Tuesday)?
Thinking on that 3-day rest plan: since it’s so short what do you think about doing it a couple of times in-season (say, for a big dual-meet) to gain some experience with a much shorter “taper” and also to give the swimmers some confidence that it will work?
Good stuff oldschoolc. Several things come to mind.
“Arizona Swimming Gauchos” is a superb team name. Well done.
The link to the PDF worked. Awesome. Can you provide some insight into what’s behind the data? How many swimmers? Did you filter your athletes to remove those who are obviously invalid or poor data points? For example those who were hurt, sick, missed significant/critical training or trained completely improperly.
I hear you on getting the CNS torched and compromising water work. As far as I can tell that is Rushall’s point as well and I agree that sort of thing will happen. I do not see how this fact demands a yes/no decision about dryland (which I interchange equally with the term “strength training”). Rather I ask how much quality water work is acceptable to sacrifice for a given gain in strength? Or turning it around and accepting no dryland how do we address the implication that strength is not a major asset in swimming?
I’ve seen things similar to your sprinter a couple of times and, yes, there certainly is some level of mass gain that goes too far, but these are extremes. All other things being equal 6’4” 200 beats 6’4” 160, right? Now 6’4” 280 is probably much closer to Not Good. It boils down to extremes at either end that no coach would advocate as desirable and the range of what’s “best” is somewhere in between. Which implies that for a given swimmer too close to the extremes we should be shifting them toward a better range.
Come at this from what we see in the sport. Consider all the 6’4” Olympic/elite males out there. How many are under 200 pounds (~91 kilos for our non-US friends)? Would you believe even 25%? At the championship level – club, HS, college, national, world – do we see enough larger/stronger swimmers performing “better” to believe there is probably a lot of causation behind the correlation? We all have seen outliers who buck the trend, but nobody is arguing that size/strength are not, generally, a good thing, right?
In the end I’m looking for a more nuanced and/or more compelling framework for the prohibition against dryland in USRPT. This facet of the program is, in my experience, dismissed out of hand almost immediately by those who are learning about Dr. Rushall’s program. Right or wrong it points to the need for something different and/or more nuanced than: Don’t do it.
Glen: Thanks for the reply. Congrats on your performances. That is some awesome stuff. Do the other swimmers/coaches there while you train ever ask you about what you’re doing? If I saw some dude in his 60s crushing 25 over and over I’d be a crappy coach if I didn’t stroll over and see what’s up.
Oldschoolc: Couldn’t see the file either…I know the forum hates attachments, but give it a shot without the ‘%’ in the filename. I think that mucking with the URL for the file. But no matter: I’m happy to take you at your word. I’m sold on all the important principles, really. To the point that if I don’t see legit results I’ll look at how I’m implementing things first, second and third before I conclude the USRPT style isn’t for real. Too much of the underlying science is rock-solid.
With the strength training it’s a little bit about not believing the science. Which is a difficult bit of mental acrobatics on my part because science is pretty sweet stuff. I take Rushall at his word with the dryland: he’s putting primacy on the requirement to train at race pace. If it’s in the way of operating at race-pace: get rid of it. Ok, I understand that. How about all the undersized swimmers or those with a 6 foot plus frame who don’t naturally weigh in at 200+ pounds? At the fastest meets we all see that size matters. It’s not everything, to be sure, but all else being equal everyone picks the 6’4” 230 pound greek god in lane 4, right? If you have a fast 5’10” breaststroker do you want the 150 pound version or the 175 pound version?
So for an undersized swimmer (or one who is still “filling out”) is there legit justification to hit the weight room? Is this something that should only be done in the off-season? It seems there must be room for nuance with respect to the dryland/strength training. Perhaps it hasn’t been fleshed out yet and I’m just being impatient.
Hi Rick (and everyone else),
You aren’t totally alone. I’m in PA as well. College coach. I am switching our training over to USRPT to a large degree this season. I’ve read every post on this forum and (nearly) all of the USRPT specific Swimming Science Bulletin papers. It’s compelling stuff. Mostly. The discussion, anecdotes and experience I’ve read on this forum have gone a long way to making my decision to switch to (mostly) USRPT easier.
I’m wary that so few college programs are represented here, but MSchuber was probably on the money with his point about avoiding stigma with recruits. To be perfectly honest this is why I’m not mentioning which college I coach. That’s some pretty weak sauce, I know, but it’s the practical move while things are so new.
Kudos to those of you who are deep into this already and to those who are braver than I am.
