Rick
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I did go to this site a couple of times. I must admit I, too, felt like this was a money-making deal. Did not see anything useful that didn’t involve a fee that I couldn’t get elsewhere. Not saying that’s the goal of it, but that was my reaction. This forum, however, has helped me tremendously in my coaching. I started as a strict usrpt format advocate and have since adjusted. I am still all about swimming at desired race pace, but I have gotten more specific in training different parts of the race.
I will admit that I was not able to get 400% to 500% on 15 or 20 seconds rest for any of my swimmers. Maybe that was my fault for not motivating properly, but I just couldn’t get those numbers of reps on that rest interval. I started adjusting/adding greater rest between each rep, while making sure we were training a goal time that would match the target times for their events, and I got better results. In that respect, I guess I’m not a true usrpt and probably just a guy training my swimmers at race pace. I can live with that!
This year, I’m going to spend an extra day and establish front end/back end target times where I simply adjust the rest interval between reps to try to simulate what they would be feeling in that race.
Pretty much everything I am doing with my team has been the result of some thoughtful feedback I have received on this forum along with questions I ask myself to keep complacency at bay. To that end, I can’t thank Doc/Old School enough for the very focused and useful feedback he has given. Over the last three years, our team has improved year over year from the previous year with these tweaks. I will continue to monitor this forum, and I hope it doesn’t shut down because I’m not sure if there is another forum where I can get the good, useful information and opinion that I get here.
9
I have noticed this in the 50’s with my stronger male swimmers. We actually talk about just getting through the first 5 or 6 reps with no more than 1 miss. If they can do that, they know they will probably have a good set. The second wind explanation makes sense to me since I can’t figure out why this is happening. Doesn’t happen with my girls or boys with less muscle mass. Hmmm.
I’ll give it a shot with a few of my swimmers and let you know what I find. Will see if I can get them to do it once in morning and an hour before practice, then look at results.
“3. Volume or number of repetitions offered is based on “shifts” in energy system being used. There are points you can use to know when it’s time to readjust speeds. If you wait until they can complete all 30 of a set. You will be waiting a very long time.or your speed is too slow. You reach a point of diminishing returns and it’s better to adjust pace once they can achieve X number.”
Arrgh! This was the one issue I have been dealing with all season. Gut told me to adjust time downward, but I didn’t trust myself on this. live and learn. Think I was a little gun shy because I made some adjustments too close to championships last season and felt they didn’t have time to adapt. Will know after this weekend.
Quick question: When do you let them go (for us it’s when you let them go up and push off) for each set? I’ve followed the advice of Rushall on 2 seconds before (you can go up and push off on the :58 if you are leaving on the :00), but I’m starting to think sending them off on the :59 would more closely correlate to actual times. Won’t know for certain until this weekend when we have districts and all swimmers get to rest going into it.
This season we’ve done our n x 25’s on :60 and our n x 50’s on :90. Big difference from last year’s rule of never more than 20 seconds rest between reps. Really would like to play with the rest intervals to see if it captures their front and back splits more accurately, but I was afraid we couldn’t get enough reps in to really get all of the training effect for each of these sets (only 4-6 hours of pool time per week). We’ll see. I’ve had a good group of kids who have been pretty faithful in adhering to the “rules,” and I’m hoping to get some more reliable data than just a couple of swimmers.
Congrats on the results… that’s fast!
Rick
Thanks for the feedback everybody. Doc, I did use your recommendation on factoring in the standard deviation, and I noticed something a little peculiar this summer with my swimmer. To establish a goal time I did a test set of 4×50 and 4×25 on 2 and 1 minute intervals and then added in the standard deviation to reach a goal time. I also tried to strictly follow Rushall’s advice that rest intervals never exceed 20 seconds. The combination of the 2 did not yield the results I had hoped for. I had to significantly adjust the goal time upward just so my swimmer could get enough reps to get some training. Here’s an example of training the 200 free using nx50 free.
1. Current personal best is 1:48
2. For test set goal time established at 27 low (so far so good)
3. Interval for set was :45 (:50 would have been 23 seconds rest which is above the 15-20 rest interval)
4. Eventually had to adjust the goal time to 28 mid. Swimmer was in aerobic shape, but just could not hold 27 low with the rest interval
5. Even with the 28 mid goal time, there was significant breakdown in technique by the 6th or 7th rep.
Decent results in off strokes by end of season, but no improvement in 200 free and best strokes, and I was not happy with the lack of progress in technique. This is a swimmer with significant flaw strokes, wanted to correct them, but was too physically beat up in the set to make those changes. This is why I decided to swing the pendulum in the other direction.
The funny thing is, I know that keeping the rest interval short would benefit a ton of my high school swimmers who don’t train intensely. By maintaining that short rest interval along with a goal time that holds them accountable, they work harder than they ever have, develop some aerobic capacity, and drop lots of time. Just not seeing the same results for my 4 fastest swimmers who train hard year round. I feel like I owe those 4 more than all the others combined, though. They’ve been willing to pay the price, and they deserve a program that will get them faster. Guess that’s why I’m experimenting this pre-season.
I guess I’ll get some idea of where we are in a couple of weeks with the first meet.For free and back, I time them from the initial head movement initiating the turn (hopefully it’s down and not up) until the feet leave the wall. For fly and breast, I time first touch to feet leaving the wall.
We also time their underwater dolphins during practice. Between sets, we usually work our turn or underwater. For the underwater, they swim from the middle of the pool to the wall underwater and check their time. They then reverse it.
Since we usually have 3 sets at practice, I do 2 sets of turns and 1 set of underwaters.
Because of time constraints, I don’t have time to record these, but I do spot check. they are also responsible for establishing goal times for these. They monitor themselves. Since they need time to recover, we do these turns on 1 minute interval to allow for plenty of recovery.
Fwiw, CoachC, I’ve noticed that 3 days off in a row leads to a decreased ability to complete the usrpt sets. Don’t know if would affect their races, but that’s just my 2 cents worth.
Btw, Bill, where are you located in the U.S. I’m looking for more east coast coaches using usrpt. So far, I’ve met only a couple.
Hey, Bill, nice swimming! It takes a big leap of faith to trust what other people say is foolish. From the times you posted, it looks like your kids reaped the benefits of your trust.
No better feeling in the world, huh?
Look forward to reviewing your data and drawing some insights going into our season.
Rick
Oldschool, my definition of parametric is a combination of your earlier posts and what I have been able to find for free off of the Internet. Man, it’s amazing how people want to be paid for their hard research! What I would like to do is systematically change some of the variables that go into our sets. For me, this would involve changing the number of reps per set/interval per set/and, possibly, goal times within the set. I mainly want to do this to introduce new adaptations that their body needs to make to go faster. I also want to see if I can find a way to train front half speed and back half speed of their races. You asked me earlier where the front half time of one of my swimmers came from, and I still can’t answer because I can’t find any training numbers that make sense to explain the time.
I probably should not have used the word parametric because it seems there’s a lot more to it, but I associated it with changing the controllable variables during a workout. Would love to learn more, but I just can’t find it.
Billratio: Here’s what I’ve got on the 25’s compared to the 100 race. As stated before, I only work with a few kids now, and only one has been at it for more than 8 weeks, so I am just using his results. Once high school season starts, I will have much more data.
By the way, I have adopted the strategy of up and prepare 2 seconds before take off, and they can leave as soon as they are within one second of take off time. So, if we are swimming 50 free on 50 second interval, they go up into their push off position on the “8,” and they can leave on the “9”
16 year-old boy:
100 free: Last successfully completed freestyle set of 16 x 25 was 12.0. Splits for 100 free were 24.84 and 26.08. Accounting for a 1 second turn, he should have gone 26.0 on the second half. I’ll take that.
100 breast: Last successfully completed breast set of 16 x 25 was 14.75. Splits for 100 breast were 29.82 and 32.96. Even accounting for the additional turn time, not sure what to make of this. One major difficulty I experience with this stroke is getting swimmers to train it the way they race it. For example, pullout on the breast is a good 3 feet further at practice than in the race. Swimmer says they are too out of breath on the second half of the 100 to stay submerged that long. Need to figure this one out. It was, however, a pb over his shaved/tapered district time last march.
100 Fly: We have been training the fly with 100 IM training only. We swim 12 x 50 of fly/back by 25. However, we raced it this past weekend to see if it is translating to his 100 fly. Went a :56 and was a :59 this time last year. Not able to really relate to specific training intervals, though, because I do not get the split at the end of the 25 fly in that set.
Not a lot of info, I know, but gotta start somewhere!
Fwiw, we are only doing 16 x 25 and 12 x 50 with our swimmers. This is partly due to very limited pool time for our kids. I will tell you, though, that 16 x 25 and 12 x 50 successfully completed with no misses has equated very well with actual swim times. I had mentioned this in another thread in regards to implementing some parametric training later in the season. I would like to increase the number of reps per set during our high school season, but I am concerned that some of our better swimmers would just not get the time to train all of their events.
I agree with drpaul, ags. Regardless of their goal times for the end of the season, where they are starting is what matters. We do a test set for each swimmer where it is their job to establish a training goal time based on how well they performed the test set. Initially, most of the kids pick slower times than they can actually do because they are apprehensive about “missing” a time. When they see our fastest/hardest working swimmers sitting out the 5th rep of a 50 x 12 because they missed their goal time, they start to understand that if you are truly working to capacity, you are going to miss times. Very important to break the mindset that a missed time equals failure. At this point, I often get swimmers coming up who want to lower their goal time because they realize they are capable of going faster.
I like this approach because it gives the athlete some ownership, and it allows swimmers who are new to this type of training to feel successful during those first couple of weeks of practice. After that, however, I tend to be the one who makes sure we are keeping on track in goal times and reps. Need to strike a balance, I think, between goal times and yards at race pace for a practice. Both seem important in getting good results.
Had our first meet, so I thought I’d post some observations:
I continue to see in my small group of swimmers a strong connection between successfully completing a 12 x 50 set with no misses and actual race time. For example, swimmer’s last successfully completed 12 x 50 breast set with no misses was under :33.75. Accounting for an extra turn at the end of each 50 in a race, I was looking for around a :34.75 for last 150 of race. Splits were 30.43 1:04.73 (34.30) 1:39.60 (34.87) 2:14.72 (35.12). That gives me :34.76 average for the last 50’s.
My other 2 swimmers are only about 6 weeks into training. Results were similar until last 50 of their 200 free. Saw a definite fatigue factor kick in.
The difference between the first swimmer and the other 2 swimmers is that the first swimmer worked hard throughout the summer, and the other 2 didn’t. Oldschool, you had mentioned an accumulation of potential earlier. I wonder if this is what I’m seeing in my swimmers?
During last year’s high school season, I noticed it took about 10-12 weeks to see any improvement in “good” swimmers who showed up out of shape at the start of the season. For my “average,” non-district swimmers, it took about 6 weeks to see improvement. My definition of “improvement” was a personal best. This year, I will have about 6 or so who are ready to hit the ground running. This will actually be an improvement over last year.
