[ryanupper]

A couple thoughts:

“General” weight training will never be beneficial to an athlete above the “recreational” status. If you swim 3 days a week and lift 3 days a week you’re probably busy with other things in life, which is fine. Equating this WT routine to an advanced athlete in the pool 6 days a week is a non-starter. Saying “core” “legs” “upper body” is the real issue. I need to design the workout to: improve endurance of the abdominis rectus using concentric contractions from slight hip hyperextension to 30 degrees of flexion; improve power and lengthen the myofibrils of the biceps femoris using eccentric contractions from full hip flexion to full hip extension; improve the endurance of the brachioradialis in a neutral grip position to facilitate a more vertical forearm during the initiation phase. Way easier to say “do core, legs, arms”.

I’ve read maybe all the WT research with swimmers. They mostly involve bench pressing and squatting because those exercises are easy to measure performance parameters (“to parallel”) and are common in other sports research. They also need to contend with swim coaches who won’t A|B test their pool training. Isolation WT can be beneficial for some swimming movements and irrelevant for others. Researchers aren’t there yet.

Maybe the most important exercise is the hip hinge (hamstrings) swing using a kettlebell, dumbbell, medicine ball, or plate (they all are weights so this doesn’t imply 4 “exercise variations”, just equipment available). This is your main power movement off the walls and blocks. Squats (quadriceps) are not really the main driver of this motion because squats produce most of their force from the low parallel position. Here’s the reasoning WT is more beneficial for this motion: you cannot fatigue this movement in the water because you cannot perform 3-4 repetitions in 6-8 seconds. If you push off the wall and streamline (you should) it might take 15 seconds to get back in position. As we know from USRPT articles, you need a good amount of proper reps without a lot of rest. One push every 15-20 seconds isn’t going to fatigue the muscle group in advanced athletes. In isolation, this movement will improve in the weight room.

Olympic lifts, overhead lifts, are the worst because college CSCSs say they improve “power”. Ya, power for the defensive lineman bull rushing the offensive tackle. These movements are almost completely opposite of swimming power needs. Also, everything is a “power” exercise or movement if you are trying to increase the speed of the repetition #physics. No reps should be purposely slow, that is a bodybuilding training style (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy).

Last note: CSCSs are tested in the “Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning”. This is a 752-page book with a single line devoted to swimming. CSCSs have absolutely no formal training in swimming needs.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Just realized we aren’t even arguing about the effects of the system like you see on other sites. Just on how to apply efficiently. Progress…

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Doc,

Well your points are valid, as usual. Record keeping is a chore and simplifying things for a group would be great. However, the technique-at-speed element of USRPT is individual. Some people here, and most on other forums (SwimSwam, USMS, USA Swim), continually talk in terms of conditioning for races. That’s about the first 1-2 months of USPRT. The rest of the season is technique-at-speed and energizing that technique.

Unfortunately, many competitive coaches will not publicly provide insights to maintain “trade secrets”. I don’t think Coach Bray has posted here. I saw him weekly at SDSU during the 2010-2012 seasons when Rushall was doing research with the team. That team significantly improved. He would be a great data point. I didn’t see them taking records during the practices I was near though. I could have missed it at the time.

I think we may be missing the technical focus of the system in terms of describing our sets and questions. Posters still refer to the sets and times from a conditioning standpoint. I haven’t seen a post stating “reps to failure improved 60% while swimmers focused on element A and B of decreasing resistance (A: head looking down, B: 45 degree body roll) for 4 weeks”. We will see perceived stagnation in large numbers (by both teams and coaches) if the experimenters do not reveal that they relied exclusively (probably unknowingly) on the conditioning element of USRPT and continued with their minimal or large-group-generalized technique coaching (high elbow, strong kick). These would be bad populations with insignificant results but outside observers would never know why. I propose it would be better to further analyze the individual performances of USRPT swimmers (Glenn Gruber is a great example) in terms of their macro and micro cycles understanding that the typical USRPT conditioning progression is set in stone for all athletes: race pace using fractional distances, 15-20 seconds rest, breaks at failures, stop at degrading fatigue, faster pace at completion of ~5-7 times distance. The greatest benefit will be the discussion of how an individual swimmer continued to improve past the conditioning period; some specific element of technique should have been consciously improved. And for many masters swimmers this is self coached. Rushall’s concepts, as with other conditioning systems, can be applied to large groups but he always analyzes the techniques of the top individuals. I could be wrong on this last point but I haven’t seen anything from him that shows ~20 swimmers using USRPT (generalized) improved significantly over ~20 traditional swimmers. I guess that’s what coaches want to see even though there are a growing number examples of individuals improving greatly using the system for very specific reasons.

Doc, you seem to be doing the best data-driven analysis with n=48 but you have no control group. And we have no idea about the technical abilities of your swimmers before intervention. I guess that would require a lot of video pre- and post-intervention analysis. Dates for macro and micro cycles would also need to be identified. I’m doubting you had things set up for that level of analysis at the beginning of the season since you weren’t running a scientific study.

I’m planning on getting some video on myself to compare over the next 6 months leading up to masters nationals. Guess I’ll ask for a GoPro for Christmas.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

This will probably not go over well on this website. But I will say it any way. Be very careful of input from master’s swimmers. An “n” of one is not very reliable.

First of all, this site is about a system than is well outside of the traditional. People that would take this comment to heart probably aren’t listening.

With that said, I believe our “n” is moving further away from 1 with each new master’s comment. I can think of 4 people here who have provided insight that is in line with the USRPT principles. As long as the comment isn’t a violation of some basic tenet of USRPT we are all experimental samples in the same test. Andrews would be the real n=1. Of course he will be a masters swimmer when he turns 18.

I’ve been coaching for 10 years, some swim, mostly water polo, and I’ve continued to play during this time. I know plenty of coaches who haven’t been in the water in a while and I can sometimes see the struggle they have with explaining a technique or figuring out why an athlete is have an issue with something. They’ve forgotten how to manipulate their body or they’ve never applied the technique to themselves so they are really missing the ability to explain the movement. Coaching myself in USRPT is so much about feel that my brain is usually in overdrive on a set. I have a “goal sheet” but I can’t wait for a coach to tell me what to do. I need to drive to the goal with an athlete’s training effort while at the same time analyze my technique from a coach’s point of view. Maybe this is why I can only train 2-3 days in a row at most before performance slides; fatigue from high physical and mental effort has accumulated.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Bill,

Great write up. I’m becoming a believer in super-compensation. Obviously, I don’t know what your training transition plan was going into the meets but the intervals may have been too long. I train alone but during the college club practice and I’m always thinking about how to apply race-pace to a large group setting. My suggestion would be to lower intervals is this way:

Swimmers are doing 25’s @:50. Assuming they are doing about 12-15 before first miss I would swim 5 reps @:50 and immediately lower the set on rep 6 to :45 with no break. This allows them to get into the rhythm for 6 swims at the usual interval then pushes the aerobic work.

Individually, I will lower my interval after I finish a target before I lower my pace but in a way that allows me to maintain volume. Right now I’m 12.0 @:35 and when I finally hit 20 reps without a miss I’ll go 12.0 @:30 until the first miss then :35 for the rest of the set. When I get to about 12 reps @:30 at the first miss I know I can continue the set @:30 till about 18-24 reps. I understand that this would be a hard set to apply with a group so the idea of 5 usual reps before the harder interval seems easier to manage.

Your 500 swimmer: Well she got a section record on the relay! That’s just a tough coaching call to have her work the 50 and 500. She was probably a little tired working the extra 50 paces.

When you figure out how to get the sprinters going let us know. The 50 is just a craps shoot sometimes.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

I agree with the taper motivation however it does come down to money. At a JC back in 2005 I was coaching we had one well funded team shell out for full suits for the conference champs at 300-400 a pop. My school could afford jammers (still spent about 3-4K). At my university, 2006-2007, it was the same deal. They bought us jammers and I paid for a full leg on my own. I think I was able to use it a couple times the next year before it wore out.

It created an arms race. If one of the teams had shown up to a dual meet in techs all the swimmers on my team would be asking for them. I think it was an unspoken rule to spend the money at the end. I’m glad they changed the rules years back. It was really creating a huge money suck for the programs to compete with the newest suits. I’d rather have money for team gear and travel trips then one suit for one meet.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Well Doc, I should have read this post first. You ninja’d me.

Try some 37.5s at 100 pace on a minute with the sprinter.

Another opinion, she may need a built in day off since she seems to be doing a ton of “highest” effort sets versus your other swimmers.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

I do 20s for the 50 events. So I kill the swim at the opposite flags. Target time sub 9 seconds on a 30 interval. After using this for swimming and water polo for a year now I’m beginning to see that you can’t expect more than 6 all-out 20 yard efforts on a 30. Right now I’m trying 3 sets of 6 with a minute break. Some days I do the sets with progressively more rest: 6 on a 30, 6 on a 35, 6 on a 40 to focus on peak speed.

So without giving your sprinter a dedicated lane and practice session I would suggest having her do 20’s during some of the time the others are doing 25s for a longer race length (the 100 and 200). She can also do 37.5 yards at 100 pace during those 50s on a minute (when others are at 200 pace) and scull/flutter kick the last 12.5. This should still give her plenty of rest (20 seconds based on your times) and she can work on the turns without becoming too fatigued. And the flutter kick uses the heavily aerobic leg muscles for active recovery and she’s not swimming slow, etc.

You can drop a dive brick at half or tie a weighted rope to the lane line at half for reference points.

Of course, if she is improving within your current framework you might be fine!

Ryan

[ryanupper]

ZFelix,

I think another way to look at it is that you will produce a lot of lactate during a training session just not all at one time. Your body may get better at converting this back into energy during training sessions. Of course, this has little to do with a short race where there is no time for your body to start flushing or converting lactate. All that happens after the race. So what would you be tolerating? After race fatigue?

The point of keeping lactate levels low in training is to get much more high-quality volume in during a session. More volume means more adaptation which leads to improvement in each single race.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Kevin,

So I’ll try to tackle your periodization question. I personally use USRPT during the winter. I use a derivative during the summer for water polo for my own training and the college club I coach. I also use a derivative for weight lifting. I use USRPT exactly as described for running (1 and 2 mile race times).

I’ve noticed that a block of time (maybe 2 weeks?) before a race event should lock in the pace and capacity and slowly reduce the rest leading into the event to get closer to the constant work of the race. This is critical for my running. However, with running and lifting I can reduce intervals by 1 second at a time with my timer app. In the pool I use a watch and with a group this would be difficult. But, I also use “replay” sets that add 5 seconds to the session. ex: New interval of @25seconds going into a meet (miss/failure on 12 and 16) go for the next miss using a 35sec interval.

Second, if I hit a plateau one week by not improving a set within a session I know that I haven’t recovered enough so I add an extra day of rest. The nice thing about USRPT is that recovery identifiers are built in. If I don’t improve a set (especially if I do worse) I know that my daily recovery was not enough. This might be an instance where the group is working a new target for 2 weeks and starting to struggle and you just program a day off for individuals or the group. The periodization is a bit fluid and organic and hard to plan on a calendar. Identifying that is why us coaches make the big bucks.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Um that may be what’s bothering me (the acromial thing). I’ve done maybe more fly the last 6 months than my entire swim career before and I enter my hand above my shoulder (I believe) so this causes some stress.

working solutions: I’m removing fly for a week and I started lifting weights for some stability. I use a very similar system in the weight room as USRPT (not HIIT) and I don’t fatigue myself. I’m not taking any ibuprofen so I don’t aggregate the issue. I also warm up with some push ups.

I’m 35 and have been swimming for 20+ years with no shoulder issues before. I “think” the issues began when I started taking creatine and noticed an increase in initial set power. But it could be from all the fly as well.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

It kinda sounds like they should be lowering their target times. 20 reps @ 500 pace = :35 on a :50 interval. Can they get down to a :34? Not an optimal situation if you only have so much time but if they are holding a pace with :20 or less rest you are on the right track.

What about some 75’s with :20 rest? challenging with less work/rest ratio.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

First off, I don’t remember any “horror stories”. I’m a “user” so may be biased but…

Sets are CLEARLY defined; my training zone is 5-7 times the race distance at race pace. Not sure how much clearer I can get.

I only change one variable at a time so I don’t understand the hybrid bullet. I can only be exhausted if I don’t make the pace at which point I take a break (I’ve missed a pace target).

I feel like the 300 pages of scientific material I have read through, and lived through in 20 years of swimming, allows USRPT to be at least a little “evidence based” and I have a pretty good comparison of how it’s stacking up to my previous training (great).

I’ve definitely developed power and had sets where I maintained pace and thought I was going to pass out due to breathing so hard. Probably not a VO2 max thing…

And USRPT does control the quality of each movement gradually, you must swim at 15 seconds for 28 reps at a 30 second interval before you can swim 14 seconds for 28 @ 30. Obviously, a coach should correct form during this process.

In summary, he doesn’t talk about a single aspect of parametric training except when he says USRPT is similar. Great sales pitch and swimming world should be looking at a 3:1 marketing ROI. If they negotiated a percentage of the parametric sales based on tracked referrals from the article that would be optimal.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Gray P,

Thanks.

Ryan

[ryanupper]

Ya, same here. first failure/miss and I say “abandoned” when the set is over without doing all the reps (3 total failures).

I count every rep. It’s just easier that way. You either find the pace in the first 2-4 reps or you are missing your pace badly and need to stop or change one of the variables. I sometimes practice a pace rep for the next set at the end of the previous recovery period to try and lock it in early.

Ryan

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