Why do shorter swim sets in the pool? (Page 2)

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2012-03-08 6:01 AM
in reply to: #4084720

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Minneapolis, MN
Subject: RE: Why do shorter swim sets in the pool?
Other factors are keeping count, maintaining focus, not getting bored and maintaining intensity/ speed. Imagine running on a single city block , by just going back and forth. Intervals help with maintaining a quality workout in the pool. Also I think people are over emphasizing 100yd interval sets. Intervals can go up to sets of 1000s if u swim enough.

Edited by peteweb55403 2012-03-08 6:06 AM

2012-03-08 7:00 AM
in reply to: #4085122

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Champion
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Subject: RE: Why do shorter swim sets in the pool?
dgunthert - 2012-03-07 3:47 PM

We don't train like track runners, we don't train like track cyclists, so why do we train like the equivalent of track swimmers?


IME, most triathletes don't. If you look at what most triathletes are doing in the pool, it is more akin to what a 1500m swimmer would do in training as opposed to what a 50 or 100m specialist would do.

I don't buy the "technique" rationale, either.  If you're technique breaks down that much during a long set, you're not ready for that set.


When I was in swim shape, I could do a 1500m TT at a given pace (let's call it T pace) but I could do a set of 20x100 at T pace less 3s with 10s rest. For training I could have gotten into the pool and just done 1500m's, but in addition to be crazy boring, I know that my form at the end of the 1500 was not as good as at the beginning and I would have only done 1500m. If I did the 20x100, I did an extra 500, faster than I would have in doing a TT and with better form overall. It doesn't take a huge breakdown in technique to matter when it comes to improving one's swimming.

Good or bad, my swim training looks like my bike and run training: VO2 max sets once per week, threshold sets once per week, long steady state swim once per week, and easy mid-length recovery swim once per week.


I would guess that you would see more improvement, with little if any impact on your other training, if you switched the last two workouts into broken swims at around threshold effort.

Shane
2012-03-08 7:13 AM
in reply to: #4084720

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Subject: RE: Why do shorter swim sets in the pool?

This isn't the OP's direct question, but it has come up ...

We should train like swimmers, insofar as possible, who train for the distance of swimming akin to what we are. 400/500 for sprints, 1500m for Oly and half, open water distance swimmers (who spend a lot of their time in the pool doing relatively short intervals) for full. To be fair, there's not a huge amount of difference between them ... but given that all those groups tend to spend most of their time doing lots of fast, shorter intervals, that similarity is worth noting and emulating. There's also a huge amount of evidence to evaluate coming out of thousands of swimmers and hundreds of coaches to look at what tends to be most effective in training fast swimmers.

There's a fair bit of difference between training for a 40km time trial and an imperial century in cycling as well.

What I'm trying to say here is that there's a difference in single-sport training among its events, and to try to compare the training between two different sports AND events (how DO you compare a 1900m swim with a 90km bike???) is apples and oranges.

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