Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? (Page 2)
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2009-11-20 3:33 PM in reply to: #2474910 |
Extreme Veteran 502 Washington | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? If I do a set of 500 repeats, how much rest should I give myself? Right now I do them on 10:00 and I finish them ~ 8:30. Too much rest? |
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2009-11-20 6:22 PM in reply to: #2474910 |
Elite 5316 Alturas, California | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? OHMYGOSH 100,000 yards in a week! That was my last year swim total. |
2009-11-21 12:38 AM in reply to: #2476567 |
Expert 987 Durham, North Carolina | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? oldntrin - 2009-10-23 4:51 PM I'm on a masters' team that's using more of a HS/College workout routine and I'm seeing improvements in my short distance speed. But I stopped doing my longer swims and when I recently swam a 1650 for time, I found that after 7-800 yds I was feeling more tired than I was over the summer. My pace wasn't significantly higher than I'd been holding over the summer, so I attribute the difference to the lack of distance training. QUOTE] So, I was following along with all those saying the long swim didn't help much and it is better to do 4x500's than 1x2000 ... but then I read this posting ... and this is my thought or concern as well. How does one condition themselve for 1.2 or 2.4 miles of constant swimming unless they have swam those distances in training? Does swimming 4x500 really give you the same aerobic and endurance benefit as a single constant 2000 yd. swim? In other words, if I trained with nothing but 4x500's then I would have they same endurance as though I trained at 1x2000? And if I trained only with 4x500's then come race day I should have no problems completing a 2000 yd swim? |
2009-11-21 1:17 AM in reply to: #2476607 |
Extreme Veteran 518 Sault Ste. Marie | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? bryancd - 2009-10-23 5:12 PM Great advice here from some excellent swimmers. The only caveat I would add is that for long course racing (Half and Full IM) it's ok to do a few straight swims of the distance (1.2 or 2.4 miles) during your training. Not to get faster or better, but it can provide you with some confidence, or can give you an idea based on your current swim fitness, what you may feel like come race day. Do it early enough in your training to work to improve and do it again closer to the race. I was thinking the exact same thing, you want to know how it feels to complete the swim/bike/run, and come race day, you'll feel your fitness and have more knowledge on what you can do. Bricks work the same way. |
2009-11-21 2:20 AM in reply to: #2475492 |
Expert 1027 Zürich, Switzerland | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? JorgeM - 2009-10-22 4:36 PM agarose2000 - 2009-10-23 8:59 AM and that's one of the main reasons increasing your load by reducing your intensity but increasing your volume works; for those who have the time to train more I think is a great way to go about improving fitness.Cool - makes sense. so Jorge, it means that if I add a 5th session o my actual bike plan (from your winter program), just going out 2-3 hours in Zone1-2, it would pay back at some point later? even if only low intensity? |
2009-11-21 5:13 AM in reply to: #2475093 |
Extreme Veteran 495 Bluffton, SC | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? shad01 - 2009-10-23 7:29 AM In my opinion, for swimming no. I never do any straight swim over 500 yards. If I want to ramp up yardage I just do more sets. On a distance day for me I do sets of 500's or 400's or a multiple sets of a countdown (500,400,300,200,100) When I started back swimming my plan called for swimming 1500 straight and so forth, which I started out doing. I swam competively throughout college, and started thinking back to those days, I never swam anything over a 500 back then. Granted I was a sprinter and actually a flyer. However I could swim a 500 in under 5 min. So in my opinion, I would not do straight long sets, to up your yardage just do more sets. Like I said though, I was not a distance guy, this is just what I do, I can't stand to swim for 20 or so minutes straight, I like to break it up. I don’t agree with this as swimming is just like any other sport and if you want to get better at longer distance you need to train longer distance. When I start swim training for a race I will incorporate a long swim into each week. That may start out at 1000M and increase each week. For my IM this year I did a couple of 40 min swims and I think one 5000M swim. Yes it gets boring but it depends on what you want to race. Personally I think swimming is way overrated, I train with a guy who swims 6 – 10 hours a week while I swim maybe 2 and we are always within minutes of each other on an IM swim. I put more effort into biking and running as you only have so many hours in the week/month to train and you need to prioritize. This year B2BIM I did a total of 7 hours swim training from October last year to the race in November this year (All Long and Slow) and swam a 52min with a VERY strong current. Even without the current it would have been around 1:10 swim because I got into my long slow rhythm and just kept plugging away. When I got out of the water my HR was around 140 which is my long slow run HR. I averaged 143HR the whole day so my long slow swim training, the whole 7 hours of it paid off. |
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2009-11-21 9:38 AM in reply to: #2474910 |
Extreme Veteran 475 Watertown, MA | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? Lots of good info here, most of it contrary to everything I've been doing the past year . Looks like I need to modify the way I train the swim because 3/4 of my sessions are straight 1400m+ swims or more. I do integrate shorter intervals but--especially in the offseason--most of mytraining has been of the 'long and straight' variety. Glad I read this thread, thanks for the info! |
2009-11-21 9:58 AM in reply to: #2524780 |
Veteran 274 Everett, WA | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? AUSQuest - 2009-11-21 3:13 AM I don’t agree with this as swimming is just like any other sport and if you want to get better at longer distance you need to train longer distance. When I start swim training for a race I will incorporate a long swim into each week. That may start out at 1000M and increase each week. For my IM this year I did a couple of 40 min swims and I think one 5000M swim. Yes it gets boring but it depends on what you want to race. Personally I think swimming is way overrated, I train with a guy who swims 6 – 10 hours a week while I swim maybe 2 and we are always within minutes of each other on an IM swim. I put more effort into biking and running as you only have so many hours in the week/month to train and you need to prioritize. This year B2BIM I did a total of 7 hours swim training from October last year to the race in November this year (All Long and Slow) and swam a 52min with a VERY strong current. Even without the current it would have been around 1:10 swim because I got into my long slow rhythm and just kept plugging away. When I got out of the water my HR was around 140 which is my long slow run HR. I averaged 143HR the whole day so my long slow swim training, the whole 7 hours of it paid off. Depends on your natural abilities. The difference between a 2:00/100 pace and a 1:20/100 pace is 27:20sec over 4100yds (IM). Even a :10sec/100 improvement yields almost 7 minutes. At some point you might plateau on your biking & running times and find that you'll get more benefit from each hour of swim training than your additional bike & run training. But if you're able to rip out a 1:14/100 pace with a HR of 140 with minimal swim time, my hat's off to you. |
2009-11-21 10:48 AM in reply to: #2475300 |
Iron Donkey 38643 , Wisconsin | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? JorgeM - 2009-10-23 8:17 AM agarose2000 - 2009-10-22 11:22 PM I've been runnig for over a decade now, and have definitely hit my zone of seriously diminishing returns. The science I've read in running books about most of the gains at this point coming from aerobic improvements (meaning mainly from long slow training, 90+ minutes) and not from VO2/lactate have proved very true to me in running, as I didn't break through a 10 year plateau of running ability despite serious interval work until I cranked my run volume up to 70+ miles per week, which got me to a whole different level and more of running. I suspect I've been having similar effects on the bike. For sure, all of my big improvements this year were centered around 4-5 hour uber-hilly mountain rides that were hard, but done at a manageable pace. While I did do sprints as well, for sure, my ability spiked after every one of those long rides, moreso than any other type workout on the bike. I haven't tried a similar method for swimming, but I strongly suspect I should. I'm a fairly new swimmer (<1yr), have got my form ok'd by qualified coaches, but am still BOP despite tons of interval work. Do long easier-intensity swims (90+ minute) have similar benefits on swimming, or does it work differently? (It seems that most everything else about swimming works remarkably differently than run/bike for me!) 1st things 1st - training levels are man made to help train more efficiently by maximizing the gains of certain training adaptations. Still all training adaptations interlayer with each other hence even when doing a session at threshold power/pace you are not only inducing that adaptations but also others like muscle fiber fatigue resistance which usually gains are maximized when training around 70-75% of power threshold/pace. The same happens when you are doing a long steady state run/ride, you are maximizing training adaptations like muscle fiber fatigue resistance but also you are increasing your lactate threshold to some degree. In terms of biking and swimming, yes it works the same way. In fact it is good IMO to add some big/long sessions in the mix regardless of your goals. If you usually swim 4x 2000k per week, if every other week you make one of your sessions a 4-5k you will increase your load by exposing your body to new training adaptations and improvements in fitness will follow. The same applies for the bike. What 1TT read - blah blah blah, TRAIN, blah blah blah, TRAIN differently sometimes. |
2009-11-21 1:10 PM in reply to: #2524780 |
Extreme Veteran 336 Chicago | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? AUSQuest - 2009-11-21 5:13 AM shad01 - 2009-10-23 7:29 AM In my opinion, for swimming no. I never do any straight swim over 500 yards. If I want to ramp up yardage I just do more sets. On a distance day for me I do sets of 500's or 400's or a multiple sets of a countdown (500,400,300,200,100) When I started back swimming my plan called for swimming 1500 straight and so forth, which I started out doing. I swam competively throughout college, and started thinking back to those days, I never swam anything over a 500 back then. Granted I was a sprinter and actually a flyer. However I could swim a 500 in under 5 min. So in my opinion, I would not do straight long sets, to up your yardage just do more sets. Like I said though, I was not a distance guy, this is just what I do, I can't stand to swim for 20 or so minutes straight, I like to break it up. I don’t agree with this as swimming is just like any other sport and if you want to get better at longer distance you need to train longer distance. When I start swim training for a race I will incorporate a long swim into each week. That may start out at 1000M and increase each week. For my IM this year I did a couple of 40 min swims and I think one 5000M swim. Yes it gets boring but it depends on what you want to race. Personally I think swimming is way overrated, I train with a guy who swims 6 – 10 hours a week while I swim maybe 2 and we are always within minutes of each other on an IM swim. I put more effort into biking and running as you only have so many hours in the week/month to train and you need to prioritize. This year B2BIM I did a total of 7 hours swim training from October last year to the race in November this year (All Long and Slow) and swam a 52min with a VERY strong current. Even without the current it would have been around 1:10 swim because I got into my long slow rhythm and just kept plugging away. When I got out of the water my HR was around 140 which is my long slow run HR. I averaged 143HR the whole day so my long slow swim training, the whole 7 hours of it paid off.There are people that never run a day in their life then train for and run a sub 3 hour marathon in a couple months. That doesn't make that the best way to train for marathons. You are naturally a fast swimmer but you'd be faster if you trained properly. Most people are naturally crap swimmers so they need to train properly just to keep up with people like you. |
2009-11-21 6:15 PM in reply to: #2524771 |
Coach 10487 Boston, MA | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? Plissken74 - 2009-11-21 2:20 AM JorgeM - 2009-10-22 4:36 PM agarose2000 - 2009-10-23 8:59 AM and that's one of the main reasons increasing your load by reducing your intensity but increasing your volume works; for those who have the time to train more I think is a great way to go about improving fitness.Cool - makes sense. so Jorge, it means that if I add a 5th session o my actual bike plan (from your winter program), just going out 2-3 hours in Zone1-2, it would pay back at some point later? even if only low intensity? Yes! if you are following my winter plan you are getting a mix of different intensities targeting different physiological adaptations. The plan is oriented to produce a greater training load via higher intensity/lower volume since it is the "off-season" it means we are trying to achieve the greater training load possible without going nuts with the time (volume) we spend training; hence we can afford to push more of what we would normally do if we were doing more volume. I would say start with easy 2-3 hrs easy rides (z1-z2) and see how your body handles the load. If it is too much dial back, if it is easy go a bit harder/longer; in the end as long as you handle the volume and you can do all your different training (swim/run) and function normal in your daily life (job, family, etc) then the more training you can do the fitter you'll be! Just remember this simple equation; training load = volume (duration/distance) + intensity. If the Intensity goes up then in general volume goes down and viceversa (except with some cases like the peak cycles). Good luck! |
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2009-11-22 11:24 AM in reply to: #2474910 |
Expert 2555 Colorado Springs, Colorado | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? Contrary to the advice of many here, I think there is some benefit to be had in swimming long sets. I think it is just as easy for form to break down when doing 5x500 on 20 seconds rest as it is doing 1x2500. Plus open water races of HIM & IM distances are not like doing sets of 500 with a rest between, so it's imperative to learn how to keep form together over a long swim. Keeping that in mind, one of the things I do is structure a workout similar to a track workout with active recovery between intervals. In swimming that would be like 450 hard/50 easy and continue through without stopping until the total yardage is done. This is not to say that traditional intervals are not beneficial or that what I mentioned above should be the only method. It's just another thing to add to the mix. |
2009-11-22 4:33 PM in reply to: #2474910 |
Expert 1148 Santa Fe, New Mexico | Subject: RE: Benefits of long swims (and run/bike)? With all due respect, and the previous posters do have my respect. I'm troubled by their answers to this question. |
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