Swimming: What Interval To Set During Sprint Sets (Page 2)

Some of the points are well taken. As I said if your goal is to swim a fast 100 then go for it. It is a great goal and swimming that fast is fun. It is the equivalent of training to run a fast 400. The best do it in about the same time.

 And yes if you want to swim fast at 500 yds or 1650 yds then train like college swimmers. The 100th fastest NCAA time last year was: 4:28 men, 4:52 Women for 500 yds; and 15:45 Men, 16:57 woman for 1650 yds . You can do the math on their hundred pace in those races. A hundred people were faster.

 For short bursts of speed it is useful to have another gear. I would suggest this may be important at the beginning of a large mass start of a race, but is over done by triathletes in general. I settle into my pace quickly and watch people beside me fall off at about 50 to 100 yards. While I am loathe to allow a break away in an OWS, in a triathlon it would only hurt my race to sprint to chase them down. It's a fine line. If I can keep their feet I go for it, but if their pace is beyond me I let them go. If I make a mistake it hurts my performance, if I get it right I I have quicker time. In a triathlon I do not want to blow myself out on the swim. Have you ever seen the face of an elite swimmer after finishing a 1650? Not a pretty site.

I think if you can swim a 100 in 1:10 or less you already have the extra gear needed to finish in the top 10% of a typical Oly. Take a look at ChrisM's post above (the second one) and then check out the swim leg times in his races.

Within interval training...  there is a huge difference in the workout between going 60-70% and going 80-90% on the same interval.

 Newbz, you went through what might be your peak aerobic gain.  Often, beginner or out of shape individuals will see performance gains doing aerobic work and then the gains will begin to taper off.  Once you start anaerobic training... you start seeing improvements again.  Tough interval training is a common theme...  see the Charmicheal Training videos for cycling.  You just have to make sure the pacing you are doing is correct.

Denison has a decent DIII team btw...  We used to swim them in dual meets with Pitt.

 LOL You have my number on that one, except that my average is closer to 8:30. I negative split the run so on a couple of occasions I did run down someone in my age group in the last 50 yards. I have to admit that I really enjoyed running down someone who ran past me earlier at AG Nationals. As I turned around the final corner, there he was. I beat him by 1 sec . Later I found out he lived only 10 miles away. The finish line photo made the USAT race photo montage video. I guess I'm one of those guys. :-)

I'm a bit late to this party but thought I would add my 2 cents. Sets done on tight intervals will provide much larger gains than high intensity- long rest sets. I try and do sets in the pool like I do them in the weight room..until failure. If I'm doing a set of 10X100 and put the interval at 1:10, The first few will be managable, the next few will hurt and the last couple I will either be touch-n-go or I will start the miss the interval. If I get to the point that I can criuse all 10, then I need to either add more 100's or make the interval harder. The high intensity with a big rest (as others have stated) is designed for top end speed and I almost never do them. As a middle distance swimmer in college, we rarely did those sets even then. They help get you clear for the swim start and around tight buoys, but honestly, if you are not in the front of the pack, then you would benefit more by tight interval sets to get you overall pace faster. Once you find yourself towards the front, then break out the sprints.

On a side note, I always seem to see people fixing the rest in their workouts (i.e. 5 X 100 with 20 seconds rest between). I guess this is a bleed over from track workouts or something, but it was just not something we ever really did at any of the teams/programs that I have trained under in the 30 years I've been swimming.  I would suggest that if you are stuck in a rut with your swimming, scrap the mandatory rest and go to an interval based workout, at least for your big sets.

 Sorry, but I beg to differ...  if you trained consistently at 60-70%, you progression of speed increase will decrease and eventually plateau.

Working in training at 75-90%, or your anaerobic rate, as the season progresses will do wonders.  So will drastically reducing your distance the last 2 weeks of training before your main race (you must focus on high, greater than race pace intensities).

Now, anaerobic training can be broken down into two different forms, longer rest where the body has time to eliminate the lactic acid build up from the distance swam or shorter rest where the body is not given enough time.  The latter will simulate swimming fast towards the end of the race.  And there is nothing that states that this training has to be 25s and 50s.  Remember that everthing can be tailored to the race distances that the athlete is attempting.

Translation, swimming shorter distances at faster than your race pace definitely has its place.  For one thing, if you are always "cruising" how will you know how your body will react at you race pace?

Ahh, now we are in the age old argument of quantity vs quality.  A balanced training program will lead to the best results!!

oops.

SevenZulu - 2009-01-19 9:11 AM You See Chris, the problem with a master's swim workout is that you have all those other people there to provide peer pressure and keep you doing the entire workout. When you swim by yourself, you can start off with great intentions, but then survival instincts kicks in on sprint #15 of 30 and you modify your workout plan to only have 15 sprints.

That's when you give your car keys to the lifeguard and have them count. :D

To increase top speed, you need a lot of work either at or just below threshold. Death sets are good. No real set distance, swim until you drown/pass out/upchuck in the gutter.

Start with 100's on... you're at 1:05ish? Start with 100's on 1:20. Do them until you can't hold the pace, as in you get done with no rest available. Then do 100's on 1:25. Same drill. Keep adding 5 seconds rest until one of the above three conditions happens, or you notice that you are more drifting with the waves than swimming.

John