Why not continuous swims? (Page 2)

In order to run well over longer distances, we need to train various abilities. Aerobic threshold is just one of them. The ability to sustain the long unbroken pounding is another. That's why run training that focused on swim-style (shorter) intervals or bike-style (longer) intervals would only address part of the problem.

Swimming like either of the others has room for both sprint work and more distance/continuous workouts to facilitate improvement. However there are several reasons that it is not common for the average triathlete to swim 3000 or 4000 straight each workout.

First and foremost the glenohumeral joint in the shoulder is not as stable through full range of motion (swimming) as the hip, or even the knee is through it flexion and extension. A person can easily overuse the shoulder and do a great deal of harm to both rotator cuff muscles and the ligaments of the shoulder.

That being said it is perhaps more beneficial to do sets of 20x100, 15X200 or 5x500 with target intervals to work on your pacing as well as allowing for a brief break to focus on regaining your technique and some relief from the mind numbing black line on the bottom of the pool. It is quite difficult to know if you are holding the pace you would like with your head constantly in the water. These were just my observations from a little over a decade of competitive swimming. Besides, I could probably use the extra time on the bike anyway haha.

This is why I really like my Endless Pool.  Letting your pace drop becomes obvious pretty damn quick.

I'm afraid to look if my plan has swims like this! My longest this week was 2400yds. I did it, but I felt like my brain would explode toward the end!

I guess I'm the opposite. I love the long swim. I do a typical masters swim of 3900-4200yards 3x a week and love it. However, last year while training up for a 5k swim, I was doing SEVERAL 5000yrd - 6000yrd swims on top.

To me, the boring non stop black stripe was great mental training for it. However, unfortunately, I didn't get to race it.

This year, the same swim is coming up and now that I've gotten several masters swims back, and steady effort tempo swims, I'm going to add in a couple of the 5000yrd to just make sure I've covered it all.

X3.

I see a lot of rationalizing and very little empirical support whenever this subject comes up.  Honestly, if the argument holds that incorporating long runs at an easy pace is good for developing run fitness and swimming is lower impact than running, then swimming long at an easy pace should be a no-brainer (assuming one is maintaining good form...which, frankly, is every bit as true for long runs as for long swims)...lower recovery cost than long runs, for starters.

But what usually happens when people start discussing this (including in this thread) is that the emphasis shifts off of long endurance sessions and lands on the benefits of interval sessions and how it's safer to do intervals in the pool than on the track.  I'd agree...but that really says pretty much nothing about the merits of endurance sessions in themselves.

I suspect you all are correct that tradition has a lot to do with it.

There are, on the other hand, plenty of studies of the relative merits (including for aerobic development) of intervals versus LSD. It isn't just that they study the merits of intervals -- they do in fact compare the benefits of the two.

Many of them conclude that intervals are at least as effective as LSD in a number of respects.  Many of them conclude, in fact, that intervals are superior to LSD in some respects.  I can't recall ever having seen one that concluded the opposite, but probably my memory is just failing me there.  Still, I think that the balance of evidence is in favor of intervals.  And as others mentioned, it sure does save time.

Still, as you say, it could be that long continuous swims are superior in some other respects.  I have my doubts.

First, I don't agree with the analogy to running. I'm not at all convinced that long easy runs are all that great for developing fitness.  Not that it means anything, but I almost never go easy on long runs.  IMO, what long runs specifically get you is not more aerobic fitness, but more resilience to the pounding. 

Second, nobody (that I've noticed) is saying that your longest swim session for an IM can be 1600m.  It isn't that we aren't swimming 4k+ in a long swim session (apologies to those for whom 4k isn't 'long' -- it is to me! ).  It's that we are breaking it up with short (emphasis on short!) rests.  So the analogy -- if there is any -- to running is not a swim interval session to a run interval session, but a swim interval session to a long run where you stop for 5-10s every quarter mile.  I'd bet that a long run where you did that would give you all of the benefits of one where you don't.  And yes, if stopping for 5-10s allowed you to recoup lost running form, it might even be better.

I do something that is somewhat similar.  My main interval sets are 6-8 x 200hard/100easy continuous.  This allows you to get in the longer continuous swim with intervals all in the same package.