There has been a lot written about "USRPT" training and its implications for swimming training. USRPT training is in opposition to a more traditional approach which incorporates RPT with aerobic development, threshold training, and component training.
Some proponents of USRPT have cited the sport of Track & Field to promote their argument, which is to them is all about specificity. Why train slow functionality when the demands of the race call for fast functionality? Many modern track programs follow this line of thinking.
Clyde Hart, track coach at Baylor, may disagree with swimming's USRPT legion. He has found the best way to go fast for a 400M, which for men is a 43-44 second event at the International level. Coach Hart's athletes have won 3 of the last 5 Gold Medals in the Olympics doing things his way….and Michael Johnson, one of coach Hart's top athletes, is the World Record Holder in the 400M (set in 1999).
In addition to coaching the fastest 400M runner in history, Coach Hart's athletes won all three men's Gold Medals at the Olympic Games over the 1996-2000-2004 quads.
Here's Coach Hart's take on speed development for athletes running a 43-44 second race:
"Train Slower to Run Faster"
Take coach Hart's advice, and don't listen to him ;)
Most people just need something to believe in, because they have spent so long betting on everything but their own mind, their own instincts, and their own experiments. Good luck to you, blind and deaf people. Until you do your own experiments, you are followers of another's dream.
So, 400 track compares to 100 freestyle swimming. 8x200 on 26s with 90s rest as aerobic work would compare to 8x50 off the wall on 26s with 90s rest. Who does that in swimming? Who even comes close? The typical swimming set would be 20x100m on 60s 10s rest. Suggest to Mr. Hart that his athletes should train 20x400 on 60s with 10s rest and see what he would say about that. Compared to what coach Hart does, USRPT seems like a senseles meter-pushing activity. Compared to USRPT, coach hart is doing an all out sprint program.
ReplyDeleteI agree, we have a lot to learn from track and field, but we speek fundamentally different languages coming from two opposite ends of a very broad spectrum and we just don't seem to understand each other and mis-quote on these misunderstandings.
Great comment and questions. It is true that we don't really understand each other, perhaps. I concluded a few things after reading this article in 2009, and I base all my assertions off my own direct experience getting athletes to swim faster.
ReplyDelete1- HR in running is higher in swimming (see "diving reflex"), so runners need more rest to recover HR (relatively) between repeats.
2- After watching Michael Phelps swim 29 seconds in 19 strokes many many times, and gaining the knowledge that prior to 2003 World Champs he was able to do 28 seconds in 18 strokes (and knowing that Michael's 2nd 50 in the 100 LCM in 2003 was 26.4 of his 51.1 Silver medal swim) -- I figured that for a swimmer, training at "plus 2-3" of their 2nd 50 goal was about right and "close" to the track athlete who was training at 26-28 per 200 (which is plus 5-7 of half a world class time and probably plus 3-4 of the actual 2nd 200 of the Olympic Final race which is typically 43 mid but at it's fastest 43.1). An in-exact 'science' perhaps but one based off my own eyes and experience.
3- I used this method in 2009 with athletes like Felicia Lee (who went from 59.7 to 58.6 in the LCM 100 Fly that summer), Elizabeth Pelton (who went from 2:23 to 2:11 LCM 200 IM, from 2:12 to 2:09 Backstroke, and from 101+ to 100.4 in the 100 Backstroke), and Austin Surhoff (who won NCAAs in the 200 IM in the spring of 2010).
4- The article reminded me of a conversation I had with Murray Stephens, an Olympic Coach and Coach of multiple American record holders. He urged me to train athletes at what he called "plus" pace….so relaxation and flow become primary in relation to all-out hard efforts.
5- Coach Hart's words from the article show that from his viewpoint many track athletes do too many all-out efforts, and in his program THAT is a major difference. USRPT, as far as I understand it, supports the training of efforts that may or may not be "All-out" but are certainly "At pace". My point with this article is that there are more ways to train…and training "above pace" (ideally with lower stroke rates that racing rates) are more akin to Fast Racing than the other way around (under pace with rates at or higher than expected on race day).
5- Coach Paul Bergen, who was a Mentor of Coach Bowman, also used this type of training with Inge DeBruin, who won 3 Gold medals in 2000 (100 Free and Fly, plus 50 Free). Inge did more 50M repeats above pace in the lead-up (last 3 weeks before 2000 Games) than she did under or at pace. She also did these with less strokes (lower rate) than racing goals.
6- It's clear reading Coach Hart's article that both Jeremy Wariner and Coach Hart were not sure about this plan at the beginning until they went through and did it. The results were pretty good in 2004, as Jeremy Wariner became the Olympic Champion as his Baylor brother did the 2 quads before.