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More Fun Than The Things I Should Be Doing

By David

First I must explain, then agree and then apologize. The content of this article refers to a lengthy reply from Brent discussing previous Swimwatch articles promoting the benefits of long distance conditioning. His reply is well worth reading. The discussion is important as it affects the content of what some poor bugger in a swimming pool is going to spend the next four years of his life doing. Besides, Brent’s right, writing about it is more fun than the things I should be doing. In this article I have taken extracts from Brent’s replies and commented on them. This is unfair which is why it would be best to read his reply in its entirety.

Brent said – “When you are training aerobically, we can’t really say that you are making yourself faster anaerobically. It is much more complicated than just saying “the faster you can swim aerobically the farther ahead you start.” I’ll move on because that’s really beside my point. I feel like you probably know all this, but you are trying to pull one over on your readers and me to help prove a point.”

I absolutely agree that aerobic improvements are not proportional to anaerobic racing improvements. Every season I have tracked the time and percentage improvements of swimmers in the distance conditioning period in the hope of finding a formula that related aerobic improvement to racing times. I am satisfied no such formula exists. In every case though, improved aerobic distances and times have resulted in faster race results. I don’t know whether better aerobic results mean sprinters train better anaerobically or directly contribute to the race performance. It may be both. I am satisfied that “the faster you can swim aerobically the farther ahead you start” and the faster you will race. And that is not just to help prove a point.

Brent said – “This may come as a shock, but I am an advocate of a strong aerobic base as long as it accomplished well in advance of racing time.”

I knew that anyone who took this amount of time debate the merits of distance conditioning had to be a believer at heart.

Brent said –“ The low yardage group ended up with much more power in the water (and speed) than they started with, but before tapering the training group actually had less power in the water (tested on power rack) than they did before the season. After tapering the yardage group regained their power to about the same levels, and they dropped some time, however, they dropped less than the low yardage group.”

This sort of logic really annoyed Arthur Lydiard. Group A did something and got one result. Group B did something else and got a different result. So what. What about Group C that did both things for an equal period of time? What result would they get? After all that’s how a balanced distance conditioning program works. To clarify this point the table below shows what a typical Lydiard swimming program would look like for a 50 and 100 swimmer. They would do weights all through the 26 weeks. Incidentally the distance of 100 kilometers was not arrived at by chance. Without referring to anyone else we tried all sorts of distances in an effort to replicate the physiological changes that occurred in a runner training 100 miles. We got closest at 100 kilometers. The real point though is that a good program is not a matter of choosing between distance and power – it’s a matter of doing both; lots of both.

Brent said – For the ones that can’t yet, we’ll settle for lower numbers during basal aerobic phases (which by the way can’t last 25 weeks for everyone). My message here is that we shouldn’t rack up the yardage for the simply for the sake of hitting a number.

The table above clarifies the 25 week confusion. It’s actually two seasons of 12 weeks per year. I agree there will be swimmers who complain about 100 kilometers and use the old “I’m a sprinter” excuse to dodge a bit of hard work. However, every national class swimmer can swim 100 kilometers for 12 weeks. It’s not that difficult; “Racking up the yardage” is not “simply for the sake of hitting a number”. Racking up that mileage is because that’s the time and distance it takes to produce aerobic physiological changes. That’s how we arrived at 100; certainly not because it was a nice round number.

Brent said – When dealing with sprinters, however, we should look at track’s sprinters. We don’t see sprint runners out running lots of miles. In Michael Johnson’s (400 meter world record holder) base endurance phases he was reported as doing 15 miles a week, and he ran the 400!

A week ago Brent was telling me not to look at what someone else does and follow the pack – only joking. The point here is the same as I have mentioned above. A Lydiard program is not suggesting Michael Johnson should have abandoned his weeks of 15 miles of sprint training. After all see how similar this is to the ten weeks in a Lydiard program. What Arthur is suggesting is that Johnson’s 400 would have been faster and he may still hold the 200 record if he had added a few weeks of aerobic conditioning before he did the 15 miles of sprint training. I know a few runs around Auckland that might have done Michael a “power” of good.

Brent said – You basically said yourself that sprinters aren’t able to swim well when the set gets long.

No, I didn’t say that. What I said was sprinters, who hadn’t done distance conditioning found it difficult to do long sets at a fast pace. That’s because they haven’t been trained properly. One of the three swimmers I mentioned was a 200 specialist but won the 50 at a US Nationals, the other was a 50 specialist and got a bronze in that event at the Pan Pacific Games. The third was a 200 breaststroke swimmer but swam the 100 in her National relay team. They were all sprinters, near enough. They could also do a pretty good 10,000. There is a difference between not wanting to do something and not being able.

Brent said – Also, as I kind of touched on, the principle of training specific to races close to the big meet, and doing lots of power and sprint work for sprinters favors the idea that power is lost with distance training but can be regained. Think about it…

That’s a valid argument although I wouldn’t put it quite that way; as you can well imagine. I would say that power temporarily takes second place while other needs are addressed. Power is not lost or considered unimportant. It is a vital part of good swimming and will be nurtured in full measure at the right time. In fact it will be nurtured better as a result of arriving at that stage of training with an aerobically fit, well conditioned body.

Thank you for the discussion – it’s been fun.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 at 5:24 am and is filed under Training . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Brent

    I really don’t want to do this. I know that this could go back and forth indefinitely, because you have apparently decided you already know everything there is to know about training and preparing swimmers. I have no reason to think you will not continue to take things out of context and insist that your incorrect statements, which are based solely on opinion and assumption, are correct. I am not someone that is very able to let people be wrong without telling them. Throughout these articles Mr. Wright, you are very, very wrong. This actually is no longer fun because I am finding your stubbornness extremely frustrating.

    I will number my comments in accordance with your arguments above.
    Enjoy.

    1. Aerobic and anaerobic improvements are entirely independent of each other. As I have mentioned, there are certain contributions of endurance training to sprint performance, but the actual improvements in the two different energy systems are independent. Aerobic improvements decrease recovery time. With an improved aerobic capacity an athlete will recover faster, so he is able to train harder and more frequently. Beyond this, the improvements of your athletes are probably due to anaerobic improvement.
    2. I am a believer in an aerobic base, but I am not a believer in your “100-km a week for everyone” idea.
    3. The group I described as the “distance” group did the team’s usual sprint training in the water which consisted of power and sprint training as well as yardage. This group’s training actually resembled your model for a sprint training program quite a lot. As shown by the power outputs and performance after this study, “lots of both” isn’t always necessary. The endurance training decreases muscular power, so when it is mostly left out the sprinter remains much more powerful. To show that swimmers can achieve desired results with less training you might look at David Costill’s paper done in 1991 titled “Adaptations to swimming training: influence of training volume.” One group in Costill’s study increased training to twice as much as the other group for a six-week base phase (two 1.5 hour practices instead of one). The higher volume group showed less power and sprint speed after that six-week phase than the lower volume group, and there was no statistical difference in performance at the end of the season. That equal performance could be a result of worse recovery ability in the lower volume group. Like I’ve been saying; an aerobic base is beneficial, but it won’t make or break a swimmer.
    4. You completely ignore the fact that all athletes are different. While it may look like a certain yardage works for some swimmers, that doesn’t mean it works for everyone. While having everyone do the same thing makes our jobs easier, it is not the best way to prepare everyone. Athletes can achieve the same training effects with different distances. Also, males and females are different. All his, combined with the fact that athletes compete at different distances are best served with different amounts of aerobic training, means that the same number isn’t best for everyone. Also, I am quite certain that coaches besides only those that coach national level swimmers read your articles, and you are saying everyone should do 100-km a week – not just national level swimmers.
    5. This point is where I am really blown away. Are you really suggesting that Clyde Hart missed something in training Michael Johnson? Johnson was famous for negative splitting the 400, so if you think that aerobic training might have improved his endurance that is not true. No part of the 400, or the 200, is aerobic. Johnson absolutely dominated the 400m, and has held the world record for 11 years. The man who broke his 200m record, Usain Bolt, does no base endurance phase at all. Do you think you could train Bolt to go faster than he does? What about the Auburn sprinters who never come close to 100-km a week. Do you think you could do a better job than Brett Hawke at training the two fastest male sprinters in the world?
    6. Has anyone held a competition to see what sprinter can do the best 10,000? No. Until such a competition exists, I see no reason to worry about how good my sprinters are at them. This point is similar to number 4. I am tired.
    7. Yes, Mr. Wright, power is lost. I would like to know what studies you have conducted or read that make you so certain that power is not lost as a result of endurance training. A great article to look at would be a review article by Elliott, Wagner, and Chiu in 2007 called “Power Athletes and Distance Training.”