By David
Coach Kimberly is the very good West Auckland Aquatic’s Assistant Coach. She will be horrified when she discovers I have written this story. It would be difficult to find a more pacific and gentle human being. Please do not attribute to her the shortcomings of those she works with and who write for an internet swimming blog.
Coach Kimberly recently took part in a Swimming New Zealand coaching accreditation course. Part of the weekend program involved watching the Millennium Institute’s coaches take a training session. When the course ended I was interested to hear what she had seen and learned.
She mentioned that she was surprised at the difference between the “aerobic” training used in our program and the “aerobic” training demonstrated at the Millennium Institute. I asked if she had an example of an aerobic schedule used on her course. Could I see it? She did have an example. Here is what had been written on the Millennium Institute’s white board. This is what Scott Talbot, New Zealand’s senior performance swimming coach, paid by the state purse, gave to the swimmers on the course as an aerobic training schedule.
AM: AEROBIC AND SKILLS
4×150 – 50 free and 50 fist closed and 50 free or back – sc take 1 less every 150
2×100 – kick NB on 4 positions
2×150 – back 6 underwater kicks off the walls, good streamlines and breakouts
2×100 – kick NB on 4 positions
2×150 – Pull Buoy, 100 moderate and 50 breathe 5 hard
8×25 – fins, odd underwater 15 fast, even dead start flags to flags sprint
Aerobic: Heart Rate 50 beats below maximum
1×200 – on 3.00 then 4×50 # 1 drill main stroke
2×200 – on 2.55 then 4×50 “King Fish” tumble main stroke
3×200 – on 2.50 then 4×50 free jump outs
4×200 – on 2.45 then 4×50 sprint middle 20 meters as a “King Fish” tumble
Dives and skills
I could see the reason for Coach Kimberly’s confusion. Aerobic conditioning at West Auckland Aquatics is based on the teachings of Lydiard and Jelley. I began my coaching career in a sport where aerobic conditioning meant spending three hours running at a firm pace through the Waitakere Ranges, or along forest trails in Boulder, Colorado or down a dusty road in Kenya’s Rift Valley. What did Scott Talbot’s fruit salad mix of interval repetitions have to do with that sort of international aerobic conditioning? The answer, of course, is not a damn thing!
Most certainly aerobic means the same thing in the world of swimming as it does in running. The problems highlighted by Scott Talbot’s program are specific to the Millennium Institute. All New Zealand swimming coaches should not be tarnished by what goes on over there. Scott Talbot’s program is not aerobic training. The author is clearly having a joke with his swimmers or has no idea what the word aerobic means.
I do not know whether Scott Talbot has ever been taught the meaning of aerobic. While Wikipedia may not be the soundest source of coaching information, Scott Talbot could learn a thing or two by reading its definition of aerobic exercise. It is pretty accurate.
“Aerobic exercise is physical exercise of relatively low intensity and long duration, which depends primarily on the aerobic energy system. Aerobic means “with oxygen”, and refers to the use of oxygen in the body’s metabolic or energy-generating process. Many types of exercise are aerobic, and by definition are performed at moderate levels of intensity for extended periods of time.”
As you can see the emphasis is on low or moderate levels of intensity for long or extended periods of time. There is none of that in Scott Talbot’s program. In fact, it is full of expressions common to tough anaerobic training programs. For example:
- Breathe every five strokes hard. Scott Talbot even underlines the word hard in case we hadn’t got the point that he, alone in the world, thinks that 2×150 done hard fits comfortably into an aerobic training schedule.
- 8×25 underwater 15 meters fast. I didn’t notice the word fast in Wikipedia’s definition. Come to think of it, in ten years of listening to Lydiard and Jelley discuss the importance of aerobic training I never heard them use the word fast. Scott Talbot clearly knows something these two missed.
- Dead start, flags to flags sprint. Now here’s something new – aerobic sprints. Scott Talbot introduces the world to swimming’s version of the attraction of opposites.
- 4×50 jump outs. This exercise involves sprinting 25 meters, climbing out to run around the starting block and sprinting 25 meters back down the pool. Even the most generous Millennium supporter might find that stretching the definition of low intensity for a long duration. It will be valuable though, when sprinting around the starting blocks becomes an Olympic event.
- Sprint middle 20 meters as a “King Fish” tumble. A “King Fish” turn involves diving under the water at the flags, turning under the water and swimming to the flags again before coming back to the surface. Aerobic primarily means “with oxygen”. I’m not sure why Scott Talbot would include an exercise clearly designed to deprive the swimmer of oxygen in a program that he twice labels “aerobic”.
- Even the idea of descending a set of 200s is hard to characterize as truly aerobic.
The good news is that Scott Talbot includes a definition of aerobic swimming in his program. He says swimmers should hold a heart rate of 50 beats below their maximum. That’s a pretty good guide. A swimmer with a maximum heart rate of 210 beats per minute should stay under 160. What is impossible of course is to “sprint” the “hard”, “fast”, “King Fish”, “jump out” intervals in Scott Talbot’s program and still be under a 160 beats a minute heart rate.
All this wouldn’t be too bad if the only people affected were the swimmers at the Millennium Institute. Surely they know enough about swimming to realize they are being asked to do aerobic schedules that are not what their coach says they are. I asked Olympic gold medalist, Rhi Jeffrey, if Scott Talbot’s program met her understanding of an aerobic schedule. I thought she was going to die laughing.
The really sad aspect of a program like this is that Scott Talbot is employed by SNZ to tutor young coaches. Let’s hope he researches the meaning of “aerobic” before he tries to convince the next class of trainee coaches that 8×25 meter sprints is a sound bit of aerobic conditioning. Anyone paying $400 or so for their Bronze coaching accreditation has a right to expect better than the nonsense he dished up on this occasion. Last Wednesday morning our swim team did an aerobic program. It was our version of a 24 mile run through the Waitakere Ranges. Many coaches will not like what we did or think it was necessary. They are entitled to that view. What cannot be argued is whether it was authentic aerobic conditioning; warm up 1000 kick, main set 1×8000 IM, warm down 1000 kick. I first saw that schedule swum by Phillippa Langrell at a training camp in Blenheim. Her coach knew the meaning of aerobic.
