Aerobic evening session with a stroke technique and free tempo work focus. The warm-up starts out with some freestyle drill work leading into the kick focus during the pre-set . . .
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“Anything annotated “tempo” for freestyle during the main set is similar to a best average type of effort while keeping it at an aerobic level”. Instead of setting the pace at “aerobic level” (however you have calculated this), reduce the distance and increase the intensity. Kilen et al. (2014)[1] is an example of a number of papers suggesting that increasing intensity over distance can result in improved performances without compromising ‘endurance capacity’, in a number of events. Thinking through this using some scientific rationale and common sense – training at less than race-pace velocities is unlikely to achieve improvements in… Read more »
Thanks for the food for thought on this workout Stuart! I would completely agree with your remarks and have done aerobic sets in a close method to what you mention. On another note, I may have to explain that the loose “description” of intensity isn’t a good idea all the times – however, I have found that in situation like the workout above, what I would consider a type of recovery work, the athletes that are doing great that day and are able to train at a higher intensity can do so. Also, you may consider this as an “excuse”… Read more »
Was this intended as a recovery set? Based on the evidence available, I would suggest that aerobic work has become almost completely, or entirely, redundant other than for the purposes of recovery between sets, or if for some reason the swimmers require an ‘easy day’. There is no link between aerobic work and performance improvements, in competitive swimming events – beyond our youngest age groups of swimmers. I would also stress that, if this was created as recovery, the focus should be exclusively on technique as opposed to making any sort of time interval. If a coach wishes to improve… Read more »
Thanks for the details and your thoughts regarding the lane space and kicking! Indeed, I would have categorized this session as recovery. If you were to ask the athletes – not all of them may have agreed. Also, we have done many recovery/aerobic type workouts without using intervals rather than short rest periods, allowing each athlete to go at his own pace. As for the intervals above, there’s was plenty of rest for all of them and I would think a good ratio between work and rest to allow for good technique throughout the main set. And a little “bonus”… Read more »
Thank you for the discussion Nico.
We have also found, anecdotally, improvements in fly kick after training on the swimmer’s back. I wonder how we could test this improvement. Perhaps by splitting the team into 2 groups – 1 x fly kick on front & 1 x kick on back – conducted over 2 months and test via fly kick races?