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Schwimm-Ratgeber

Langstreckentraining für Jugendliche

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Speed through endurance is a natural result of physical training via the path of aerobic endurance routines - so the text books of quasi swimming science inform us. According to these principles that trainers and coaches have followed diligently for half a century or more, this is the best way of achieving the full potential of speed ... whatever that distance or stroke may be.

I have little argument with that hypothesis … except for one word … best.

Whichever is the finest system of training for fitness is not the issue for debate; the point is that there are many protocols of exercise principles that can be useful in attaining an objective in physical speed. Any categorical statement that one specific medium is the best way, is surely the voice of either inexperience or obstinate prejudice.

If we accept the concept that speed through endurance is correct, and it probably is, then we must logically also accept the premise that attaining and then maintaining any degree of velocity, requires an endurance value at least equal to that speed. Let’s think about that comment for a moment or two.

The ability to build, sustain, endure and improve speed, all revolves around how much endurance work the athlete has achieved in the prior build up period. Whether this is carried out by intensive work aerobically or anaerobically - or a combination of both - is not challenged. The pertinent fact is, that once any real speed is attained, the sequence of further progress is dependent on an ever increasing training velocity however it is done. This velocity however, comes at a heavy price and is governed by a major influence - the ability to endure that speed for a specified distance.

So it would be a rational statement to declare that endurance to swim faster is created by training faster. Therefore, Endurance through speed!

That piece of philosophy is very clear to me because I have lived with and by it for many years. However, it is just as easy and just as correct, to construct a positive case for the opposite hypothesis, Speed through endurance. One could say, does it matter? but in the long term, my belief is that it does.

If a swimmer has reached an elite level and claims that his prowess has come through the use of endurance training, there must have been a point during his rise to fame that speed became a necessary factor of his training schedules. I don’t think anybody will argue that this is not true. The more distance you swim in training and the faster you do it, inevitably the whole of the parts becomes an endurance swimming exercise. And you could say, quite truthfully, that speed, over any distance, would not be present without some degree of endurance.

At some particular point in the entire activity though, it becomes necessary to include more difficult segments of training into the cycle to achieve a better or faster result. This is where disparate proportions of anaerobic or aerobic training are introduced and both speed and endurance become delicately balanced.

Now, to achieve a rapid velocity into the racing model, speed training at some stage of the training cycle is essential. Aerobic training alone will be insufficient to reach full speed potential; only is it a mandatory exercise for…

  1. building and sustaining the platform of fitness and
  2. assisting further physical adaptation by the use of active recovery sessions.
  3. Aiding technique improvements through the use of drills.

Unless - the athlete possesses some innate aerobic ability, superior to his brothers and sisters in sport, that conditioning does not appear to be as much of an obligatory issue. - the athlete possesses some innate aerobic ability, superior to his brothers and sisters in sport, that conditioning does not appear to be as much of an obligatory issue.

If such an athlete exists, and there is ample evidence that they do, then this particular type is open to a pensive question or two.

  • Is it purely a superior aerobic element alone that these gilled people possess for the process of an efficient energy production or…
  • Do they have the innate means to manufacture the anaerobic fuels in all of their other energy systems - faster and in larger quantities than other athletes? Later, we will return to this apparent model of efficiency.

In the speed phase of a training cycle, whether it is short or long, mild or intensive and assuming that conventional maintenance work is carried out in the range of aerobic to anaerobic threshold values, then it is logical to believe the following allegation. Velocity of even moderate significance derives from not only endurance in the aerobic sense but also all the other factors involved in the energy systems of the body.

So we can logically assert that the creation of enough endurance to hold maximum speed over a certain distance is contrived from working all the various modules of training processes at speed - not in just the aerobic mode but, every factor involved in turning the athlete from a slow plodder to a speed machine. Or, to put it more succinctly, Speed Endurance through Speed Training!

High Velocity Overload sprinting is just one of those exercise features that appears to be a very essential part of any system of training that requires an ultimate speed, that is of course, unless your swimmer is practising to swim across the odd ocean.

SPRINT AND MID DISTANCE

Some 10 years or so back I introduced this type of training into my squad and almost instantly acquired a step up in results and faster times. I’m not going into all that over again but the reason for mentioning it was to reinforce the message that I literally spread through these pages at that time. Within a month of becoming efficient at doing this workload, my swimmers, almost without failure, improved their race times for distance ranging from 50m to 400m.

The conclusion I reached at that time was this. If you want to improve the power and consequent speed of your swimmer then you must train your swimmer at speeds of sufficient quality and quantity to acquire endurance. With one proviso. Keep most of the sprints short enough to work only in the phosphate area (ATP-CP) while you are demanding top speed efforts. There is little danger inherent in swimming this type of workload other than muscle soreness.

When you need to work with longer sprints or efforts, which also appear to be a necessary portion of the sprint cycle, take care, these are the hazardous zones that require skill by the coach and a deep knowledge of what he/she is doing. Any of these distances performed at up to 95% effort and ranging from 50m to 200m are advised to be kept to a minimum of 600m sum total in any one set and not more than three times weekly (but not every week) Such sets for example would look like this…

  • 3x200, efforts on 7mm each accompanied by a similar distance in recovery
  • 5x100, efforts on 4mm ditto
  • 10x50 efforts on 2mm ditto
  • any combination of above on similar times.

A good question which could be asked at this time is, where does the endurance factor benefit from this kind of programming? The answer is, probably mainly from the longer effort work - as little as it may be in quantity. I am not completely happy with this answer though and often ask myself … is there an endurance flow-on from the high velocity sprints? Without having any proof whatsoever other than results attained, I believe that in quantity and intensity, these sprints do have an effect of building speed endurance into the swimmer. I have to admit however, the scientific fraternity in its majority, does not agree with this statement.

I am certain though, that any gains my swimmers made in times, were derived from this portion of our total work cycle - the high velocity sprints and the longer effort tasks. All other work comprised traditional training schedules - an absolutely essential part of the training regime.

While these short sprints are being carried out efficiently, the ATP-CP system is working overtime, using the phosphates as fuel in the ten second or so of their lifecycle before manufacturing more in an ever repeating process. Unlike glycogen, there is little stored for future use. Without this fuel, no muscle energy can be utilised so there has to be an enduring action, at least to allow the cycle to continue and keep the other systems operating efficiently.

Now, that is all from the pen of a non-scientist and maybe does not jell in any textbook but to me it makes sense and - it does work!

DISTANCE

Most of the success I have had with swimmers is in the sprint to mid distance range. A few have come into prominence in distance swimming and that is something worth commenting on. One boy, several years ago, did rather well at a National Age 1500 which prompted a well known NSW coach to good humouredly bag me, asking me if I was going to claim him as an endurance through speed concept. It was spoken in a droll fashion and at that time, was certainly amusing. I accepted the jibe in the manner it was given but later wondered if indeed he had not struck a small nail on the head with that statement. The boy had, in fact, done most of his work in the squad of sprinters, etc., with the exception that he did perhaps another 10k weekly more than they did but strictly in the aerobic mode. Now I am not going to put that forward as a factor of his success - my opinion was he was an exceptional case and there is no doubt he could have improved his ability in a distance orientated squad. Not that it has anything to do with the eventual outcome of this story, but he had no desire to do that.

So where did he get his endurance factor? The ability to keep a certain speed going for a distance up to 1500m? I don’t know and I suspect nor does anybody else but it is a possibility he did gain a certain endurance from doing intensive speed work mostly over 100m distances. He enjoyed doing this kind of work (30x100 on 1.40 base) but because he did not have enough aerobic endurance behind him, occasionally over-reached and caused all sorts of trauma to occur. Twice I had to send for medical assistance. A coaching error, no doubt whatsoever ... I accept full responsibility. But short of whacking him over the head or chucking a net over him every time he tumbled, there was no chance of stopping him once he was into his stride. He was a terror to train, listened to no one, hated the whole world and thankfully shifted squads before some catastrophe occurred.

This little tale was told because it is my belief that these kind of people do arise from time to time and may be the catalysts for past improvements in world racing and training. Over more than three decades of coaching at a reasonably high level I have probably trained thousands of swimmers but few of this kind. Most swimmers are predictable in what they are going to achieve whether it is a particular stroke or an event but now and again emerges a swimmer who is so talented or so different it is hard to categorically select a stroke or distance for them. And sometimes, because of that talent, they can change the very thinking processes of coaches who believed they knew most of what was necessary to produce a champion.

To my certain knowledge, there are just three distinct species of swimmers. The first is a dead set distance swimmer of which appears plentiful in quantity - maybe that takes in most of the human race regardless of colour, shape, size or creed. These are the people who can only swim slowly but can do it all day and even all night. No real talent required, only that of stoicism. These are the ones who cover themselves in grease and glory when they swim the English Channel at a pace they can handle without the intruding agony of lactate poisoning. Just discomfort and fatigue! I think, if we wanted to, this would include about 90% of the whole human race. Type 1.

The next example has been described by science as being aerobically capacitated but I believe that term is not adequate enough to describe their real talent. My thoughts would encompass a deeper meaning - that of the endurance enhanced speed swimmer. These are the ones I have previously mentioned and are a rare breed indeed.

They have the ability to race a fast 100 all the way up to 1500 at only slightly diminishing pace. They appear to be able to accomplish this small miracle (to us Norms) without a consummate amount of training. The young man included above would fit this species and in all my years of training I was lucky (or unlucky if they have the wrong attitude) enough to have only four or five that I know of, in my lifetime squad. Type 2.

The third sort is also unusual but still plentiful. The sprinter of the drop-dead variety. There are stacks of them around but few acquire or inherit the desired characteristics to aspire to world class swimming. They too, need little training - in the water anyway. We hear of the exploits of such famous speed swimmers like Tom Jager who apparently trained only minimal amounts for his record shattering 50m times, although other sources have it that he did a lot of mileage when he was younger. In our own land, Mark Stockwell and Angus Wadell were late starters for their events. Neither starred at Age Group swimming, although Mark would have plenty of miles behind him at a later age.

We all have these types in our squads, with various levels of speed and/or desire to succeed. This lack of motivation does seem to be a problem with the last two types, and often the commitment does not last for any lengthy period. Most want to spend their time on earth in other pursuits not quite so painful and consequently are regularly missing from the squad at critical times of training. They love to race but will go to any lengths to avoid the hard yakka! Type 3.

So, what are we left with? Not a lot of purely athletic types but sometimes we do attract the committed and those willing to put in the hours of slog that is important in our sport.

For every average swimmer who trains however, there are many more who vary only slightly from this medium - to an astonishing degree. I don’t want to write a lot about them, they are the bread and butter of swimming, who occasionally rise to great heights and mostly provide the other seven finalists at Olympic level. Maybe that declaration is unfair to those seven and not exactly accurate but it clearly states the obvious, there are but a few who are capable and possess all the indispensable skills to compete and win at Olympic level.

These gifted few are the people we should be studying to see how and why they do it. These are the Type 2 swimmers.

In Australia at the moment we are blessed with four or five male swimmers who probably rank in the top 10 in the World in distance events. We have enjoyed the privilege of having men at the top for 50 years in this event. Our women have also competed with high levels of success at distance swimming - but with the retirement of Hayley Lewis, the distance cupboard looks bare. The press are well aware of this weakness in the ladies events and recently there has been some comment from ex-swimmers and the odd coach expressing concern that our girls do not want to do the hard work necessary to attain that level.

I’m sorry, but I cannot agree with that observation. As I have indicated, there is a scarcity of swimmers about who have the ability to race at speed for any distance over 200m. Type 2. We are not looking for just swimmers who are able to swim and train for 1500s. there are thousands out there who would willingly do that work if they could produce results. The truth is, we have not got any who are capable of training at the required speed to attain World 800 and 1500 record times. Why is this thus!

Again, I will throw the word LOGIC into the ring.

In an article some years ago, I pointed out the impossibility of female butterflyers who could not break 29 for the 50, of swimming down to a 2.05 for the 200 - no matter what type of training they are subjected to. It has been shown by the two greatest exponents of butterfly this century that Meagher and O’Neill, both cleared well under 29.0 and 1.02 for their splits on the way to their great times. In other words - they had the required speed to eventually get down to those times.

Extrapolating that stroke to freestyle, it is absolutely essential that to break 16 minutes for the 1500 these young ladies would need to be sub-minute swimmers, 2.01 200m swimmers and so on. Janet Evans could do it, Hayley Lewis who regularly swam 58s as 14-year-old and won a world title in a 200 in 2 minutes flat, was only a few seconds off that pace. Julie Macdonald was another capable of that feat - not quite so fast over the 100 - but who split 4.08 for the last 400 of her 800 in Seoul! Michelle Ford was a top 200 swimmer in Freestyle and fly and whose 800’s still rank in the world best times for that distance. Tracey Wickham who sprinted 1.02s for 100 fly, split 2.02s for the 400 Freestyle in her World record swim, also came close to breaking 16 minutes.

I apologise if I have left out a few more who were very capable of that kind of sustained speed. Nevertheless it is a sad but true comment that these swimmers are a scarce commodity and, scientifically, should have been tested in every known way while the opportunity existed. Maybe some were, if so. where are the findings? Where were the scientists?

These girls were so talented I often wondered how fast they could have achieved with some modern concepts of training to enable them to maintain speed over distance instead of the hugely aerobic work they mostly did. Definitely Type 2. I am sure their former coaches would apply a different formula in their total training procedure if they had their time over again.

The pessimists who are barking at the door for shifts back to the old routines are forgetting how few and far between these girls are. They are also forgetting the work and time that was required to enable them to reach that standard. They are forgetting the enormous drop-out rate, the burnt-out ones who had the ability but tried to do it from too early an age. The over-bulked and the damaged, physically and mentally. Do they really want us to put keen but modest performers (Type l+) to train distance with only the slightest smidgen of attaining the tiniest degree of success.? What lies are you going to tell them to keep them in training and missing out on vital units of education? And what explanations do you materialise on their eventual failure? So what if one does emerge a champion? I would bet big money she would be a Type 2 swimmer.

Some are advocating starting big aerobic mileage at 10 years of age and that is nothing short of child abuse. At 10 or 11, a child has no idea what they want. The coach is a revered figure who can do no wrong and they will do anything in the pool he/she demands. Four years of this mundane and quite possibly, moribund work later, they are still trying to climb the tree of success. Not fast enough for the sprints as they have never done any fast work in training and not good enough for selection because their times are not fast enough Why? Because they haven’t done enough intense speed work to give them speed!

So they drop out or continue to plug on, doing the same workload year in and year out and changing coaches to see if that effects a difference. Mostly it doesn’t so they go into the workforce prepared for nothing but swimming. I don’t know about you, but I have a conscience problem putting those kind of swimmers into heavy, time-consuming training when I know the results are going to be so meagre. Maybe we should be looking inside ourselves and pondering on exactly why we are in coaching. If it is just for feeding your own ego then get out of it and earn an honest dollar somewhere else.

Supposing they don’t go into work of this endurance nature until they are 14 or so. By this time most girls are maturing in body and mind and know what they are seeking so we only have those girls, still committed, in training. They also possess the speed that came from their own normal growth development and the programs they were set. If those programs contained high intensity sprints of short duration then physically, they are even better prepared. Mentally, because it is all new to them, and the rewards emanating from them so valuable, the onerous longer work is acceptable. The 11-year-olds, now 15 or 16, are about to peak in speed and are looking elsewhere for a break in their training routines and a taste of La Dolce Vita.

That is not a wild guess, if you care to look at the statistics of many of our youngsters who starred at distance as a 13 to 16 year old, you will notice a strong trend that this was their finest hour. Most swims after that age period never came near their early times.

If they are induced into short fast work when young, they are developing all the skills of stroke and racing and - they are fast! I would like to dwell a moment on the statement - skill development - because we are now approaching the reason for this article. Phew! At last!

There is no better way of adjusting a poor stroke or skill than doing it at speed. It is a physiological fact, no matter what the textbook says and I have pointed this out repeatedly in other articles. There is a place for aerobic swimming, that is not denied. Moreover, it is essential, but so too is the fast work, an absolute cog in the various gears of the training machine. If we have a problem within our squad on a swimmer’s stroke no matter what age, we bring them back to short fast sprinting to correct it. If we want to teach smart swimming like distance per stroke, or displaying good stroke rate values, we do the same practise. Rarely at slow pace. Why? Simply because you are teaching the wrong neuromuscular patterns when you swim them slowly. Muscle Memory Rules!

These routines of speed swimming in the form of short swim relays, catchups and drills done in a fast mode, can be constructed into their program at any age from four to five year old onwards and will only strengthen the child to swim at their own pace. They have an inbuilt mechanism that prevents them from over-speed and prevents physical damage. It’s called pain.

Those young ones will sprint until it hurts and then back off. Naturally, just as you planned it. The point of pain is a warning that the body parts are reaching close to the apex of damage. Overload. From this moment, repairs commence and strengthening takes place. With strength comes power, with the skills they are learning, comes technique, endurance chimes in and all of it combined equates to - speed. And may I add a vital ingredient of the training smorgasbord - enjoyment?

Okay, I drifted away again but one thought just seems to carry onto another - all related in some way.

So I suggest, we look more for those talented individuals who are naturals or we train our young ones to go fast and then, when they are well prepared mentally and physically - if we think they are capable - show them the way to the Elysian Fields by placing them in the distance lane. At an age when they are mature enough to handle it.

My thoughts in regard to the moral aspects of chucking kids into the distance lanes to get them aerobically fit (what for?) is that it is terribly wrong unless you have a real purpose in mind. You will lose a lot of kids who are going precisely nowhere. At least training for speed early keeps them happy and gives them some sort of success at an early age by teaching their bodies what real speed in the water is all about. Like a fish.


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