Types of strength for swimmers

Swimming is not a sport that gives immediate gratification. When a person comes into competitive swimming without a base of athleticism, a great deal of time and energy must be devoted to building that base, to prepare the person to take on the rigors of training for competitive swimming. In contrast, when these qualities are already present, a swimmer is able to excel faster. A swimmer who comes into swimming with an athletic base in place is able to concentrate on developing solid swimming skills, gaining swimming experience, and swimming fast.

Types of tapers

Taper is the period of training prior a major swim meeting during the season. Taper starts immediately after the most intense training has ended, and the swimmers continue with reduced training that will supposedly allow them to recover and superadapt. Up to this day there are three categories of tapers that competitive swimmers use.

Test sets for evaluating the aerobic and anaerobic muscular endurance of swimmers

The reason that coaches and athletes want to test the aerobic and anaerobic muscular endurance is to get an estimate of the changes that are taking place above the anaerobic threshold, principally changes in buffering capacity. This type of set provides information about the slope of the lactate-velocity curve and whether it is flattening above the anaerobic threshold. This test may be the best measure of how well an athlete is maintaining the balance between aerobic and anaerobic training.

Tips to improve your kicking

Kicking is a very important aspect in swimming and we all know that better kicking equal better swimming. Here are a few tips from Wayne Goldsmith that will help you improve your kicking in no time.

Test set for evaluating changes in anaerobic power

The purpose of test sets for anaerobic power is to evaluate changes in an athlete’s rate of anaerobic metabolism. A small number of very short repeats should be used so that acidosis and its slowing effects on anaerobic metabolism will not cause interpretation errors.

The best repeat distances are 25 and 50 m. The whole set should be between 100 and 300 m in length. The rest intervals should be long to allow for the elimination of much of the lactate that is produced during each swim. It’s better if you use send off times of 2 to 3 min between 25s and 2 to 5 min between 50s. Athletes should be encouraged to swim easy during the recovery periods between repeats to assist in clearing their muscles of lactic acid. Some examples of repeat sets for monitoring changes in anaerobic power are 8 x 25 m on a send off time of 3 min and 6 x 50 m on a send off of 4 min.

Critical swimming speed test

Critical swimming speed (CSS) tests were developed by Wakayoshi and his associates to estimate the threshold pace for endurance training. The defined the critical swimming speed as the fastest speed swimmers could maintain continuously without exhaustion. Therefore, they believe that it represents an athlete’s maximal lactate steady state.

The procedure of determining the critical swimming speed involves swimming a minimum of two time trials from a push off, although three or more trials are recommended. Any combination of the following time trial distances have been recommended for this purpose: 50, 100, 200, and 400m. When only two time trials are used, the distances should be considerably different. There should be at least a 30 minute rest between swims. It is also recommended that the swims should be performed over a 2 or 3 days period, especially when the 3 or 4 time trials are used.

The T-3000 test

The T-3000 test is a great non invasive method to evaluate the progress your athletes are making. It can be done in two ways. In the first method, athletes can swim for 30 minutes and record the distance covered. In the second, athletes can swim a 3000 m time trial. Whichever method is used, the effort should be maximum and evenly paced from start to finish. The results are then converted to an average speed per 100 m by dividing the distance swum in 100s into the time for the entire swim in seconds.

How to monitor training

The effective administration of a swim training programme requires accurate monitoring of changes in both the aerobic and anaerobic performances of athletes to determine whether they are improving, and if not, why not. In addition, it is important to monitor training speeds accurately (that’s not really necessary if you coach development or age group squads) so that they will produce the desired effects. Blood testing is the most precise method for monitoring training available to coaches and athletes. This procedure, however, is not without pitfalls. Furthermore, most coaches do not have the equipment, funds, time, or expertise to use blood testing for these purposes. For this reason, other noninvasive procedures are needed for monitoring training. Alternative methods involve standardized repeat sets, monitoring heart rates, and rating of perceived exertion (RPE).

Training cycles

The terms seasonal plan, annual plan, macrocycle, mesocycle, and microcycle can be explained as follows. The seasonal or annual plan is the plan for the year. The coach and swimmer identify the main competition for the year and put the plan in place for the swimmer to achieve optimum performance at the targeted competition. Coaches work backwards from the targeted competition to prepare the seasonal plan and assign each mesocycle and microcycle with the appropriate training emphasis.

Macrocycles are the blocks of work that make up the seasonal or annual plan. These cycles are generally 12, 15, or 24 weeks in duration.

How to increase intensity in an aqua fitness class (shallow water)

In certain times during your aqua fitness class (interval training) you would want to increase the intensity of your programme so that the participants’ heart rates climb up into the upper level of their target heart rates for a short time. That will help them improve greatly their cardiorespiratory fitness. A good aqua fitness instructor should know how to increase and decrease intensity, and how long to have participants work in the upper level of the target heart rate.

Sample sets for threshold endurance training

The sets that can be used for threshold endurance training are like the ones you use for improving your basic endurance (except for continuous swimming sets), but at anaerobic threshold pace. The swimmers should be able to swim at the correct training pace and with the appropriate rest between repeats.

Types of sets for basic endurance training

Hello my friends and a happy new years to you and your families with a lot of love, health and swimming!!!

I'm sorry I didn't blog for quite a long period of time but today I'm back and I hope this time for good.

You are probably getting bored of doing the exactly same training routine every day. Today's blog will help you make your training more interesting and challenging. In this blog I will try to refer to the types of sets a swimmer and/or a coach can use to improve basic endurance training (En-1). If you want to remember the guidelines for constructing basic endurance sets see here. In the following days I will write about the types of sets that can be used for the other training zones. 

Lunge with rotation (dynamic warm-up)

Another great exercise you can add to your dynamic warm-up is the forward lunge with rotation. This exercise primary targets the abs, hips, and legs - thighs and builds lower body strength and core stability.

Improve your forward starts

There are four kinds of forward starts: the traditional grab start and three variations of the track start, including a leaning forward track, a full backward track, and a medium backward track. Swimmers should try each one of them and use the one that works best for them. Generally, track starts give swimmers more stability on the block, and both of the leaning back track starts allow the swimmer to use the arms to pull against the block for momentum. They also create more impulse, or greater time of force applied against the block. The forward track start is the quickest to the water but the least powerful. The full backward is slowest of the block, and often the back leg is bent to an extreme that compromises the power that the start produces. The medium backward splits the difference - it is quick and powerful.

Traditional grab start

Medium backward track start 

Dynamic warm-up for swimmers (knee to chest)

Today I'm going to describe another dynamic stretching exercise, which is called knee to chest, thar is great for a swimmer's dynamic warm-up. Knee to chest warms up and builds dynamic flexibility in the hamstrings and lower back. It also challenges balance and core stability.

Procedure

1. From a standing position, lift tha right knee and pull it to the chest. Simultaneously raise yourself up on the toes of your left foot.
2. Hold this position for a count of two before returning to the standing position.
3. Pull the left knee to your chest while rising up on your right foot.
4. Continue alternating right and left sides until you perform 10 to 12 repetitions on each side.

Power training

Power training consists of ultrashort sprints designed to stress both the force and speed of contraction of muscles fibers involved in competitive swimming. The purpose of power training is to increase stroking power.

Training effects

Stroking power increases because of several adaptations

• An increase in muscular strength
• An increase in the rate and pattern of muscle fiber stimulation by the central nervous system
• An increase in the rate of force development within muscles
• Increases in the ATP and CP content of trained muscle fibers

Guidelines for constructing Power repeat sets

• Set length: 50 to 300m. Three to six sets can be completed in a training session devoted to power training.
• Repeat distances: 10 to 12 1/2 m. Efforts involving sprinting for four to eight stroke cycles can also be used for this purpose. Stroke-simulated land efforts on swim benches or weight machines are also effective. For those methods, 4 to 12 repetitions are optimum in sets of three to six.
• Rest intervals: 45 sec to 2 min between repeats in the water. Exercises on land can be done continuously for the prescribed number of repetitions. Athletes should take rest periods of 2 to 3 min between sets.
• Training speeds: Training speeds should be maximum or near maximum. Stroke rates should be as fast or faster than those used in 50 races. Swimmers should maintain distance per stroke at a reasonable length so that they do not thrash indiscriminately.

Adequate amounts of power training in the water should be part of the training plan during all phases of the season. Power training does not require much time, so it fits easily into the weekly plan without sacrificing other types of training. Swimmers should emphasize it during the early season so that they can increase swimming power before the emphasis on the lactate tolerance training begins. The goal during the middle of the season is to maintain the swimming power, and then try ro increase it again during the latter portion of the season.

The best way to motivate athletes to continue striving for greater speed during power training is to time their repeats. Swimmers should therefore apply progressive overload by trying to improve their times for power repeats. Because it is difficult to time this repeats acurately, you should try starting timing these repeats when the head of the swimmew passes under the flags and stopping when the head passes the marker that indicates that the swimmer has covered the prescribed distance.

Sprint training (lactate production training)

Lactate production training consists of short sprints at near maximum speeds for improving anaerobic power. 

Sprint training (lactate tolerance training)

Sprint training has been given too little attention by coaches and athletes because they were concerned with endurance training. Increased aerobic endurance contributes more to improved swimming performance in all events of 100m and longer than any other physiological adaptation. Adaptations tha occur through sprint training contribute to improved performances in all events, not only in sprints but also in middle distance and even distance swimming. Improvements in speed and power provide long sprint and middle distance swimmers with what is known as easy speed, tha ability to take races out faster with less effort. They also provide middle distance and distance swimmers with what is termed a finishing kick, the ability to sprint faster during the final portion of their races. Sprint training can be used to increase the maximum swimming speed so that swimmers can take races out faster and to improve buffering capacity so that sprinters can maintain a speed in races closer to their maximum sprinting speed. There are three types of sprint training: lactate tolerance (Sp-1), lactate production (Sp-2), and power training (Sp-3).

Training parameters

The parameters of training refer to guidelines used to construct conditioning programs. The parameters that swimmers and coaches should be concerned with when planning a training program are:

• duration,
• frequency,
• intensity, and
• mileage.

Training duration and frequency refer to the number of hours per day and number of days per week that athletes spend in training. Training intensity relates to the speed of training, and training mileage concerns the number of meters that athletes swim per day, per week, and per season.

Principles of training (part 3)

Specificity principle

This principle refers to the fact that physiological adaptations will occur only in the tissues and organs stressed during the training process. At least four aspects of specificity must be considered when planning a training program for swimmers:

1. the activity that the swimmer is training for,
2. the stroke the swimmer will use in competition,
3. the competition speed, and
4. the portions of the metabolic system that need to be stressed.

It is clear that swimmers must do most of their training in the water. It is also recommended that they swim a large percentage of their training mileage in their main stroke or strokes because that is the only way they can be certain that they are training the muscle fibers they will use in races. A final important point about specific training concerns the various phases of the metabolic system. Endurance training and sprint training emphasize different aspects of those systems. So, athletes must swim both endurance and sprint repeats in their primary stroke or strokes to target all phases of the metabolic system for optimum improvements.