The FAF AFAP Digest

The Rushall sets as written are simply not doable for this 52 year old drop dead sprinter. Even if I was in splendid aerobic shape, I cannot imagine ever being able to do AFAP and 100 race pace work on a 1:1 ratio,

I have also found the 1:1 ratio to be a bit too tight to generate the kind of speed Rushall advocates. 25s on :40 (which is ~1:1.3 for my backstroke) seems appropriate, and makes the clock easy to read. I've not yet figured out how to make Rushall's 50s work, but I do like the idea of looking for ways to spend more practice time at race pace. It just makes sense to me that if you are going to race that fast, shouldn't you train that fast?

I did some fast 50s last night, with 100 recovery, on 3:00. I tried 2:30 on the first, and don't think it gave me enough rest so I adjusted.

Yes, this is coming from a mostly distance person...2:30 not enough time for a fast 50

I know when we do them in team workouts (I had a meeting downtown and missed the team workout last night), the 3:00 interval also works well since we can usually have 3 people in the lane, with someone going every minute. It is pretty rare that even the slowest lanes won't finish a 50 in a minute.

Jim sent me a PDF doc of the study I referred to yesterday. I'm a luddite and have no idea how to attach it here.

I know how to attach the pdf file, but I don't know the word luddite. It can't be good though.

Originally Posted by aztimm

I did some fast 50s last night, with 100 recovery, on 3:00. I tried 2:30 on the first, and don't think it gave me enough rest so I adjusted.

Today, I did some fast 100s @ 3:00 interval, and I found the set good. I guess I'm just different from Tim (I sniff too much chlorine or something)

Originally Posted by Karl_S

It just makes sense to me that if you are going to race that fast, shouldn't you train that fast?

Yes, most definitely. You know the old saying - "if you don't go fast in practice, you won't go fast in meets." Or is that an Andeism? One reason I use fins is that it gets your body used to going even faster than race pace.

1:1.3 is pretty impressive. I'm going to work down from :40, but I think it will be tough going.

Originally Posted by aztimm

I did some fast 50s last night, with 100 recovery, on 3:00. I tried 2:30 on the first, and don't think it gave me enough rest so I adjusted.

Yes, this is coming from a mostly distance person...2:30 not enough time for a fast 50

I know when we do them in team workouts (I had a meeting downtown and missed the team workout last night), the 3:00 interval also works well since we can usually have 3 people in the lane, with someone going every minute. It is pretty rare that even the slowest lanes won't finish a 50 in a minute.

I think people confuse the word "fast" with fast @ race pace. "Fast" 50s on 1:00 have virtually nothing to do with race pace. So many masters just want to take as little rest as they can. They think this makes them faster when it actually makes them slower. (Unless they're purposefully doing the set as a threshold set or something similar).

I still like all out 25s on 3:00. :-)

Originally Posted by jaadams1

I know how to attach the pdf file, but I don't know the word luddite. It can't be good though.

Today, I did some fast 100s @ 3:00 interval, and I found the set good. I guess I'm just different from Tim (I sniff too much chlorine or something)

Since I haven't been working in an office for so many years, my computer skills are like a 100 year old.

Were the 100s just fast or were they at target 200 race pace (even that would be hard on 3:00, perhaps 500 pace?) They couldn't be AFAP on that interval. But, yeah, you D types recover much more quickly than us sprinters. I need max rest to go what I consider truly fast.

Originally Posted by The Fortress

Were the 100s just fast or were they at target 200 race pace (even that would be hard on 3:00, perhaps 500 pace?) They couldn't be AFAP on that interval. But, yeah, you D types recover much more quickly than us sprinters. I need max rest to go what I consider truly fast.

I went about as fast as I could, and was feeling death hitting me around the 75 on each one. I had to push through with my legs though. I'd say they were faster than a 500 pace, maybe more like the 2nd 100 of the 200.

Lately though I just haven't been able to get my body "going" in practices. Having trouble even holding 1:10s @ 1:20/100 interval which is abnormal for me. May just be tired from my job, or it may be the YMCA old people water that I swim in.

Originally Posted by jaadams1

Lately though I just haven't been able to get my body "going" in practices. Having trouble even holding 1:10s @ 1:20/100 interval which is abnormal for me. May just be tired from my job, or it may be the YMCA old people water that I swim in.

Probably some of both. And the fact that you're not swimming with a team. It's tough to train solo.

Been reading your blog and did one of the high intensity im sets and loved it. I get bored with traditional workouts. Would rather do lots of im then freestyle as it is psychologically easier. Are these high intensity workouts good for 400 im and 200 fly training. Or would some modification be needed to maximize results? Only done 400 im a few times but never done 200 fly but would like to at some point.
thanks, steve

Originally Posted by shadowxvi

Been reading your blog and did one of the high intensity im sets and loved it. I get bored with traditional workouts. Would rather do lots of im then freestyle as it is psychologically easier. Are these high intensity workouts good for 400 im and 200 fly training. Or would some modification be needed to maximize results? Only done 400 im a few times but never done 200 fly but would like to at some point.
thanks, steve

High intensity training is not just for sprinters. However, the workouts on my blog and on the HIT forum are geared for sprinters. So you have to modify those particular sets. I think the Rushall sets would work for the 400 IM (e.g., 20 x 50 at target 400 pace). I saw some broken 400 IM sets on swimswam.com that looked good too.

What would you recommend for rest? 10 sec, 20 sec? Also should i try to do all 20 in a row till fail or should i break it up?

Originally Posted by shadowxvi

What would you recommend for rest? 10 sec, 20 sec? Also should i try to do all 20 in a row till fail or should i break it up?

Rushall likes the 1:1 work to rest ratio, which usually yields about 20 seconds rest. But I think that's somewhat hard for masters ... You can start with that and see how it goes. The way Rushall wants you to approach the sets is to skip a rep when you fail and then continue in the same manner. So you should do all 20 of the 50s, knowing that you may miss a few. Over time, you should fail less often.

Read this! http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/bullets/energy39.pdf

Awesome thanks so much for your help!