Chinese Fortune Cookies

Incredible statistics about this year's world swimming standards from Craig Lord at swimnews.

Interesting, and scary, to look at our chances for next year; NZL is not looking good at this level.

Falling Short

Santa Barbara Swim Club has an excellent entry on its website; 'Concept of the Month'. This month it's 'Institutionalised Falling Short', a good diatribe on purposeful training and the pursuit of excellence.

Concept of the Month is a great idea for your club's site and you could kick-start it by systematically going through Dr. Keith Bell's '76 Rules For Outperforming The Competition'.

If You Don't Want To Do Better, Why Are You Here?

Two articles from the 2005 editions of the ASCTA magazine, Australian Swimming.

'A Chat With Bill Rose' and 'The Return Of The Great American Miler' were both reprinted from the October-December edition of Swimming Technique and were written shortly after Larsen Jensen won silver at Athens 2004.

Excellent reading and, as you'd expect, some very good lessons and attitudes.




'A Chat With Bill Rose'











'The Return Of The Great American Miler'

Creative Coaching

The American Swim Coaches Association make an award at their World Clinic each year named after the greatest innovator of our sport, the 'Counsilman Creative Coaching Award'. Examples from last year can be found here.

Curiously Strong Idea

Team banners are abundant at Nationals and good to see. Here's an imaginative one from the recent US Nationals based on the design of the famous Altoids tins, a popular peppermint in the USA (but note their place of origin :)

Idea for SCAT; award a prize for the best team banner at each Nationals.

22:48.4

There's a fascinating article on the FINA website titled 'World Records, a long history'. It's co-authored by Nick Thierry (of swimnews fame) and Chaker Belhadj, both FINA Press Commission Members. Most out of character for Nick, but not for FINA, there's a mistake in the article when it attributes the oldest standing World Record to Krisztina Egerzegi with her 200m backstroke from 1991 but, in fact, the oldest is Janet Evan's 800m freestyle from 1989.

The youngest (and the youngest in any sport when it was set) was by Karen Muir (RSA) on 1 August 1965 when she swam 1:08.7 for 110 yards backstroke in Blackpool at age 12! She did it in the heats of the 'Junior' (under 16 in English categorisation) English National Championships and, watching from the swimmers' stands, I picked it as a WR at the 55 yard turn.

The oldest record listed in the FINA Annual (compiled by Nick Thierry) is Henry Taylor's 1,500m Freestyle at 22:48.4 set on 25 July 1908 to win the Olympic gold. Yes, that's right, 1908 and metres, quite extraordinary, and, David Davies take note, the last time a British swimmer held the 1,500 World Record. The pool was 100m in length in the centre of the athletic stadium, surrounded by the runing track and the cycling track. The diving tower was designed to be collapsible and was hidden underwater during the swimming competition. We haven't really moved on that far, have we?

Henry lived and trained at a place called Chadderton, only 8 or 10km from where I lived. We had a lot of mid-week dual meets in the area so I swam at the Chadderton pool regularly. At the top of the entrace stairs there was a glass trophy case where Henry's four Olympic gold medals were displayed and they were a source of inspiration to me during my development years as a swimmer. The 'racing' suit he's wearing in this photograph is made from silk and, 100 years later, still retains its 'stretchiness'; I know because I've handled it.

He won a whole truckload of trophies but, unfortunately most of them are untraceable because he pawned them after he retired from swimming to buy an Inn but the venture failed and he never reclaimed them.

The certificate shown at the top of the article is one of his three from 1908 which are on my office wall. Unfortuneately the originals are in Chadderton!

Thoughts of an old dog

So you are having trouble motivating your distance swimmer and thinking they havn't got the drive that swimmers from the past have had.
Their training attendence is poor at best and their attitude, well I just won't comment on that least I lose it.
Well I've got news for all of you, maybe you should look at yourselves first ,remember if an orginization is going off the rails look it from the top first,look at the goal and more importantly the plan on how you are going to achieve it.
Next you must share the dream with everybody on your team and have them all on the same page before the journey commences.
When you have established how you want to proceed, do it from the front and by example, this way you steer the ship in the direction in which you want to travel and are constantly in a position to make changes when and if they are needed,much better than reacting to problems as they crop up, all you seem to do is complain about how they won't do what you want and the more you react the worse it gets, till in the end all you seem to be doing is putting out the fires and going backward instead of the direction you intended to go.
Impower your team both swimmers and helpers this way you will get the best out of everybody and together you can make this exciting journey.
I don't believe it has anything to do with training volumes number of session needed per week or whatever, show your team the way and they will follow you,try and drive the from behind and you will fail.
Coach Trev

XLR8 Olympic Challenge

As we move ever nearer to the Olympic Trials and the Olympic games, a neat idea for a training challenge is to swim the Olympic programme during one training session. That's it, every Olympic event; 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,500 freestyle, 100, 200 back, breast and 'fly, 200, 400 IM and all three relays, 4 x 100 and 4 x 200 free and 4 x 100 Medley, all done by each swimmer. Total distance, if you do both 800 and 1,500, is 6,150m. Add a short warm-up and swim-down and you have a nice 7.0-7.5k session. It all has to be done 'for time' of course and you can use FINA points to set the standard or XLR8 points to compare all your swimmers across the ages. It's better to use points than simply add up the times because then the longer events don't skew the results.

As BOCOG, the Beijing Organising Committee haven't yet announced the swimming schedule you can do the events in any order you wish; you could go random order or short-to-long, or long-to-short, whatever. If you have pool space, you could let each swimmer decide the order independently. Give them a prescribed rest interval, say, one minute, betwen each event and relay repetitions as, say, 4 x 100 with 15 seconds, and away you go.

Set targets and give prizes. If you don't include the reverse distance events you have 13 individual events, that's worth at least an iPod for 13,000 points! Using the FINA points widget you can score the relays but using XLR8 you'd have to add the four repetitions and score as a straight swim equivalent.

A variation could be to repeat the exercise on two consecutive sessions, heats in the evening and finals the following morning, with the goal, of course, of going faster in the morning 'finals'.

If you're really onto it, and seriously serious about distance, you can add a straight 10k as the third session of course :), and, if you want to 'mirror' the World Championships instead of the Olympics, you can add the 'stroke' 50's, as well as a 5k and 25k!

Understanding Swimming

If you were to distill books on swimming down to the absolute bare essentials, which ones would end up on your shelves? A search in Amazon books for 'swimming' resulted in 168,168 'finds' although the symetry of the total number makes me somewhat suspicious. When you sort the list by bestsellers the first 'real' swimming book is Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion at number 257. Barnes and Noble ('the Web's premier destination for books') turns up a mere 1,758 but second on their best seller list is the splendidly titled My Boys Can Swim!: The Official Guy's Guide to Pregnancy.

There must have been thousands of swimming books published since the first in 1538 by German professor of languages, Nicolas Wynman, but what are the essential ones from a coaching viewpoint; that's today's question?

In order of date of publication I would go with:

The Science of Swimming (1967)
James 'Doc' Counsilman

This book revolutionised swim coaching. Some of the concepts and theories are somewhat dated now but it's still the single most influential book ever published on swim coaching. Strangely, you can pick up used ones for peanuts on the Web. I was privileged to meet Doc a couple of times and his quip, "I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken', still makes me smile.



Howard Firby on Swimming (1975)
Howard Firby

Probably the most unknown and important, paradigm-changing book ever published on swimming. If you want to know where Bill Boomer and Milt Nelms got their ideas, look no further. I used to sit on the pool deck in Vancouver listening to Howard talk and watching him mould his legendary plasticine models, knowing I was in the presence of a genius. Only 2,000 copies were ever printed so you need a water-diviner, metal-detector, tarot-card reader, archaeologist, a tuned-in medium and lottery-winning luck to find one. I have two copies ... and the answer to the next question? 'No.'

Howard also gave me original 35mm slides of every illustration in the book plus additional ones he didn't use. They need printing and mounting as a display somewhere.

Swimming Faster (1982)
Ernie Maglischo

This book slapped everyone across the face in 1982 as much as Counsilman's did in 1967. I remember the first time I saw and handled it as though it was yesterday; I was on camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and it had been published only a day or so earlier. I hurriedly bought a copy, devoured it and have been influenced ever since. (Image courtesy of Dave Pease because I have no idea where my copy is!)




Maglischo followed up with Swimming Even Faster, a development of the first book, and Swimming Fastest, a complete re-write running to a Harry Potter-length 790 pages. In this book Maglischo owned up to a huge mistake in the earlier books where he advanced arguments for 'lift' theory of propulsion which misled coaches for years. His U-turn is recognised as one of the bravest admissions in coaching.

For my money the first book is the best. It's split into two major sections, physiology and technique; the technique chapters are classical, with their step-by-step analysis and description; unsurpassed in my opinion.

Coaching the Young Swimmer (1986)
Kurt Wilke & Orjan Madsen

This book should be chained to the wrist of every age group coach world-wide. If you want the definitive model of long-term swimmer development, this is it. Out of print and rare as hen's teeth on the Web, but search hard and be prepared to pay; it's worth it. Kurt is an absolute master of coach education and swimming knowledge and Orjan, currently heading up German Swimming and a best friend of mine, has taught me more than anyone else about this sport.

The Science of Winning (2000)
Jan Olbrecht

I'm lucky enough to be acknowledged in the introduction to this book as partly responsible for publication. I first met Jan when I was visiting Orjan Madsen (see above) in Cologne in the mid-1980's. Orjan was Jan's PhD supervisor and they were researching lactate dynamics. I think I learned more in one week than in any other single week of my life.

This book, currently out of print but soon to be republished, popularised a concept little known to the coaching community; capacity and power. In 1991 I had identified that the energy delivery systems could be developed in both capacity and power and many years later, following the publication of Jan's book, I conceived the idea of encapsulating it all on 'one piece of paper'; The Cone! The Science of Winning is not easy to read, being highly scientific and detailed but, if you are serious about 'understanding swimming', it's well worth the effort.

Conclusion
Other coaching books may be interesting and informative (especially one from 1970 by the current agent of the former England football manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, with me on the cover!), but these five are essential. Interestingly there's a big 14-year gap between Coaching the Young Swimmer in 1986 and The Science of Winning in 2000 whereas the other gaps are much smaller; maybe not a lot was learned in the 1990's. It would be neat to correlate changes in world swimming standards with the publication date of these books. I wonder what the 'lead-time' is between revolutionary ideas, their dissemination, their practical implementation and the 'scores on the boards' results?

Sensible Poolside Footwear

Courtesy of Libby in the office is this image from the Core77 site of the latest in poolside footwear for those of the female persuasion. Makes sense when you think about it.

Play To Your Strengths

Here's the all-time top 10 for the men's 800 with splits (click for a full-sized version):






The top two swims are remarkable even by world record standards. Thorpe set his first 800m world record at Hobart in March 2001 then his fastest at the World Championships in Fukuoka in July of the same year, probably his best meet ever and, arguably, the last time he really swam well. His last 200 was 1:50.50 and his last 100 53.2!! Hackett claimed what he always thought was rightfully his at the 2005 World Championships in Montreal, swimming one of the most aggressive races I have ever seen; at one point he was over five seconds 'ahead of world record schedule'.



Commentators use the 'ahead of world record schedule' phrase pretty indiscriminantly as, although there are 'patterns' which tend to be common, at this level everyone swims to their strengths to push their boundaries to the limit. Hackett knew he would have to be way ahead going into the last 100 as there was no way he could approach a low 53 into the finish. The strategy paid off and he claimed his record. Check out the different race patterns and the world record 'Green Line', as first he obliterates the pace, then nearly gets caught .. but, in this case, nearly is enough.

You Got A Point There!

FINA points are calculated using the average time of the all-time top 10 performers. This top 10 average is the 1,000 point time with faster performances scoring more then 1,000 and slower scoring less. The ‘base’ time is updated every four years following the Olympic Games so the points/times we currently use are based on the FINA Points Scoring 2004. This is an example of the data currently being used for the Women’s 400 FR:









The average of these ten times is 4:05.64 which would score 1,000 points should it be equalled by a Kiwi swimmer. After Beijing this will change to FINA Points Scoring 2008 so it is interesting to look at what might happen to the standards.

This table shows the 1,000 point standard for the ‘distance’ events for each four years from 1988 to 2004 and the current situation so far for 2007 (remember they are all-time performances, not annual rankings).








As you can see the men’s 1,000 standard improved 3.79 (400), 8.66 (800) and 13.56 (1,500) from 1988 to 2004, an average of 0.95, 2.17 and 3.39 per Olympiad. If that average was repeated for the 2004-08 Olympiad the resultant times would be 3:43.36, 7:45.50 and 14:45.50, all faster than the 2007 standard so far, so some good racing expected next year (surprise!)










However, the women’s events tell a different story. The 1988-2004 improvement was 1.09 (400), 1.22 (800) and 4.62 (1,500), for averages per Olympiad of 0.27, 0.31 and 1.15, all significantly less than the men. If this average is carried forward to 2008 the times would be 4:05.37, 8:21.54 and 16:02.88 BUT the 2007 times are already faster than those for all three events. So what has happened?









The most obvious guess is the lingering effect of the doped swims from the GDR Wundermadschen. The impression is that the women’s world rankings from 1972 through 1989 were stacked with GDR performances which were fuelled by performance-enhancing drugs.













The reality, however, is surprisingly different; in 1988 the GDR women had 23% of the all-time top-10 400, 800 and 1,500 rankings.
That’s a pretty impressive statistic until you check out the other distance giants, USA and Australia which had 43% and 30% respectively.
















The GDR effect would seem not to be the answer then. What does look significant is the age of the swimmers when they set their best performances; in 1988 the average age of the swimmers was 17.3 years whereas by 2007 that has risen to 19.7, almost two and a half years older, two and a half years fitter, two and a half years stronger and two and a half years wiser.

So, although, there will still be youngsters who exhibit incredible power-to-weight ratios as they skip along the surface, the secret of swimming fast seems to be to keep swimming, keep training, keep racing and actually reach potential rather than simply threaten to. And, the women's 1,000 point standard will jump dramatically next year.

Click on a year to see the raw data.
1988






1992






1996






2000






2004






2007

How many 400s Torin?

Torin Hay 2001
Torin you have 3 hours from 5.00am to 8.00 am to swim as many 400s (s/c ) as you can, work out your own send off times and see how you go.
Torin started on the 5.15 send off for the first 2 then went down progressively from there.
Total 400s in 3 hours? 36.
Coach Trev

And he was only a breastroker

Byron Reid 1993
10x400 freestyle s/c on 4.30 going sub 4.20 was a set that he achieved at the height of his career,we felt the high aerobic levels where of prime importance to move to the power work both aerobic and anaerobic systems to achieve in the 200 breastroke ( s/c 2.15 ).
His pride in training achievements was another plus for him and on a Saturday morning would swim a 12k session which included 10x400 IM on the 5.00min would stretch and then join the squad for the 1 hour cross country run he would then head for home after his 4hr session.
Trev

Poll Results

So these are the poll results asking how far you need to do each week.

Very interesting, but how many of you are actually doing these distances? Not once on a training camp, but EVERY WEEK of the season? I would guess none of you.

It Takes Time!

This from today's opening day of finals at the USA Nationals:

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, July 31. MIDWAY through the 1500 freestyle, Erik Vendt decided he was ready to rock. Turning on the burners, the Club Wolverine star pulled away from the field with what seemed to be relative ease and took top honors in the 30-lap grind with a time of 14:57.01. That mark handed Vendt a meet record, and was his personal best, beating the 14:59.11 he set in this same pool eight (eight!) years ago.

Bold emphasis is mine.

Polls

The poll expires in 2 hours. Send me your suggestions for future ones.

'The Cone Again'

Sue Southgate recently asked a question on Andy's post. This is part of a conversation related to that. Please feel free to jump in with opinions.

Clive
I don’t think anyone has replied to your comment about ‘the science’ have they?

Sue
No they haven't! I angst about this all the time.
However when I read what Bowman, Zieglers coach (Clive P gave me the log book workouts) and Coach Rose etc are doing its seems the drop dead short rest stuff is back in vogue for everyone??????
Sweetenham has a whole section on long distance training for females (all short rest stuff) in his current book, but for males its more rest ie: 30x100 on 1.40 holding Critical speed ( 10-20bbm). Is there science to back this? I started my coaching career with the short rest phylosophy and trying to progressively decrease the send off times. Dylan can comfortably hold 100's on 1.15 ( 30)and a smaller number on 1.10 (10). All SC. A longer set all on 1.10's ( 800, 600, 400, 200, 600, 400, 200). I also do a set with him of 16x100 on 1.30 holding race pace, evenly splitting with the correct stroke counts, he trys to descend at end. In the mid season we do this 2x with a 1000 recovery between and nearer to competition we do it through once. We actually started doing this set on 1.40 and I have decreased the interval to 1.30 cos he was doing it too easily. Do I keep reducing the interval?

Clive
The rest interval is ONLY there to allow the next repetition to be done at the required speed so the question is, what speed do you require? If you go 30 x 100 on 1:15, holding, say 1:05's (10 seconds rest) you will develop capacity but if you wanted to develop power you would need to go faster, say, 1:00, in which case you'd need to go on, say, 1:30, meaning 30 seconds rest.

There's some illogicality in your numbers - he can only go 10 x 100 on 1:10 but can go 800, 600, 400, 200 (total 2km) on a base of 1:10. The difference, obviously, is the speed he's doing.

Sue
Thanks for your reply it has helped.The cone again, lots of aerobic and anaerobic power required for 1500 swimming.

Clive
As always, the cone again :)

Toughest Sets Ever

Browsing around the world wide interweb I came across this article from Swimming World magazine on tough workouts.

I especially like the examples of Dick Shoulberg's sets:

Among the many mind-boggling feats of endurance turned in by Shoulberg's swimmers was a 16,000 IM for time in October 1985 by Wharton (15 at the time), Hansen, Radke and Kathy Hettche. In the following weeks, they did a 13,000, 10,000, 7,000, 4,000 and 1,000 IM. The following May, Wharton broke the world record in the 400 IM, and Radke and Hansen also made the 1988 Olympic team.

"I knew Wharton was ready to go when he did that 16,000," said Shoulberg. "We do some bizarre things around here."

Another shocker was a long course 15,000 free for time that Sue Heon did at Germantown at the age of 22, holding 1:10s. She went on to make the 1984 Olympic team in the 400IM.

"When you do something like that, then when you get up on the block and look across the pool, you know your competitors probably haven't out-trained you," said Shoulberg.

A couple of Christmases ago I received this email from one of my former swimmers:

Thirty years ago this Christmas, you had me swim 20 x 400s freestyle in an old Victorian pool in the tough end of Glasgow, and I thought that enough time has passed. We should commemorate the moment. For God’s sake, I was a bloody sprinter! But I made it through every last one…and I think that I didn’t swim anything slower than 4:45. That was one of the greatest achievements of my life. There have been many times since then that I have drawn on that set. One more twenty-five, one more 400.

Thank You,
Merry Christmas.


So, doing the hard yards has a longer effect than just in the muscles.

There has been no posting by you guys but if you want to send me your examples of tough sets I'll compile them and put them up.