Designing a Performance Lifestyle

Craig Lord has a top-class article on swimnews this morning concerning the recent 'rant' by Gary Hall Jnr. where he said the world of swimming was understandably suspicious of any performance such as Eamon Sullivan's 21.56 world record. Latest news is that Sullivan is considering legal action; keeps the sport in the news I guess.

Lord, a long-time battler against doping and secrecy in sport, does the stats and concludes it improbable that a mature sprinter could drop 0.44 in one year after sitting at 22+ for years. He's right, it is improbable, and he asks the simple yet straightforward question, 'Tell us how it's done?'

It's not only Sullivan; in the post on 1 March I said,

... during February alone there were 28 long course swims faster than the 10th placed time on the all-time world list as at the end of 2007, never mind end 2004! ... in the women's 50m freestyle seven out of the all-time top-10 times have been done since 1 January 2007

Dylan had it right, 'Something is happening and we don't know what it is, do we Mister Jones?' Or should that be Marion Jones?

Lord asks about Sullivan's injury-free year of training and that is obviously a clear reason to swim faster, maybe even to swim fastest. At world record standard and over 50m 0.44 is a big margin but I'm sure it's not unique. If you look at the progression of world records Tom Jager set his first 50 WR with 22.40. It was previously 22.52 so Jager's PB must have been slower than 22.52 when he went 22.40. Jager's last WR was 21.81 so he dropped, at world record standard at least 0.72. Ian Thorpe's first 200m WR was 1:46.34 and his last 1:44.06, and who can forget the incredible 24 hours in Barcelona in 2003 when the WR for 100m Butterfly started at 51.81 and ended at 50.96 having passed through the hands of three different swimmers in the interim?

There is Kiwi precedent for the big drop on 50m, unfortunately not at world record level. Toni Jeffs dropped her PB from 25.99 to 25.43 in one race, a bigger margin than Eamon Sullivan's. That was in 2002 after sitting on the low 26's for 12 years! She hit 26.3 in 1990, 26.2 in 1991, 26.0 in 1998. Her tenacity is demonstrated by the 1990-98 gap to move from 26.3 to 26.0 during which she was the subject of media interest which would have destroyed any other swimmer and the most non-sensicle selection rebuff I have ever heard - 'too old' for the 1996 Olympics.

In 2004 she was the subject of a TVNZ series, Road to Athens. The blurb on the TVNZ website says,

Few names in New Zealand sport get a reaction like Toni's. The newspaper headlines tell the story; refusing to stay in the Barcelona Olympic village in 1992; sponsored by a strip joint; allegedly punched her coach; badly injured her back in a car crash; set New Zealand records; beat swimmers half her age to win the national title and won Commonwealth bronze after little training.

Let's examine those headlines. Refusing to stay in the Village - that was 'advice' from her dominant coach at the time. Sponsored by a strip joint - she was, and she has a framed letter of appreciation from the 'joint'; Liks seems to be going strong and Toni definitely has some good tales to tell of that period. Allegedly punched coach - no 'allegedly' about it; I would have paid money to be on poolside when that happened. Badly injured her back in a car crash - well, if you call fractured vertebrae 'badly', then yes and guess which coach was driving at the time? Set New Zealand records - duh! Beat swimmers half her age to win the national title - she didn't have any choice, did she? Won Commonwealth bronze after little training - well they definitely got the last bit wrong.

'Little training', eh? As I said in a previous blog, in 2002 she was doing at least 35 hours a week of training. And it wasn't just floating up and down the pool doing 'garbage yardage', this was a full-on, total intensity approach to excellence. How do I know? I was coaching her at the time.

To recap: Toni was not selected for the 1996 Olympics because she was too old. In 1998 she won Commonwealth bronze. In 2000 she was not selected for the Sydney Olympics and, subsequently, successfully sued Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) for that decision. In 2001 she didn't swim. In October of 2001 she contacted me, we met and she made it clear she still had unfinished business. Her goal was the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and she had three things going for her - she was in the process of suing SNZ so had a point to prove, she wanted another medal, and she wanted her record back - it had been broken by Vivianne Rignall twice during 2000, the latest at the Olympics where Toni was denied selection. Rignall's record stood at 25.52 and Toni's best was 26.03; I suspect there are not too many 34 year old females who would contemplate attacking that gap!

The approach was exemplary. She had a new coach (me) and a new technique. At 34 she agreed to change the style of swimming she had used throughout her whole career. Quite frankly I couldn't understand how she even swam 26's with the style she had. From a high-elbow. bent-arm recovery she became a hand-swing, high-recovery, straight arm freestyler. New content was introduced into her water workouts, particularly 'supra-max sprints' which demand speeds in excess of those 'naturally' attainable by the swimmer. Fins (full-length but not scuba) and big paddles are required and the sprints must be at least 10% faster than the swimmer's 'natural' PB. The selection of the paddles is crucial - too small and the swimmer cannot generate enough power to swim really fast, too big and the swimmer cannot handle the power able to be generated. And the generation of power is the key to the success of these sprints. Drag increases as a cubic factor of speed - swim twice as fast and you generate eight times more drag. Swimming faster than you really can demands that you overcome more drag than you're ever going to encounter in a race; it's a really effective training regime but it has to be done correctly. Err on the slow side and you may as well go home. The trick is the speed; if the times are not at least 10% under PB then stop the exercise. Toni would target the world record from a long course push start and gradually got near to, then under it on a regular basis.

One of my 'themes' for swimming fastest is taking account of the invisible training. That describes the effect of the 20-22 hours each day when the swimmer is not at the pool. Toni had a superb professional approach to her life. She had the ultimate performance lifestyle. Mark Saunders, the NZ Team Manager for Pinnacle events described Toni as by far the most professional athlete on any teams he dealt with.

Toni assembled a support group which covered every aspect affecting performance. She is a magnificent cook so nutrition was one of the top items; only the best quality food (you'd be surprised how much difference there is between the cheapest offer of food and the 'best' offer of the same 'cut' or item). She also spent a small fortune on supplements - vitamins, minerals, energy-bars, carbo-powder, protein supplements, and was obsessive about the timing of intake before and after training. Her hydration was exemplary. Would that all swimmers took the same approach to energy intake; it would make energy output a much more straightforward issue.

Her 'Trainer', Peter, was one of the most innovative and impressive designers of land training I have encountered. She had exercises on Swiss Balls (plural) and medicine balls which made me go goggle-eyed. I've seen people do chest-passes with medicine balls while standing on Swiss Balls immediately after they've jumped on them from a run and Toni's exercise regime would stand up to that, no problem. Think about that. What do your swimmers do?

Aligned to the land training was a brutal flexibility regime. Flexibility is not about 'feeling loose', its about enabling the body to attain and maintain positions which are biomechanically advantageous and which, as a consequence, are not comfortable for 'normal' people. It was not unusual to find Toni in the midst of a one-hour stretching programme.

Do you notice something here? Toni was in charge of her programme. She was atypical in terms of the 'norm' of NZ swimmers. Admittedly, most NZ swimmers are age-groupers who need direction and control, but once they decide to go for high performance they have to take responsibility for, and be given the responsibility for, their own decisions.

She loved road cycling as both an exercise and a therapeutic exercise. She would think nothing of riding hard for 4 or 5 hours. Her bike training was designed by Ron Cheatley, twice winner of the Halberg Coach of the Year Award, and New Zealand’s cycling coach for 21 years, so it was no walk in the park. If you know Paikakariki Hill then imagine cycling up and down five time without lifting out of the saddle! That sort of thing enthused her.

She was fortunate enough to be able to build a gym in part of the property she shared with her partner. It included free weights (and if anyone's considering using machine weights, forget it, they're useless). At one point she had diverted from swimming into body-building so she understood muscles and weights. One of the most important principles in excellence is that the athlete must understand more of the physiology that the coaches from other programmes; Toni did just that.

The swimbench protocols were prescribed by me and based on the DDR protocols described in my report from the German swim team camp at Flagstaff in 1992. They are classical in their design; they consider power application in swim-specific biomechanics - what else is there?

Add onto that, massage therapists, physiologists, yoga-teachers, aromatherapists, South American psychic adviser's - the list could go on and on. When Bill, Toni's partner and I periodically sat down and calculated the number of 'Toni's Quacks' we invariably arrived at more than 20, but the point is, she had every angle covered; in her universe no stone was left unturned. Truly a professional athlete.

Just as an aside, her start and kick both sucked. I blamed both on the car crash - crappy neural messages from the spinal chord resulting in inefficient activation of the leg muscles. I tried everything to circumvent it but I guess the problem of a car crash had a dampening effect on my efficacy.

Summing up; no stone unturned, attendance, application, attitude - a recipe for guaranteed improvement. Without the 'human' factor I could guarantee the same drops for any swimmer and Gary Hall's suggestion of doping support is unnnecessary.

... and this is the next generation of Toni and Bill's drive. He loves water; scary.

Quotations

Motivational quotations tend to get overplayed and cliched, especially by media commentators but also by coaches with a shallow approach to their calling. Here are some to add to the collection:



'Genius is energy, only directed energy. Genius is preparation.'
Gerry Spence

'To excel or not to excel is not a matter of talent, predisposition, character or destiny. It is a matter of decision.'
Dr. Keith Bell

'You have body like sausage. Go to gym and come back when body like swimmer.'
Gennadi Touretski

'You only feel wet when you're out of the water.'
Dr. Keith Bell

'Clive, you're the hardest coach I've ever worked with.'
Adrian Moorhouse, World record holder and Olympic Champion

'Expert performance requires at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice.'
Ericsson & Charness, 1994

'You can see things underwater that the Coach can't see from the deck.'
Brad Bridgewater, Olympic Champion

'Victory remains the only acceptable reason for leaping off the starting block.'
Don Talbot

'A bicycle in a wind tunnel at 50 kph exhibits exactly the same drag characteristics as a swimmer at 1.2 m/s. The design of the bolt-heads holding the wheels in place makes a significfant difference to the drag co-efficient. Pay attention to the bolt-heads.'
Bill Boomer

'I have coached Danyon Loader (1996 Olympic champion 200m and 400m Freestyle) since he was 8 years old. I cannot remember him ever being sick or injured in all that time.'
Duncan Laing

'The first rule of sports nutrition is 'don't eat more than you can lift''
Tom McNabb

'Plan for the plan to be disrupted.'
Dr. Helga Pfeiffer


... and, if you want to distill them all down to one single philosophy by which to guide your career,

'Do, or do not; there is no try,'
Yoda. Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back

Anytime, Anywhere, Any Conditions

Between 1995-1998 I was National coach to the Greek Swimming Federation. It was idyllic; guaranteed sunshine every day between March and October (but damned cold between November and February), and the Meditteranean swishing gently in the background of the three, side-by-side, 10-lane, 50m outdoor pools we used every day.

One of the national team swimmers, a butterfly exponent named Georgios Diamantis (pronounced Thee-a-man-tees with the emphasis on the tees), used to ask a pointed question at the conclusion of a great set, 'Am I beautiful, Mister Clive?' It doesn't quite 'play' when translated into English but, basically, he was asking, 'How was that, Coach?'

I produced a programme guide for the 'permanent national team' (similar to the SNZ High Performance Group at MISH) which had as it's slogan, 'Beauty is the ability to perform anytime, anywhere, any conditions.'

Analysing the slogan I said,

To be prepared ... technically, physically, mentally, emotionally; having done the necessary work in an excellent manner.

To be prepared to perform ... to put together all your skills and abilities in the best combination possible given the circumstances of the day.

To be prepared to perform anytime ... morning, evening, November, July, Monday, Saturday, race , practice, tired, fresh.

To be prepared to perform anytime, anywhere ... the best pool in the world, the worst pool in the world, Athens, Atherton, Rome, Rochdale, Sydney, Chios. (Kiwis can substitute Sydney, Southland, Athens, Auckland, Beijing, Bluff, London, Levin)

To be prepared to perform anytime, anywhere, any conditions ... rain, sunshine, snow, wind, calm, indoors, outdoors, long-course, short-course, cold water, hot water.

Accompanying the slogan was a quotation from former world champion and world record holder Sandra Volker:
'I compete a lot because I am always confronted with different things. Maybe the water is too cold, or the blocks are slippery, or maybe the hotel is no good. I like to be put in these kind of situations because it helps me to learn. Then when I go to a World or European championships and something is amiss, I fel more sure of myself I know that I can perform anywhere.'

We hear a lot of whinging from swimmers and coaches these days about conditions and support, but the champions just get on with it. They can perform 'anytime, anywhere, any conditions.' It's a bit like the approach Tiger Woods uses; he isn't afraid to 'scramble' to get his par and, given a tight finish, who would you put your money on, Tiger or the opponent?

On Track

Tracking is a big thing at the moment isn't it? However, you'd be surprised at the coaches who don't have data on their best swimmers.


This graphic shows every long course 50 freestyle by Orinoco F-B since early 2002 when he was 11. (I know the picture above is not Ori but it's someone almost as fast.) Bless him, can you imagine that happy Ori smile and enthusiastic attack in an 11 year-old body?


The lesson to be learned here is about the line of approach to 1,000 FINA points; in his early AG years (12-15), Ori improved every swim - as they (age groupers) do. Nothing to do with coaching or training, just a function of mother feeding them and regular immersion in water where the body adapts to 'feel'. As he starts maturation (15+) the improvement rate slows (expected, because that's life) but continues towards 1,000 (good coaching), however it becomes less consistent (again, life). The consistency tells us a story; if you want to hit 1,000 points (and who doesn't?) you need to restrict the fluctuation in performance level to the minimum possible. If you go slow in heats and medium in non-important finals you are not staying on-track for the big 1,000, you are setting yourself up for good, but not good enough status.

Orinoco appears to have the 'goods' to hit the big time and he is obviously motivated to swim fastest! He is also being magnificently mentored by Glenn Hamblyn and associated alumni. How big a range do your swimmers display in their season-wide performances?

Big Bill Sweetenham has espoused a 3-2-1% model as maximum margins outside PB's for various levels of racing. But, 3% off your PB is a pretty low level of performance and most swimmers and coaches won't know what that 3% limit is. It makes sense to go instead with a 25 point difference for each 1% of performance. The models don't match exactly but the 25 point model is easier to administer given results sheets should be produced with FINA points included. Staying within 50 points (let's ditch the 75 point possibility, eh?) even if unrested, unshaved and untapered guides you towards 1,000. There are many swimmers who are over 900 and are never going to hit 1,000 because they mess around with slow swimming in 'easy' heats or low-level competitions. Great swimmers don't do that. They swim purposefully every time.

Race Pace & Target Splits

Sorting lots of papers in preparation for moving apartments I came across two pieces of paper from way, way back. They detailed target race splits and some results from a GBR SC Championships in the mid-1980's. I seem to recall they were held in Cheltenham or Gloucester, anyway somewhere picturesque in the south west.

During the 1980's I was privileged to coach some outstanding age-group swimmers in Britain. They went on to Olympic representation, world top-10 rankings, World Championships finals, Commonwealth medals etc.

The basis of their programming is annually discussed in detail at the SNZ School of Coaching; aerobic-based, multi-stroke development, which is the basis of the XLR8 system used for AG selection and rankings throughout New Zealand. Check into the School of Coaching for the detail.

The physiological basis for the programme design is based on an eastern-European system developed in the USSR which targets main training emphases each day of the micro-cycle. If the physiological preparation is on-target then the race performance should be predictable. Read that sentence again. If the physiological preparation is on-target then the race performance should be predictable. As they said in Ocean's 13, 'It plays,' doesn't it?

Back in 1982 Dr. Ernie Maglischo published his watershed book 'Swimming Faster.' In the previous article on this blog I gave the opinion that it was the best of the three series he published under the same themed title.

Maglischo analysed the splits of the world record holders and other USA national champions and determined patterns in the way they split their races. many coaches have done this and arrived at various conclusions. Probably the most ubiquitous is the one which assigns fixed percentages to each 'leg' of an individual medley. Quite frankly that is the most ridiculous analysis since someone took a lot of dollars to conclude 'Men are faster than women and freestyle is faster than backstroke' I kid you not, by the way, that conclusion was actually reached. Medley splits must depend on the individual prowess of the swimmer on each discreet stroke, not on an 'ideal' percentage of the total race time; it's common sense but apparently that's not very common.

Maglischo's system has two very important things going for it; it's simple and it works. Couldn't be better really. He based it on the swimmer's PB for distances shorter than the race in question so the advice for a 100m freestyle is split the first 50 one second slower than your PB for 50 and split the second 50 one and a half to two seconds slower than the first. Let's say a swimmer has a 50 PB of 25.0. The target splits would be 26.0 and 27.5/28.0 for a total of 53.5/54.0. Of course the first 50 is timed to the feet so to go within one second of the 50 PB and have energy left to back up a good second 50 the approach and execution of the turn had better be exemplary - some swimmers take more than a second to get their feet on the wall so they'd be in big trouble.

Looking at the 200 IM Maglischo advises the fly to be fly PB+1.0, backstroke to be back PB+3.0, breaststroke to be breaststroke PB+5.0/6.0 and the freestyle to be freestyle PB+4.0. Those are all based on standing start PB's so the allowance for no dive on back, breast and free is already built in to the targets. Check out the original targets and patterns (usual advice, click for a bigger view):


There have been rule changes since 1982 - underwater distance of starts and turns, no-hand touch on backstroke and fly kick on breaststroke start and turns. The only change which affects the split strategy is the no-hand touch on backstroke because the split is now measured to the feet whereas it used to be measured to the hand touch. I have adjusted this table to account for that difference onbackstroke and IM:


Most coaches who calculate these end up with predictions which are significantly faster than their swimmers have actually done in races. This 'error' has two possible causes; either the swimmer had paced the races really badly (very common here) or the swimmer is not trained well enough to hold the pace described by the target splits. If the swimmer is trained well and they control the race strategy around these targets it is amazing how accurate they are. Check out these targets and results for two of my swimmers from the GBR SC nationals:


The correlation is amazing. On some of the races the swimmer was faster than their pre-championships PB at the 50 and the splits were recalculated for the final. There are some remarkable fits between the target and the actuals; male 200 fly target 2:05.0, actual 2:04.77, 100 back heat target 1:01.4 for a 1:01.32, final target 1:00.8 for a 1:00.83, 400 IM target 4:26.8 for a 4:26.83 coming in from a PB of 4:33.08. The girl was just as close; 200 back target 2:25.7, actual 2:25.56, 800 free target 8:58.0 actual 8:57.20 against a pre-champs PB of 9:08.0.

Try it. Get your swimmers fit and teach them pace control. then get your calculator out and set high targets.

Bright Start to the Day

Get your nashers round this recipe from Tom.

The Magical Number 7

Cracking article on swimnews which illustrates Katie Hoff could hit seven gold medals in Beijing BEFORE Michael Phelps gets there! And ... they are both from North Baltimore Aquatics. Imagine that. Imagine your club having two swimmers who each won seven golds at NAGs, then up it to Opens, then up it to the Commonwealth Games, then etc. etc. until you get to the pinnacle. Difficult to even imagine let alone achieve. Scary stuff.

Hoff recently destroyed the US 1,650 record (yards I know but they are the top swimming nation in the world) previously held by world 1,500 record holders Kate Ziegler and Janet Evans. Check out her splits here . The 1,650 is way down the list of results so you have to scroll or search for a long time but its worth the wait. Most interesting are the 'reverse' splits:

First 200, 1:51
First 500, 4:41
First 1,000 9:23
Last 1,000, 9:17
Last 500, 4:37
Last 200, 1:49

Now that's great swimming.

Also, while you're on the results page do a search for the 'Surhoff' family of swimmers. They're also from North Baltimore and, by the looks of their ubiquitous appearance in the top results during the meet, they could be the next big thing from Maryland. You read it here first :)

Age Shall Not Weary Them

This from a bbc news web item of 17 August 2000:

At the other end of the age spectrum, 33-year-old Dara Torres won the women's 50m freestyle ahead of 1996 gold medallist Amy Van Dyken.

Torres, who also earned berths in the 100m freestyle and butterfly, is one of the veterans insuring that the for the first time the US women's squad is older than the men.

Of course, Torres could make her fifth Olympic Games in Beijing if she continues her recent form. She set a USA record last year with 24.53 which placed her equal fourth on the 2007 world rankings and sixth on the all-time list. However fifth on the all-time list is Jingyi Le with 24.51 from 1994 and I think everyone is of the opinion that one should not be included (turtle blood?).

Torres is 40 now and heading for 41 if she makes the USA team this year. It reminds me of the wonderfully disturbing story of why Toni Jeffs was not selected for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics by the SNZ Selectors; she was too old. I think we've gone past that type of subjectivity these days. Two years later she won a bronze in Kuala Lumpur and four years after that another bronze in Manchester setting a still standing NZ record of 25.43. (If you're counting that was 2002. She first set a NZ 50m record 13 years previously in 1989! Surely that's a record in itself?) Two years after Manchester she missed the Athens team by 0.1 and two years after that missed the Melbourne Commonwealth Games by 0.2.

Age! What's that about?

By the way, if you're a genuine distance freak and wondering how these upstart sprinters managed to appear on these pages, Toni was brought up on 100km per week. Scary, but true. During 2002 she averaged 35 hours a week of physical training - swimming, biking, weights, stretching - preparing for a 25 second event. She dropped her PB by over 0.5 seconds, thats more than 50 FINA points. Try 35 hours a week, it's fun :)

Vendting your Feelings

Timedfinals.com has an excellent interview with Erik Vendt which delves into the psyche of the resurgent athlete. One of the questions asks about memorable sets:

Your 30 x 1,000’s (10 on 10:45, 10:30, 10:15 right) is the thing of legend. Are there any other sets in your career (Ocean State Squids/USC/Michigan) that stick out in your mind?

My freshman year at USC-and this isn’t crazy like 30 x 1,000’s…but what is? We did 3 x 100 IM’s and a 1000, three times. I got down to 8:58 on the last 1000 and I remember thinking “I can’t believe I just did that.” It was the first time I had ever done anything close to that fast in workout. Another bad one from when I was at Squids was 20 x 400’s…descend 1-20 (editor’s note: that’s impossible). Stuff like that is so hard because you’re pretty much going all out by the 15th one.

But I don’t think I’ll ever get anywhere close to that again. Sometimes we’ll have a 6,000m main set but that’s only once in a very long while. It’s usually 3,000 to 4,000 main sets with a lot higher intensity than what I did before. I think that’s the reason for having so much improvement in my 200 and 400. I already have the aerobic base and I don’t see myself losing too much in the back end so at this point it’s more about establishing that front-end easy speed.

Go have a read.

London's Calling

Taking the analysis of the FINA points a bit further than I did yesterday I've looked at the projection of standards through to 2012. It's an interesting examination ... well, interesting if you're a nerd about these things.


Remember FINA points are calculated using the all-time top 10 performances, one per swimmer, at the end of each Olympic year. Currently we're using FINA2004 points. Tracking the all-time top 10 every four years back to 1988 (Seoul Olympics) we see two interesting facts:

• Relative to the 2004 standard the men were somewhat behind in 1988 (932 points opposed to 947 for the women) but have closed the gap so both genders are level at 1014 points in 2007. This phenomena is probably a direct result of the DDR women's performances during the 1970's and 1980's which artificially boosted the top-10 standards at that time. Fascinating that the women's improvements have been linear since that period albeit at a slightly slower rate than the men's.
  
• The improvement is basically linear across the twenty years, irrespective of rule changes for underwater work and backstroke turns or the introduction of racing suits in 2000 and their updates in 2004 (2008 performances with yet another update are not factored in here yet).

Projecting through to 2012 we get the 1,000 point score after the London Olympics equivalent to the current 1,035 point standard for the men and 1,031 for the women. One point approximates to 0.01 seconds per 50m so the difference between men and women is negligible.

Using the 2004 tables we can predict the time for each event at the various levels used by SNZ. Although a 30+ point increase in standards may sound scary to some it is, in fact a mere 1.15% improvement for men and 1.02% for women, in-line with the tracked improvement across the last 20+ years.

Wrong Definitions

A special acquaintance of mine once said, 'All scientific problems stem from wrong definitions.' You have to contemplate that statement for a few decades to fully understand it, or at least I did, but it has relevence to coaching philosophy. Ages ago, well, last November, I published a piece about Bob Bowmans's 'Five Keys to Success.' One of the elements was Speed and pace training: “How the time is swum is just as important as how fast the time is swum."

This reminds me of a much more succinct encapsulation of the same approach, 'It's not about how fast you swim but about how you swim fast.'
The quote is courtesy of Hamilton Smith, Fellow of the British Swim Coaches and Teachers Association.

Kaizen; or Transcending 99% Right

The world's greatest sushi restaurant Sushi Yasuda is on East 43rd in New York.

One of the blurbs on the website says,

'When someone sits down at his sushi bar, is moved by his fish and announces, "I've never tasted anything like it," Yasuda will matter-of-factly say: "as usual, only one-quarter inch above average." This is not false modesty. Rather, he is being precise. Yasuda understands that to always be a "quarter inch" better than anyone else out there, to be not simply good but transcendent, is all-consuming. And it is that quarter-inch difference that drives Yasuda day-in and day-out.'

This appreciation of small yet relentless increments in quality draws on a Japanese concept known as Kaizen, which translated into English becomes constant improvement. It is an approach to business which served the Japanese economy well - think of the number of versions offered during the evolution of the Sony Walkman; unlike a car where you are offered different versions from a catalogue and the manufacturer simply bolts on different wheels or paints it a different colour to give the impression of 'differentness', the Walkman was adapted, modified, upgraded, evolved, changed, over hundreds of steps to produce a better and better product. See one in the shop one week, go back the week after to buy it and, whoops, a different product!

Kaizen works. Think about it. Whatever you do in training, or training design this week, improve it next week. It can't fail as a philosophy and the starting point is irrelevent. Of course if you''re already terrific and you improve then, 'Watch out Phelps!' However, if you're not the greatest example of attendance, application and attitude but you constantly improve then, given persistence, you're going to end up a winner.

This concept is a little different from the much bandied-about cliche of recent and very welcome visitor to these shores 'Big' Bill Sweetenham; 'Ninety-nine percent right is one hundred percent wrong.' Bill's message is excellent and should be paraphrased as, 'Whatever you're doing, if it's not perfect it's not good enough,' but, taken literally, actually means, 'Whatever you're doing, if it's not perfect it's useless.' Even the 'not good enough' interpretation fails to deal with the reality of human-ness. Kaizen transcends these semantics and offers a fool-proof and fail-proof philosophy.

Women Playing Catch-up

Continuing our theme of the increase in standards and focusing on the long course distance events, you can see that the men improved around 2% whereas the women's 400, 800 and 1,500 only moved around 1%. These both sound small amounts but its around 18 seconds for the men's 1,500 so it's not to be sneezed at. Data source is swimnews.


The women's standard used for the FINA2004 points is actually less than 0.5% faster than it would have been in 1988 but don't hold your breath thinking its going to stay that way. The current base 400m time of 4:05.64 would have been 4:04.61 if taken at end 2007 and 4:04.37 if updated with February's swim by Katie Hoff when she missed the world record by 0.07 seconds.

Expect the women's distance events to show the same change the men showed from 1992 onwards; remember the men's had been stagnant since the high-point of 1,500 racing, the Montreal Olympic final of 1976

A Rising Tide ...

Minor modifications to data posted at 11:15 pm Saturday 1 March.

FINA points are calculated from a 'base' time which is the average of the all-time world top ten performances (one performance per swimmer so, e.g. Michael P and Ian T only get one entry each). FINA plan to update them every four years after the Olympic Games (unlike swimnews 'International Points Scores' which are updated each year) so they'll be updated at the end of this year and be known as FINA2008 points.

Come 1 January 2009 some swimmers may be in for a shock when they see how much change there is in their favourite event; an 800 point swim now may be only 775 on the new tables because there has been an unrelenting increase in standards for at least the last 20 years. This is a good thing. It serves as a self-regulating ramp-up of our Mining for Gold system where we ask 700-750-800 points for qualification on Youth Bronze, Silver or Gold squads and 900 points for qualification to World Short Course Championships - if the points stay the same next year the time associated with the points will be faster. Highly likely the standard for the 2009 World Championships in Rome (all roads lead to ...) will be 900 so everyone had better get their watery skates on.

The FINA2008 points will stay in place till after the London Olympics in 2012 so it is likely that after 2009 SNZ will adopt another ramp-up effect by increasing the points required at each level; e.g. 700 in 2009 may go to 720 in 2010, 740 in 2011 and 760 in 2012. The details will be finalised when we see the 2008 'base' standards and can guage the degree of change required to bring success in 2010 and 2012.

The change is likely to be significant; it only takes one swim faster than the all-time 10th best during the four years since Athens2004 to increase the base time and, as you will know there were three long course and two short course world records in seven days in February alone. In fact during February alone there were 28 long course swims faster than the 10th placed time on the all-time world list as at the end of 2007, never mind end 2004! A lot of those 28 swims were by swimmers who are already in the all-time top 10 but there is no doubt the tables will change - in the women's 50m freestyle seven out of the all-time top-10 times have been done since 1 January 2007. The message is, 'swim fast or go home!'

On the left of the tables below I show the base times for each 4-year period back to 1988 (following the Seoul Olympic Games) and the base time as it would have been if calculated at the end of 2007. On the right-hand side I show what these base times would have scored using the current FINA2004 standards - obviously anything in the 2004 column scores 1,000 points because that's what it says on the box - 2004! Data source is swimnews. As usual, click on the image for a full-sized version.




Graphically we can see the almost linear increase in standards during the 20 year period so it is not a stretch of the imagination to see that end 2008 the base will be pretty close to the current 1025 level.