Three Vital Components

The design of corporate tests has been a thorn in the flesh of the High Performance Group for far too long; no one can agree which tests should be used, how often, for which swimmers, who should interpret the results and who should see them. It's not just New Zealand, it's the same the world over.

I've recently had a few queries from coaches asking about testing - which tests, what do they show etc? There's no single answer of course, as usual, 'It depends.' It depends what you want to find out. Clearly identify that and a test will mysteriously appear as if by magic.

I was surfing the world wide interweb this morning looking for examples of swim race models and, lo and behold, I came across an article I wrote for Swimming Technique magazine ten years ago.

It appears I have changed my name to Clice in the intervening ten years, however, I think two parts still reverberate as good analysis. The first is the segmenting of the race (any distance) into four parts; start and early meters, mid-race part 1, mid-race part 2, end part. Obviously for a 50m race the mid-race 1 and mid-race 2 segments are relatively short but they do conform with the now common training design technique of using 'speedcharts' to target specific race segment speeds. In longer events the mid-race 1 and mid-race 2 segments take on a different significance.

The other interesting concept in the article is what I call 'The Three Vital Components' of sporting performance. These are, Endurance-the velocity during, predominantly, aerobic work. The lactic acid value at maximum effort and the power relationship between these first two components.

Testing for these three components will tell you almost everything you need to know about any athlete.