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VOLUME 2 ISSUE 2 Journal of International Society of Swimming Coaching
The continuous improvement of the performances reflects the progression in the methods of
training, which suggests that, as long as the swimmers keep breaking their own records, there is
no need to rethink the way we coach...or there is?
Since James Counsilman published his first book The Science of Swimming in 1968, the meters
swam have been growing in a substantial way. At the beginning, to swim 8.000 meters daily was
ok, but then, a sort of inflationary process took place and 12.000 and 16.000 were numbers not
so weird.
Nowadays there is a shy tendency to questioning the validity of this philosophy of training and
some authoritative researchers are suggesting that there is another way to reach high levels of
sportive excellence.
David Costill, one of those scientific, said:
“Most competitive swimming events last less than two minutes. How can training for 3-4 hours
per day at speeds that are markedly slower than competitive pace prepare the swimmer for the
maximal efforts of competition?”
http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/bullets/taper6.htm
There is also an interesting french investigation:
A group of researchers studied the training and performance of competitive 100m and 200m
swimmers over a 44-week period. Their findings were as follows:
Most swimmers completed two training sessions per day; Swimmers trained at five specific
intensities. These were swim speeds equivalent to 2, 4, 6 and a high 10 mmol/l blood lactate
concentration pace and, finally, maximal sprint swimming.
Over the whole season the swimmers who made the biggest improvements were those who
performed more of their training at higher paces. The volume of training had no influence on swim
performance.
Journal of ISOSC http://www.isosc.org
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