But is maximum potential even relevant in LS's case? Cus I don't think it even matters, cus that's almost unrealstic data point; I mean by default swim coaches will be able to nit pick every pro triathlete swim programs; to the point where it's kinda an irrelevant pov imo. So I'm with you but your point would be way more relevant if we are talking about 27 year old LS, not 3x (is he 36?), who only has a few more years of elite level pro racing anyways. So my point more was that he's way closer to maxed out then he is some real breakthrough with this swim block. But again he doesn't need that magical ah ha moment. He just needs a few seconds per 100 to make the chase group; it's not a complete unrealistic goal. He's not going to have this moment in the water where it finally clicks; he's too far gone to get that. He's simply going to work his ass off and it slowly click through that pathway than some magicical made for social media moment.

Again by default pro triathletes will never reach maxmum potential, but imo he's very very close to having reached his imo that we are going to see very small gains in this journey, not some earth shattering time drop.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The magical moment could be that he gets down to 1 minute for his 100m free or 52 sec for his 100y free, which would enable him to stay on the feet of the 23 high/low 24 swim pack. That is very doable for someone of his caliber. Just remember, he was smoking everyone on the bike during the super league arena games. That bike race was only around 5 minutes, which is slightly above vo2max effort. He clearly has the physiologic ability to swim fast, its just that his mechanics are lacking.

I'm not speaking about Lionel specifically. I'm talking about what I've seen from pro triathletes in general.

I think we are both in agreement that swimming is not some magic, a-ha moment when suddenly the athlete goes from 1:00/100 to 52/100 from one practice to the next because of some secret technique cue. Depending on the athlete that improvement is a 2 year to never project. In general, it is a long, consistent slog of focused hard work. Technique and fitness are intertwined and can't be separated out from one another in development.

But speaking specifically about Lionel, he needs to pick up about 2 minutes on the front.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

But that engine is likely his biggest obstacle to overcome with his swim. You can’t fight the water and he likely will never truly be able to fix that issue.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

What do you mean by saying "his engine is likely his biggest obstacle"??? I don't think a big engine necessarily promotes fighting the water, and watching him swim he does not appear to be fighting it per se. His stroke is not as smooth as the guy a few lanes above him who has the classic high elbow stroke, who always finishes a few sec ahead of LS, and who does not appear to be working very hard, though that is prob just an illusion due to having a nice long stroke and a relatively slow turnover. His stroke is not as smooth as this classic swimmer but it appears to be OK, no big issues that I could see.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Mainly to say just that LS's bike strength has always seemed to be a "masher". and even on the bike he's slightly gawky looking (knees flare outward); it certainly it'snt "smooth" (generally you don’t need smoothness to put out the fastest, most powerful bike power…you truly can “fight” through the pedals to achieve a fast bike split). Which for the most part is sorta the opposite of what you want in the water. I mean you can have "ugly" strokes and swim really really fast, but for the most part if your not "connected" trying to rely on high engine through the water is kinda the worst take you can have. So in a way it's almost irrelevant how much of an engine he has. I've not deep dived his swim stroke analysis to slowing it down to milliseconds like I do my own athletes, but you can just watch videos and see the disconnect; hips sit very low in the water, doesn't look like great rotation. I think his greatest issue is just his flexibility or lack of; he just looks like he swims "tight", like he truly is trying to just go as fast as possible, instead of being smooth as possible. But again that's a lot from the AOS and lack of time in the water.

Likely all very fixable things, but the timetable to fix them likely doesn't match the needs/career for LS at this point. Again this is something that should have been done 7 years ago, but the racing demands back then weren't as dynamic as they are now, so he got away with it back then basically. Now he can't because there is 18 guys in a race "filling the gaps" what used to only be a handful back in the day.

ETA: Again he's a fast AF swimmer for a triathlete. It's not like he's a bum in the water, but it's to the point that if he doesnt reach the chase pack, his dreams of winning a world title are over; that's the "demands of competition" that has certainly changed over the years in the sport. And this "all in" may result in him not getting there. Not every goal is achieved simply because you go "all in" on it; he may be going for a goal that is unatinable for the time table he needs it to be.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I see your point now, thanks for the detailed explanation. I have always appreciated your insights from your years of coaching some of the very best in the sport. You are a great asset to this forum. Cheers, Eric.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

The best part of his last swim video was no time splits yelled out him (atleast on the video portion). Right now just go swim, swim hard when it’s needed and just let the work be the priority right now. Check in on time splits 2 months done thr road etc.

And yes the coach and athlete will know the splits every time they finish or look at the clock. But worrying about “am I faster” cus coach yelled 32s instead of high 30 at least from the video didn’t seem to be there.

And again on deck coach basically summarized it well- he’s stfu and doing hard work.

All you can ask from an athlete. Check in 3 months from now and see what the progress is. Besides LS’s swim videos are shit content for him lol. They are his worst viewed videos lol. So skip the “boring swim workouts” content (which I’m guessing he will).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Sam and Lionel recently raced 1,500 meter long course for fun (and a Benjamin)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORRG_t91om4

Sam was 20:00 and Lionel 19:38.

AFAIK, they are both really "all in" focusing on swim improvement this winter. I don't see any obvious sign of faster times here. Am I missing something? Sam was evenly splitting 1:20s and Lionel averaged 1:19s overall. I am guessing this long course meters pool pace likely puts them both in a B or C swim group that's around 2 min back of a competitive 70.3 field and around 4 min for an Ironman long course distance. Isn't that roughly where both have been mired now for a couple of years other than days when they had an off day or bad luck in the swim group/got stuck solo?

If these full time, coached pros have plateaued in their swim level or even maybe regressed a bit in Lionel's case, that's pretty dispiriting for most age groupers to contemplate.

They need to ring their mate Colin and get some beetroot juice

Wiat to see the 1st half year of tri races to see if the adaption is there. The worst think you can do right now is probaly double your volume over what you are used to and then fret over the result from the 1st "test set". He's likely no where close to be fast feeling with the apparently volume he's doing over the last few months than what he was used to doing. We have no clue what he's truly been working on in his swim training. His take out speed was a key weakness so if that's been the bread and butter focus, then it really is irrelvant what his 1500m swim time is *at this point* since the focus wouldn't necessarily be on extended efforts as of yet. And he's only be at it for what 3 months, this is really a long term solution for him, not just some "winter block" and he's good setup (he's just too weak of a swimmer to think he woul be 2nd pack good in just 3 months of dedicated training).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Ain't that the truth. I'm running into the (much sadder, slower) version of this myself, except minus the swim coach. Doesn't seem to matter at this point what I do, my gains are tiny and disproportionately small to the amount of effort I put into it. And honestly, even if I did 2x the volume, I think I'd maybe gain like <5sec/100 even. At this point, I'm consoling myself that I've made it as far as I have, but the hard reality is that I'm gonna be stuck as a MOP swimmer getting progressively worse as I continue to age up. =(

Meanwhile, a few of my daughter's 6th grade classmates are dropping sub 1:05/100yds (granted, they're the amongst the best of their very competitive group/facility) and they're not even doing hero-level training. Pretty sure these kids could beat both LS and SL at a 1500 after a few weeks of targeted 1500 training, or at least keep it really close. Swimming is strange like that - weird combo of technique, body shape, power, timing, etc.

I'm still very impressed with the level of swimming SL and LS have both achieved as adult-onset swimmers who weren't identified early as youth swim talents as nearly all the other fast triathlon swimmers were.

I am not sure I fully agree with parts of this

If I doubled my swim volume for 2-3 months and did a 1500m i would expect to improve my time, by 1-3 seconds per 100

Double swim volume gives plenty of time to work on “extended efforts” - it’s just fitness and strength

It may be irrelevant to his bigger goals what his current 1500m looks like. And obviously as a triathlete what is important is race position and improvement in packs at races.

But look at what you would expect from 2-3 months of double run volume barring no injury in a 5km. the idea he cant expect improvement over a big swim block is not right

Let me know if you think I am taking your post out of context

We share a similarity in that we swim without a coach and think we know a lot about swimming

I recently had some shoulder ad elbow pain. Got a video of my stroke taken and reviewed it with someone who knows what they are talking about. got 3 things to work on.

I have now fixed up some of those things.

Now I am swimming 3-5 seconds quicker per 100 when I turn the gas over 400-500 efforts. No pain.

So going from where I can barely hit 5 minutes for a 400 long course to doing 4:45 and sub 2:20 for 200s back to back to back. I couldn’t have done that before.

I am a bit more progressed than you on the swim continuum but you would be surprised what a coach could teach you. So go get a good coach and do what they say.

Sad part is that I’ve worked with 4 different one on one coaches and 2 of them were video analysis included.

No gain in speed for me. It’s been really tough fixing the evf. Might be a flexibility limiter

But from all of this I am realising how little I know about swim

But working on getting into a more horizontal position and carrying more momentum with each stroke, reducing drag or being 'in alignment' as they say, is what has been relevant. Making sure the head is down in line with body and you are taking a sneaky breath or 1 goggle only so your head doesn't shuffle around like having a fit

Its not from strength or generating more power on each arm pull

FWIW, 20:00 and 19:38 would be very, very good for a 6th grade girl, I’m assuming most likely around age 12 now. You mention the girl goes 1:05 in 100 short course yards, therefore her ability is likely nowhere near the 1500 times and could take a very long time to get there. If a 12 year old girl were to go 1:05.00 in 100 long course meters free or 58:00 in 100 short course yards and she’s really more of an amazing endurance swimmer, she might be at those times today.

There were roughly 110 girls aged 11/12 that swam a 1500 LCM time at 20 minutes or under last year in USA. That being said, that event is rarely done in that age bracket.

I'm saying I have no clue what the goals of the meet were, what his volume going into the meet was, what his training has even looked like to come to any "conclusions" from this "swim meet" result. All I can conclude is that his fastest 100m was the final 100m and that in the battle of Sam vs LS, Sam raced it more like what an pro tri swim will look like while LS swam it pretty much what a 1500m swim is; So there's not a ton of conclusions to make, and to suggest he's failing because he didn't set a PR is very short sighted imo. I certainly don't think they will "waste" training time to be "fresh" for a local swim meet, I'm guessing they used this far more as one of the quality swim days then going into some full blown "taper" mode for this event. This is far too irreelvant to waste a bunch of valuable training days.

II've never said he can't expect improvement. I've said this swim meet may not show you what he actual has improved upon based on his big swim block volume approach and that imo the bigger improvements will be truly determined in races. For all we know he's dropped his 100yd get out time to sub 1:01 or 1:03.5 from a 1:05, and that imo is far more relevant for him than this 1500m swim time would be. Yet we don't know if that's true or not and thus we are all basically talking in the dark when we are determining if he's improving or not.

So if he did a LCM meet middle of this year and is still in the 19:3x then yeah we have a problem. But again it's why I personally as a coach don't like to add in intermident "check in" races like this in a big volume training plan. To me I would value what each weekly key sessions are showing (or not showing more importantly) 1000% more than what an athlete did or didn't do at a "swim meet" (out of their element, middle of training block, etc).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Yeah, well, these girls I'm talking about are definitely in the top 50 of the USA in their categories (my daughter looked them up for me). One of them is close to, or has been #1 in certain events, so yes, these girls are fast - wayyyy better than 'very good'.

My point though, wasn't that 'any 12 year old girl can swim as fast as Lionel with correct coaching' - that's a bunch of baloney. My point was that if you one of the lucky ones born with real swim talent, you will get good, and you will get good fast once you are training with the competitive group. I can almost guarantee that even of Lionel could have a time machine and reversed himself back to childhood, and enroll in the exact same program as these speedy girls did, he wouldn't even be in the same league just because they take to it so much more naturally. Neither SL or LS were identified as youth-talents in swimming.

And it's not just that they didn't get noticed. I distinctly recall in my age 5ish first swim class there was one kid my exact same age, also with zero swim experience. We were both the same on day 1, blowing bubbles, but I was much more afraid to stick my head in the water. By next session, he was the only one of our 10 or so group that could go underwater and swim like that. After about 8 weeks, I was barely able to let go of the wall - and he was swimming across the entire 25yds and back repeatedly - with zero swim coaching since our coach was only trying to get us normal kids to survive in the water so they weren't doing more than bare minimum coaching for him. And then I also remember how on the last day of class, his mom got mobbed by 3 of the swim coaches, insisting they get him in competitive swimming, and giving her lots of people to contact and places to go. (This was a community pool - NOT a competitive pool, so no teams!) To this day, I still remember how quickly real talent can be spotted and cultivated if it's there.

Yeah, I do all that, have analyzed it on video, and do drill specifically for each of those. It's that last few percent of small errors that are really, really hard to fix. It absolutely isn't an issue of me not being aware of it, as would be a beginner or even early-intermediate swimmer. None of the coaches I've worked with gave me advice I didn't already know. Biggest one is improving my EVF - that is freaking hard to do.

It's like this video here - while that guy's in the water, it looks almost 'reasonably doable by a normal person'. Then you see his range of motion when he's standing and demonstrating the stroke while standing up out of water - and wow his shoulder flexibility is nuts - no way I can do that!

LS and SL also had tech suits on which add about 3s per 100m and U13 can't wear tech suits. At least in Australia, NZ and UK they can't.

So I'm guessing a non tech-suit swim would put them in the region of 21mins. At a recent meet my kids were at the top 3 girls (12 yrs) were around 19mins.

3s pr 100?.....

Just no... They don't give that much - the old "super suits" didn't even give 3s pr 100...

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Long Distance PB: 8:25
Instagram: larsschmidttri

del

Same in USA. No seamless tech suits allowed for kids 12 and under. Some compression suits with seams are allowed for 12 and under, but they are slower and way cheaper.

You've seen a lot of coaches. What was the background experience of the coaches you worked with?

How long did you work with each coach? How much time did you train in the water after each session you did with each coach? What was your training volume/intensity during those times? Did you lift weights? How many times a week and for how long?

Getting into a high elbow catch position has less to do with flexibility and talent and more to do with stability, strength and speed.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com