Jerryc wrote:
Quote:
It seems counterintuitive that training at or near threshold could be counterproductive.
That is what a lot of people believe. But when we first broached this with Olbredht in 1998, his answer was that training at the threshold was too stressful especially for elite athletes. He said training is a process of breaking down and then rebuilding and since one can train at the threshold for relatively long periods of time the athlete broke down to much.
Training for recreational athletes at the threshold is less stressful than for elite athletes but still very stressful.
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To add my 2c, I have to agree to this above, male fully developed swimmers incur substantial recovery cost doing anaerobic threshold work, yet, when you examine the energy systems used in swimming where the longest race is 14+min, it clearly makes sense that it is not where sweet spot or ROI for swimmers range is. On the other hand, female swimmers recover much better from efforts at threshold, so repeated anaerobic threshold work for female distance swimmers seems to provide more bang for the buck as it can be repeated several times per week. Still, VO2max will provide more ROI later in the season.
Back to male swimmers, early season threshold work works, than later, many coaches replace those efforts with VO2max work, as cost of recovery is similar to threshold, as long as swimmers are disciplined and held to the speed at VO2max. VO2max range is also far more race specific for distance and middle distance events, 400/800/1500 and 400IM, so principle of specificity begins to show.
Threshold sets as they can be prescribed in swimming, referencing Urbanchek, Maglischo and few others, can be 4000 long or as much as 60min+ in duration, reference also ASCA Level 3 School book.......That is quite a bit of work at that level....
So, in summary, while we all know that there is no one correct way, we can look at it as it is indicated by OP's quote of Maglischo's work, when it comes to swimming, anaerobic threshold is not a great ROI area to spend a lot of time in for elite level swimmers.
From my personal experience with a small number of male HS level swimmers, AA and AAA level 200/500 FR, I did find that 2700-3200 worth of threshold work does put them to bed for a few days. So, late season and race prep phases, we do not spend much time at threshold, we do some, but we go to VO2max, or EN3 range instead. We still do short rest intervals at threshold speed but far less than recommended for that range. It seems to work. I am no excersize physiologist by I have spent a few years coaching swimming and Maglischo was a starting point in my education.