Hey Brandon!

This is truth. 82% FTP for 4.5 hours is probably the same impact on the body as 72% for 6 hours. People need to think time and elevation gain instead of just miles.

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

Congrats on your race, Sam. I’m still amazed that you can ride at such a high % of FTP if your FTP is really only 320. My FTP is around 340 and I aim for 235-240 watts in an IM, and consider that conservative!

Also, did you take a Kona slot? I’m in your AG at Placid and hoping there’s one more slot available!

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Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
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I won't take one :-) See you in July!
Sam

One way to incorporate or engage the core during vasa sessions is to do swim specific core exercises during the rest intervals. This video I made for Vasa a few years ago shows some exercises you can include.


https://vasatrainer.com/blog/dry-land-swim-circuit-by-tim-crowley/

It depends on volume. My guess your FTP is based on <10hrs a week average for the year. He trains for Ironman racing. I'm sure if he trained less than 10hrs on the bike he could make his 20min FTP test higher but this is not the whole story when it comes to an endurance race like Ironman.

Congrats on a well executed race!

This is a great thread! Lots of good questions and thank you Sam for taking the time to answer.

Good luck on the rest of your season!

Sam, I’m curious how many calories you would take in during a typical 1 hour workout, say during the week before work or in the evening? And is it different for each sport?

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

Just one bottle (80cl) of sports drink mix which would be around 200kcal. I rarely bike for just one hour but that is what I would consume during a 1h15 run (my standard duration for a run) or 1h vasa swim or for each hour on the bike.
I never work out before work, always after.
Sam

@ sgy - You REALLY gotta start a blog - we're all really interested in your (seemingly unconvetional) training and prep methods!

Haha, maybe Herbert will interview me again in a couple of years and then there is a sequel ;-) Also, I am in this game for quite a while now so learned most things the hard way. And I studied economics so cost/benefits analyses are applied everywhere ;-)
Glad some find it interesting or funny.
Sam

What is seemingly unconventional outside of the swim training?
- His average week is pretty steady/solid and looked to be close to 21 hours.
- Running/elliptical + cycling average weeks looked to be a total of 17ish hours (average).
- His 'zones' are largely aerobic training (1 & 2) with some higher intensity.
- Peak volume weeks are closer to the race and are upwards of 20 hours as shown by TSS and hours.
- Even if you say that his dryland swim training is unconventional and therefore non-specific...it is as close to swimming as you can get without getting in a pool.
- His bike ride at IMTX was well fueled and well paced off of an 'ftp' that might have been a conservative estimate.

Those weeks, with differences here and there, are similar to what a lot of top age groupers (and pros) do. You figure out what you can handle and you do it week in and week out and try to stay healthy while doing it.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

Thanks for this to the point summary Brandon! Sam

Here's what I find unconventional:

- Vasa training. Even if it's as close to swimming as you can get without getting in a pool, there are zero pros doing this, and as far as I can tell, almost no AGers based upon the fact that there seem to be only a small handful of Vasa erg users on these forums. Any high-level coaches recommending going all-erg for swim training out there? Any?

- Seems like he trains indoors a lot. I know this is more mainstream now (thanks LS) but I was still surprised how much indoors work he does.

- Elliptical?!

Vasa. A lot of age groupers don't swim, or they swim 1x every week or two and think that they swim. Seriously. It's a PITA. Does it hurt their race, yes. The ones on this forum who post a lot probably have more access to a pool that many others. All vasa by high level coaches? No, why would they unless their swimmer had absolutely no pool access or unless they had very limited pool access but happened to have a vasa in their garage or gym.

Is it the best way to swim fast,probably not. Does it work, sure it can. I read the front page comments under the article. Sam obviously has a decent enough talent for swimming, and he's happy enough with 62 minutes or whatever it was. Regardless of the talent for cycling and running and regardless of how much grinding some athletes can do, some may never swim under an hour in an IM. No amount of swimming nor swim coaching is going to do it for them. So, they need to swim enough to at least be comfortable and not overly worked for 4k. Or swim just enough plus a little bit more to get a few minutes off of their time. But the extra amount of time that it would take to swim a lot faster is likely better spent cycling or running.

Elliptical? If it keeps you relatively free of injury, it's probably closer to running than a lot of other options, and you don't have to be near a pool like you might for aqua jogging.

They're only unconventional in that you don't hear of people using them. But when you look at the overall volume and the specificity/near-specificity of the training, they aren't that unconventional. He's moving pretty high end aerobically for 20 plus hours a week.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

Agree on you last two posts ... but we are like that ;-) ... everyone looking for magic bullets, yet there are none!

Hope you are well B

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Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

i would call it time efficient and it works , made me laugh when i read one of the comments bellow the article ( many ways lead to rome you just have to find the right one )
i might be wrong but i bleivie sam is using power cranks lol but most importantly he does the training and is smart about it
like dan stublinski he has been at a high level for many years now.

Thanks a lot for all the info and congrats on your race, Sam!

I'm curious about how you are able to squeeze all that weekly volume training only after work. Do you mind giving a rough outline of how your weekly schedule looks like?

Erdinger sponsors one of our local tri series here in Ontario (trisportcanada's Subaru series). And while they don't serve it on course, they do at the finish, and it's the best, especially on stinking hot days.

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

Some of you guys are mentioning that Sam's training is unconventional, but I think he has done a very good cost benefit analysis in terms of the 2.5 hours it takes him to do a 60 min swim. Sam also mentioned that he did do some swimming to get his core ready, but keep in mind the guy is riding powercranks a zillion miles per week. There is a lot of actually very specific core training in terms of connecting the upper body and lower body that is very applicable to swimming that you don't get riding conventional cranks. So his all "vasa" program that does not use his core, may not work as well for others who are not doing as much core work on onging basis. Sam is doing core work on a constant basis riding those torture devices. So his transition to real water is easier.

Also I think this 62 min IM is faster than many recent IM's for him (Sam can you confirm)....perhaps he is better MORE swim specific load on the vasa accesing it alll the time vs swimming a lot less....and he frees up time for the rest of life rather than sitting in a car. It probably means that he gets more sleep by getting rid of all that car commuting time and as Brandon Marsh pointed out, the most important thing for a top age grouper is sustaining load and staying healthy. Sitting in a car doing all the commuting just takes away from sleeping more and sleeping more makes you healthy.

Sam, can I ask how many hours per week you sleep.

Also big congrats on the rolling start win over Stubelski. That must have been tough for both of you not knowing the real buffer....a true TT

Hi Sam, congrats on your amazing race!

In the interview you mentioned "In the frame I carry a Platypus Hoser bladder that holds 1.4l of fluids consisting of gels diluted with a maltodextrin solution."
How do you put the Platypus Hoser bladder inside the marquise?

Wow, a belgian guy loving german beer! ;-)
I travel a lot to Brussels (work a lot for the Euro bureaucracy machine), and belgian beer IMO is the best!

Congrats Sam on your race and successful AG career, and thanks for answering questions here!

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Sr. Salitre

I am by no means as successful of an athlete as Sam, but I too do 99% of my training on my vasa erg. I train about 90 minutes per week on the erg, about 5 or 6x / week. My go to workout is a 15min time trial on the erg.

For me, that is good enough for a 30min HIM swim; PB of 28.40 ish.

The benefits, for me, is amazing time saving; ability to "swim" many times per week; focus on muscular strength (my limiter); ability to focus on high elbow (mirrors on the side of the bench).

I don't have a HS or college swimming background...

Hope this helps.

I can see how being out of shape and inefficient in the swim wouldn’t impact the bike at all. Because as a swim coach who knows nothing about triathlon, you get an hour break before you have to get on the bike, right?

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I'd like to add my 2 cents here regarding the Vasa SwimErg training. Yes, it is as close to swimming as you can get without getting in a pool, but it is so much more! Just like training with power on a bike, the SwimErg allows you to train with power for the swim. I do the same type of power based training on the bike that I do on the Vasa SwimErg. My coach gives me an FTP test at the beginning of the season and retests me through the season. I do many sets where I practice swimming at 70-80% of my FTP because that is the range I want to swim in during an Ironman swim. It's incredible to see my swim stroke power increase and my swim splits in races and in the pool drop in direct correlation.
There are many high-level coaches who recommend Vasa SwimErg training to supplement in water training.
Check out the blog post I wrote all about the subject: 3 things that have contributed to my improvement as a swimmer

I think what a lot of casual age groupers are not gettting is that same Sam the IM swim-bike-run at the equivalent of 260W of effort for those three sports. I actually don't think that for Sam's engine, 62 minutes is that good an IM swim time, but it is enough for him to be competitive in his age group. Other athletes putting out say 180W to 200W in an IM, if they go on the erg only plan, might only swim 1:15 if they lack technical skills to begin win.

The erg is great if you can couple the early vertical forearm with the proper shoulder and hip rotation, but if you don't have that and God forbid it is a not wetsuit race and if you are a low wattage athlete already, an erg only plan is going to be slow as molasses.

I've seen lots of us who XC ski race doing zero swimming all winter and in 2 weeks of swimming getting within a minute of our peak summer half IM swim times just by virtue of good upper body conditioning and already having basic swim skills (it works the other way around too), so I can see how the erg adds great upper body conditioning.

I'm not buying that Sam's Erg only plan is any magic plan that others can pull off. When you're a big engine athlete, you can get away with a lot, but other athletes who race pro with similar size engine or smaller would not be able to get away with this plan at the pro level because everyone has a massive engine....likewise other age groupers will moderate to smaller engines will have a tougher time on this approach. However, it's better than nothing when you cannot make it to the pool and I believe this is what Sam is trying to convey. But if he lived 3 minutes from a pool and replaced all that erg time with pool time, or maybe 75% pool and 25% erg, he would swim faster. If not Phelps would be on the 100% erg plan and clearly there is a lot more to fast swimming than pure pulling.

If Sam is reading, in the hypothetical case where you lived close to the pool would you ditch the erg or reduce it and do more water swimming?