Interesting. I like his answers on tho questions at the end.

It would seem to me that the biggest gain with this protocol is with conditioning and VO2 improvement - which is important. But maybe stroke mechanism and form improve a good bit also - by naturally morphing into a more efficient technique and/or form.

Like the old saying goes, if you typically go out on your bike and ride 18 mph ave then you will always be a 18 mph rider. That won’t cut it come race time.

If we're dealing with triathletes (not the top swim squad folks in his article), you could take his methodology and simplify it even more -

Show up for swim practice 5 days per week, 2 hrs per day. 10hrs/wk should get you into the front of the triathlon pack after a few years, and if you've got any sort of natural talent for it, you'll likely be FFOP with that kind of volume!

There's also going to be some serious self-selection in that Newcastle group. How many kids do you know of as well as their parents who are going to commit to 2 hrs/day, 5 days/wk, with NO EXCUSES, if they are joe-average talent? (And I'm not talking joe-average compared to their competitive swim peers, I'm talking joe-average compared to Mr. Everyman, which is the talent pool most AG triathletes are dealing with.) I was a top violinist in the country in my youth, did Juillliard music school, and 5 days a week of 'must-be-there' practice at a facility would have been a no-go even for me back then!

Not saying his approach wouldn't work (swimming 10hrs+/wk with lots of intensity and quality will always work for AGers!), but I'd be a lot more impressed if such a plan of nothing but 50s on the clock would work for the typical AG triathlete who is lucky to swim more than 4hrs/wk. In particular, I'd be impressed if you could cut that down to 2-3 hrs/wk and outperform other swimmers of same ability who are doing 5-6 hrs/wk, just because the regimen of those 50s is so good.

Wait, you/ Sutto're suggesting that swimming 6k daily, 5x a week will make you a better swimmer? Weird hypothesis. /snark

Note: I'm a big fan of 50s on the 60. I do them often. Mix in strokes. But, ew, to suggest 120x50 daily for the entire season? I'd probably fall asleep mid-set on day 3, which can't be all that good. Even with the stroke and cones tactic, it'd get old quickly. I think the biggest reason most other coaches mix it up is to keep their swimmers engaged and to provide differing stressors.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Did you read the article??

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I see the main point of the article is going straight over your head. Hint, it isn’t about the specifics of the workout. Or self selection (which is true of any sport), or any of that stuff.

The point is that there aren’t any secrets. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Ok mysterious one please clarify for us unenlightened ones

Make it realllly obvious!

Umm, my second paragraph????

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

The secret is consistency. Spend more time training and less time on message boards and you will get faster.

Interesting for sure. I also like 50's on the 60, I might incorporate more fly/back/breast into my workouts. I suck at fly but I'm thinking for a set of 10 I'll wear fins until I get a better hold on it. I'm already a FOP/MOP 50+ AG swimmer so this might be a good experiment. When I swim back and breast and really work it I get gassed pretty quickly.

It’s interesting, but like I was saying to lightheir, there’s nothing magic about 120 x 50 on 60. That particular interval could be substituted with just about anything, as long as the kids could make the interval.

It’s about showing up every day and being committed, and enforcing accountability . In this case through process (attendance) and performance (weekly club meets) metrics.

As far as specifics, they worked through a full range of intensities, some moderate and some very high intensities. That generally works well. It’s not just getting in and swimming mindless meters.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

That would be a tough consistent set for me even doing all the yardage in freestyle.

On our birthdays we get to pick the workout at our Masters group. I usually do my birthday X 50 on the 1:00. At 60 X 50 this year I did not get much rest toward the end. Maybe a good challenge for 2020 - see how many before I can't hold it. Then see if I can better that - week on week.

I think I will try it at least for a while.

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Dan Kennison

facebook: @triPremierBike
http://www.PremierBike.com
http://www.PositionOneSports.com

No, consistency is only a part of it, but not the only piece or secret.

There are quite a few middling AG triathletes who are VERY consistent with swim training. They are very consistent in putting up 2000yds/workout, 3 times per week, without fail, year round. With plenty of mixed interval intensities in there, from aerobic to all-out.

And many (?most) of these AG triathletes can't even break out of the MOP, and for the less fortunate, they're stuck in BOP. They are very, very consistent but it's absolutely not enough to be a good swimmer.

Consistency + volume increases start rounding out the equation. Sutto's consistency isn't 2000yds/workout 3 times per week - it's 6000 per workout, 5+ times per week, so in the range of 30k/wk. NOW we're talking real improvement.

I'd argue those two are the main message. All the other stuff is helpful, but without those two, your improvement will be very limited except for the gifted ones.

I also find it very noteable that in all the KQ people I've heard interviewed here and elsewhere, zero of them are approaching 30k/wk in swimming at any point in the entire buildup for Kona, if ever in their tri careers.

Umm , in that case the article definitely did NOT go right over my head, contrary to what you've said.

5x matters way more than 30k. I make the same rate of improvement on 5x3k as I do on 5x5k until I plateau. After that, I have to add volume.

I thought everyone knew that 3x won't get you very far.

Get wet, swim hard, rinse&repeat, alot.

I was thinking that exact same thing at first too, but I think the variable sprints within each of the sets of 10 would force you to be pretty hyper focused. Still, there's no question that it would be a pretty monotonous existence for anyone in that club, focused or not.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

Everyone knows you have to swim more period, but do you think most triathletes realistically swim 5x.per week 3k each session while doing bike run in a race build? Do you even do that?

Consistency and volume are critical but the far.more relevant and useful question is how you fit that into a plan of swim bike run year round consistently.

Read thru the Sutton workout and I think the thing that stood out, which I believe would help every swimmer, is the fact that it is multi stroke.
No Tri swim program I have ever been in (admittedly only a few) ever does another stroke.

The other secret is Saturday morning.

I saw this too. Thought it was pretty sound (but what do I know?), and my god that’s a lot of volume. The distance swims seemed like they would benefit triathletes if done every couple weeks, esp without swim meets to track progress. This could be a good experiment for a few weeks.

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

And when you're in the pool: swim hard, recover briefly; rinse&repeat alot. I've gotten pretty far in USMS swimming on 5x+/-2.5k week; and even been able to maintain a FOFOP competitive Sprint swim leg on 3x+/-2.5k, doing mostly short rest 25's, 50's, 75's, & 100's. Triathletes often seem to greatly undervalue the aerobic benefits of HIIT/USRPT/VO2max-interval swim training.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

So this is a pretty interesting concept, and one that I've been moving towards as a time-crunched swimmer (currently 1x weekly for quite a while). I've been doing lots of 50s and 100s, and actually gotten quicker on this limited volume by making sure my quality is high.

What would you say for a one-stroke, adult-onset swimmer who has never attempted a stroke of butterfly in their life, as far as adopting training similar to this?

I mean, at the beginning, I'm looking at 60x50, or 90x50, but it'd all be free. I like the quarters of the last length sprinted 4, 3, 2, and every 10th a full sprint, but what about the other strokes?

-Eric

Well now that I have a number of 30km+ swim weeks under my belt, I just need to get my run act back together and fit your category of the outlier Kona qualifier (I guess this would mean I have to actually get my run fast enough as my bike and swim are in th range.....but I also need do an Ironman in 55-59 and do a few 30km weeks in that build to fit the category, so for now its a bit of a pipe dream, but I want to believe its in realm of possibility)

I had the opportunity to give this a lot of thought as I have done really low volume biking for a number of years and high volume swimming. Its easy enough to do high volume swimming if you cut out a pile of biking. If you swim all 4 strokes the conditioning of the legs is amazing. I am actually biking at higher wattages now as I enter 55-59 in few weeks than when I was racing 40-44. I concluded that I wasted a good part of the last 20 years on the trainer and biking instead of in the pool.

The bike hours hardly translate at all into a faster swim, but the high volume high intensity swims sessions translate very quickly to great bike TT legs. I did my first season of tris this past summer and this year my bike mileage was HALF of what I did when I was a triathlete. But my bike splits were no different and my wattages on the trainer are higher than they used to be. I did 5000km less biking (so let's call it 170 hours less biking, but I did 800km more swimming, so call that 270 hrs more). In any case, my times to T2 were very similar to the past by cutting out a pile of biking and moving more time to swim. I AM swimming all 4 strokes and doing a lot of leg sets though. I think for a good transfer to the bike, all that back stroke, breast and fly and associated leg sets for them really help me....if you do triathlete training and have the pull buoy in there 90% of the time to simulate wetsuit, well that type of swim training likely won't transfer that well to the bike since you are not using your legs.

I used to be in this camp thinking incremental swim time was a waste of time and was taking away from the bike, but I am sold that most of that time on the bike is a waste of time for half IM and Olympic tri. Most of the performance for these distances can be gained on the bike with shorter harder intervals sessions. 90 min on the trainer is excellent for a half IM or Olympic tri (provided that overall volume is high enough).

So whether I do 8 hours swim, 4 hours bike and 4 hours run or 3 hours swim, 9 hrs bike, 4 hrs run its all the same total hours, and the question is which breakdown do I get more performance out of. I am leaning towards the high swim option.

I have a half IM coming up in 8 weeks in Dubai. I am going to experiment with the 7 hours swim, 3-4 hrs trainer, 4-5 hrs run plan and can report back.

Dev

Right, we get it; swim a lot consistently and you get faster on the swim. You also get faster on the bike if you bike more and faster on the run if you run more. See my thread on competing triathlon advice. But I do plan to try a shorter version of the specific workout at some point!

I'm def interested in hearing of your results with the swim focus. Gonna name drop again but coach Matt Dixon always says to lean into swimming, and I'm on similar page as you and him, in that swim focus seems to help me disproportionately well.

I suspect some factors help this, but I'm just guessing. First, I think agers underestimate how much the swim takes out of them. So in your case you might be seeing a lot more of your bike potential on the tri race course than the past where you swam comparably less. Next is that since swimming doesn't hammer your legs.like running you may have higher quality run bike workouts and possibly fresher legs on race day due to the swim focus.

Alas, swim dominance isn't the only answer as ex.oly trials swimmers often get beat pretty badly by balanced strong agers in tri.

But count me in as one who really values.the effects of swim training.for tri in general.