Phelps would trip over his own flipper feet if he did a run vo2 max test!

Poor saltman's getting wailed on. I didn't mean for that to happen and I apologize.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

tc I don't mind getting wailed on when the wailers are people with knowledge and are making a coherent argument. I have tripped over myself here, but I do know that V02 isn't a measure of performance.

Agreed. The long time joke in swimming is that the better the swimmer, the more horriffically clumsy they are on land. The same bone structure and biomechanics that lead a person to do well in the water can cause limitations for land sports.

right.

Race times are the only measure of performance! (or workout times)

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Ok then, since you asked for it:

From Saltman:

"Let me be clear, I am not an expert, but I don't believe the term "fitness" is sport specific. "

-Disproven by many as above posts.


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"The fact that you think it takes "fitness in your arms"....whatever that is, shows you haven't a clue what you are talking about. "

- You definitely need arm/back conditioning, both muscular and neurological to swim fast. Though Terry and TI might deny it, there are many more coaches who believe you have to swim fast to go fast. Nearly all masters swim programs are based on a heavy dose of fast interval swimming and HTFU designed specifically at building aerobic capacity as well as capillary growth in arms,back, and other musculature so they don't fatigue earlier. Even expert swimmers who take years off and jump back in the pool already have built up swim fitness that will last for years, and possibly a lifetime if they started as a child. But don't think for a second that a pure marathon runner, even at world class level, who has never been in a pool, can swim fast with only slow technique related sesssion in the pool.

===

"Read any of the running guru posts around here and they will tell you speed sessions aren't necessary for "most" people to improve running fitness."

- Absolutely wrong. Most people need to increase volume to facilitate the crucial hi-speed VO2 and lactate hard interval runs without injury so they can run faster. If you only train slow, you're going to run slow. Show me a running coach who says you don't need running speed sessions to become a better runner, and I'll show you a quack. Even marathon runners do a fair amount of speedwork in the form of 800s (and even 200s) because speedwork is so crucial for running.

===

"If your problem is the fact that he is exploiting his "mediocre" skills for personal gain....I gotta say tough shit. If you have superior knowledge and a better record as an athlete, take a fucking business class and make some money, it just sounds a bit like sour grapes I guess. I expected more from some of the folks here. "

Lots of people who posted on this very thread are far superior swimmers than Terry, both in youth, and as a master. They just don't prosletyze and sell for money it as the solve-all for swimming the way Terry does. It's much more convincing to hear advice from a coach with no vested financial interest in his advice as compared to someone like Terry (and his paid coaches on BT) who clearly have everything to gain finanically by promoting their theories as better than others. Even if he's not doing it actively, subconsciously, the bias effect is huge and enough for me to take everything he says with a tremendous grain of salt.


===

"Of course, Lance did run a 2:59 marathon on essentially no run training. I wonder what he was relying on, oh yes his V02"

Uh, no. VO2 is definitely not the limiting factor in marathons, especially for Lance. He wasn't even out of breath in the final hour - his legs cramped. That has nothing to do with VO2, and everything to do with his complete lack of proper run training for the running race. VO2 is a major factor in 5ks and 10ks, which I would expect Lance to do very well in even with limited run training. But take him to marathon, and his VO2 was irrelevant to the race due to his lack of conditioning to tap into it.

===

"Maybe swimming doesn't take a huge aerobic engine?"

Tell Marky5 and the other swimmers on this forum this and you'll find that I've been really gentle in the way I've been debunking your ideas. If anything, swimming requires more of an aerobic engine than the other sports, because you can do nearly endless aerobic intervals without injury in swimming, where in running (and even cycling), the odds of an overuse injury are much higher when doing back-to-back hard aerobic interval sessions.

my favorite swim joke is "didn't recognize you with your clothes on"

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Please stop. I made the mistake of improperly using the term "fitness" to which I have admitted. You on the other hand are doing nothing to make yourself sound more legitimate. I suggest we retreat to our respective corners. I have to go work on my run specific fitness....seriously.

Ok, we're done. I admit - I've been picking on you, but you really set yourself up for it. Still, my rebuttals above, which as you can see above, are not personal attacks, but rather, clear explanations of why I disagree with them, as well as the justifications.

As such, my last rebuttal post was in direct response to your very own comments:

-"I think you do need to explain how those comments are off base other than perhaps the first one"

- "I don't mind getting wailed on when the wailers are people with knowledge and are making a coherent argument."

I think it's pretty easy to see what the guy on the other end of the debating table is going to say when you set yourself up like that.

You all should come back over, Terry now says that swim pace improvements are produce only by neural, not aerobic, training, and he quotes some Dr. who claims the stuff upon which all those theories about aerobic conditioning are based as "pseudo-science at best. Good grief.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
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TL might actually be worse than FD.

You all should come back over, Terry now says that swim pace improvements are produce only by neural, not aerobic, training, and he quotes some Dr. who claims the stuff upon which all those theories about aerobic conditioning are based as "pseudo-science at best. Good grief.

He made the same claims here about 6 months ago. When called on it, he disappeared.

-Jot

Resistance to fatigue is something else altogether. This is why elite athletes with the same VO2 (or me for that matter, a slow guy with a high VO2) can get such different race times.
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I think you would need to define fitness as something other then resistance to fatigue.

And running economy has something to do with the % of vo2max two people with the same vo2 are running at. rather probable that one could be chugging along at 70% of vo2max the other at 80% even though they are running the same speed.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I find this thread fairly entertaining...in a humorous way.

People can learn to swim fast as adults. I've seen it happen. Most people don't get there, though. Why? They just aren't willing to do the work necessary to get fast. When the coach calls for 10 more 100s after they are already sucking breath from the first 10...they quit...hang on the side of the pool...or otherwise sandbag. Thats where kids have the advantage. They just keep going....believing the adult on the side of the pool knows what is best...and they don't just give up. Well, the ones who get fast don't give up, anyway.

The idea that someone can get fast swimming what cyclists and runners might call Z2...is laughable. If someone suggested that a cyclist could progress from a 1:30 40k to a sub-hour 40k riding Z2...even lots of miles...that person would be laughed out of the room. Train at Z2 in the pool...you're going to get real good...at swimming Z2...with a low turnover rate and keeping the same crappy form.

And here we have an "expert" claiming that swiming fast is all technique?

Phooey.

If you want to swim fast...you have to train fast. Train fast WAAAAAY past when it hurts. Shut off that adult brain that tells you to "be reasonable about this"...and just frappin swim...HARD.

Swim training is not bike or run training. I know someone who trained for RAAM by doing (duh) huge miles on the bike. He just rode and rode and rode, and finished I think 10th or 11th that year. He didn't do intervals or the like, but the one time he rode with our team he was incredibly strong. He also did 445 miles in a 24 hour bike race.

There's someone on ST who has won local triathlons by virtue of his very fast run splits, who rarely if ever ran faster than about 7:00/mile. I've been running this year at about 7-7:30/mile pace, and I did 12:14 and 18:52 run splits this past weekend for a 2mi/10mi/3mi duathlon.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Actually, training at 7-7:30/mile is dead on the correct pace for most of your run miles if you're running an 18:52 duathlon. Now if you were doing only 9 or 10 mins/mile in training with no speedwork, good luck with running that fast. 7min/mile in training for most of your miles is pretty fast - I think I AVERAGED 8:30/mi when I ran a 2:58 when I was a pure runner. I did some very fast runs, and a lot of runs at 8-8:30, and a good number of recovery miles at 9-10min/mile due to the hi-mileage beatdown.

I decided to look it up to share the humor.

Let me guess, the BT thread mentions "myelin secretion"?

We've already had that whole thread here.

For your reading pleasure.

-Jot

I thought Terry was pretty decent through most of that post...

You were definitely attacking though ;-)

Seemed like you really wanted to engage him in back-and-forth debate that he wasn't jumping in on. Once started though, others jumped on board to attack.

I understand your point that you want him to concede that there is more than one way to skin a cat and we can benefit from T.I., tempo work, speed work, mileage, etc. but I didn't get the sense that he wasn't saying that.

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"Chrissie wins because she trains really f'ing hard and races really f'ing hard and was blessed with a huge f'ing motor" Jordan Rapp

 

Replying to: Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [trexleradam] by tigerchik Post:

In Reply To:

The thing that really bugs me about TI is that it's easier to have better, not worse, technique when you're swimming near-all out. Last time I did a swim focus, my best technique started to come when I incorporated sets of 25s at very high intensity, thinking about technique, though. Good technique and lolly-gagging is a contradiction in terms.

I agree with this, but if we tell most triathletes this they will start flailing their arms like a windmill while they try to swim fast.

Once you're a good swimmer, then it's easy to swim fast, with good technique.

Chicken and egg conundrum do you think?
_____________
I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not.
-Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'
I would never just tell anyone to just swim as hard as they can, but I do think good stuff happens when you start to think about going fast, smooth, and efficient. My point is that it's not just chicken and egg, because sometimes you have to go fast to learn to go fast well.

Just spent 45 minutes reading this thread...both camps are right and wrong. I am 45 been doing tris for 5 years and learned (still learning) to swim the first year. Not a fast swimmer; 1:25 IM swim, 29 min OLY. One thing T1 does, I think, is speak a language new swimmers can understand. I have read the book but never been to a camp. On the flip side, I have had private lessons from 2 different coaches and done some masters swimming. The good news is I know my biggest limiter - my f'in feet and legs are anchors - might as well put a patachute on in the water. The bad news is the coaches I have worked with started slapping pull bouys, fins and other crap so I could "feel" what it was like having my lower body higher - this doesn't do shit for me. Then they throw you in a master class and say keep up. So you huff and puff and keep up but your techniques sucks - it doesn't translate.

Fine, I need to swim more, harder, increase my stroke rate (which is low). But, until my freaking legs aren't sinking a foot below my body all the HTFU will not matter - just wasted effort.

What I find really interesting is the pile on that happens to TL - don't have a dog in the hunt, just saying.

I just want to confirm that you did an excellent analysis of my swimming based on very little info.

I have problems with every kind of swimming other then free style beginning to end of session. And i completely ruined the stroke by swimming the triathlon way. It took me some sort of big time to shut down the effect of drills and thinking too much. I should have kept swimming for myself, and stayed far away from triathlon swim training.

I guess this is what it boils down to, you don't need to do speed sessions to swim 24 minutes, you just need to swim. I re-read the original posting and do not see where Terry said anything about less swimming....he simply doesn't advocate intense swimming. Is this really a surprise or any different than running? My technique sessions are anywhere from 2500 to 3000 yards, they are still yards.

Read any of the running guru posts around here and they will tell you speed sessions aren't necessary for "most" people to improve running fitness. Why is it that when BarryP says the same thing about running, he is genious, but this guy says the same thing about swimming and he is roadkill?

I still believe "fitness" (as defined by V02) is an absolute measure.

Just wanted to ad my 2 cents on TI.

TI got me from not being able to swim more than 100yards to being able to swim a mile in 48 minutes in about a month's time.

Desert Dude and the U of D swim coaches got me to swim my IM in 1:17, which is 32 minutes a mile in open, choppy waters, while saving some for the rest of the day.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I don't agree with that either, Barry. I think most running coaches would advocate that the most important aspect of run training is to first build up volume and frequency slowly and then to vary intensity. That doesn't mean 1000M repeats at 100% effeort, but certainly tempo and higher intensity efforts are crucial to improving run fitness.I believe the same can be applied to swim training, Terry does not, that's our fundamental disagreement. Terryu thinks that traditional concept of training our aerobic system is psuedo-science. I don't agreee.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
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I think the key here is, for your average adult beginner triathlete, whether it's running, swimming or biking we are talking about...

... doing it more will bring gains. If you start off running a 12 minute mile and can only do one of those, running MORE will make you faster, if only as a side effect from running more miles. Same with swimming. If you can't swim 25m without gasping for air, swimming more slowly (but more) will make you faster.

At a certain point however, a sub 20 5k time for example (just a wild example), without training Faster you will not run faster.

I think we can all agree on that.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Replying to: Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [trexleradam] by blueraider_mike Post: Just spent 45 minutes reading this thread...both camps are right and wrong. I am 45 been doing tris for 5 years and learned (still learning) to swim the first year. Not a fast swimmer; 1:25 IM swim, 29 min OLY. One thing T1 does, I think, is speak a language new swimmers can understand. I have read the book but never been to a camp. On the flip side, I have had private lessons from 2 different coaches and done some masters swimming. The good news is I know my biggest limiter - my f'in feet and legs are anchors - might as well put a patachute on in the water. The bad news is the coaches I have worked with started slapping pull bouys, fins and other crap so I could "feel" what it was like having my lower body higher - this doesn't do shit for me. Then they throw you in a master class and say keep up. So you huff and puff and keep up but your techniques sucks - it doesn't translate.

Fine, I need to swim more, harder, increase my stroke rate (which is low). But, until my freaking legs aren't sinking a foot below my body all the HTFU will not matter - just wasted effort.

What I find really interesting is the pile on that happens to TL - don't have a dog in the hunt, just saying.
I'm not sure if you were replying directly to me, but I will say that I don't think you really get the point about fast swimming and technique. I don't think it's possible to swim well at 1:25/IM pace. I also recognize that new swimmers (and even pretty good swimmers when they're not fit) have the strength or fitness to swim well for very long at all. That's why you have to swim a lot faster to swim well, and for many that will start at very short distances, because people will only be able to do it well for very short distances. So you do short distances well, which work out to be intervals, and you build up how long you can hold the form.