I dig it. I read a while back that Dave Scott just ran hard when he ran. He would do his loop and try to beat his time each and every time. Maybe I remember what I read incorrect? I know I’m guilty of trying to get overly complicated long before I’ve just done a pile of solid WORK.
I’m curious if the exact opposite is true, though, in swimming. There, I got sucked into just swimming, non-stop for 45 min and skipped the drills entirely. Mostly that was because I had no coach, and no swimming background. So why do a random drill with no guidance? But assuming this wasn’t true, would the author of the article advise that we simply swim under a watchful eye and receive suggestions from the deck? He says that the individual pieces of the running stride aren’t best isolated. If that’s true, and I’m in no position to dispute, then could we say the same in the pool? Does a few sets of one-arm drills in isolation benefit the athlete? Could it be we dump all that and just go hard and fast to learn to go hard and fast? In water, on wheels or on foot, perhaps I’m looking for science to give me an excuse not to WORK?
“Gee, I completed all these highly technical workouts that looked amazing on paper. They weren’t even that difficult. Too bad I DNF’d on the run. Guess I need a different training planâ€
(I’d put that in Pink if I knew how)
Generally in swimming team practices, the coaches give little to no guidance on stroke technique unless you’re doing something patently illegal, such as you have a scissor in your breast kick, or you’re pulling below your waist on breast. The general philosophy is that, once you know how swim well enough to swim a few 50s, then you’re best served by just swimming lots. Swimmers do lots of intervals due to the need for speed in all swimming events; even in the 10K swim, the fastest guys/girls are all pretty quick in the 200 free.
I actually thought of triathlete swimmers first when I read this. I see them with their paperwork and then the drills “coach” has given them, which they usually don’t have the skills to do correctly, so they are virtually practicing taking on water in a bad position. It reminds me during a talk about “trainers” and their penchant for weight training alone. The other person says that no-one would pay them to tell clients to go run a few miles. I think many triathlon coaches make things way too difficult in order to justify their fees. Every day I see people flailing away with endless laps in the pool, “functional training” and other nonsense when they’d be best served by simple doing workouts.
I forgot to say anything about drills b/c, ummm, in my HS and college swimming we never did any drills, period, nothing, nada, zilch. We swam, we kicked, we pulled, we practiced starts and turns, etc, but no drills at all. The first time i ever heard of drills was in my Masters swim group. 
