This blog post, I'd like to touch on the self trained athletes and the various training issues that one of you may face.
1) Misconceptions of training in general
Training/workout seems to be commonly understood as a painful/suffering ordeal. There is two periods of pain that sedentary or general populations who don't exercise much, are afraid about. First and foremost, During the workout, and then the DOMS (after workout. Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness). What they do not know is how hard a workout is, is controlled by themselves. It is not necessary to start a run by sprinting out of your house and dying on the first 400m and then fatigue and end up walking the rest of the route before sprinting back home.
Now, this misconception puts a lot of people off from working out. As a PT myself, I ensure that my workout follows a easy--moderately challenging--challenging workout progression over at least 12 Weeks or even 6 Months.
Many people can't get over their inner ego (men especially) to tell them to go hard all the time, even when they are untrained. It's like how layman classify "Joggers" vs "Runners". If I am not running fast then I am not a runner. Technically speaking, isn't jogging and running the same movements?
If you run, you're a runner, if you swim, you're a swimmer. The only thing that separates the faster runners/swimmers and the slower ones.. are endurance/fitness that has been laid down over long period of consistent training and also economy of movements, or what we call Techniques.
We all need to train smart so we can train consistently, day in and day out, without letting the pain and stress of working out get in the way of our life (work, family, social circles, etc.) in general.
To train smart, means shift your focus from just working hard, to:
i) Perfecting your economy of movement through education on your ROM (range of motion) and what are the parts required to be moved during a exercise movement and what are those that are not needed. Why do we do that? To reduce unnecessary strains on joints and prevent chronic injury due to the repetition of movements in any cardio exercise or repetitive exercise regime.
ii) Learning the exact limit of your body and how your body reacts to the level of stimulus you input to your body. One needs to do this from the lightest workout possibly imagined, and progressively move on to see a gradual change in response.
iii) Know that training breaks down your muscle fibers so in time to come when they recover, they'll be bigger and stronger for more workout/training stimulus -- I.e improvements. This leads us to the next and last point.
iv) Making sure there is enough time for recovery. If there is no recovery, there is diminishing returns of training effect. Imagine if you can gain 50% speed improvement from a full fledged speed workout but you only allow half the amount of time to recover and thus your body recovers only half way, then the speed gained from the speed workout will be much lesser than 50%.
Also, it is Not just diminishing return in one workout. But imagine the speed workout takes out so much from you and you're left with a 1/3 filled tank the rest of the day or even two to three days.. How will you be able to continue to train at a proper intensity (i.e going long enough for long workouts and going hard enough for hard workouts) that will give your body the optimal level of stimuli needed?
Next question is even more crucial, HOW will you cope with your work life, reap the most joy out of your social life if one is consistently tired, not being able to wake up on time for group workout or outing or even just enjoy time with your love ones by smiling and laughing whole heartedly like nothing else matter in the world?
Or will you rather choose to just keep thinking about overdoing one workout so that you'll stress about not being able to do the next workout with quality? Unless quality is not a necessity in your regimental routine of consistent workout of course.. but if there is no quality, then why train?
2) Lack of understanding of how a Normal human move within its safe range of motion (Human anatomy)
Everybody is bound by a range of motion that is specific for each individual. The range of motion dictates how much you can extend/flex your joints before hyperextending or basically injuring it. If training is only focused on effort and not proper form/technique that ensures the individual's safe Range of motions then it is very risky for the trainee to participate. When a trainee focus solely on exertion, there is little or no attention paid to making sure that the joints don't hyper extend or flex when trying to accomplish the objective of maximal effort application.
Some factors that affect R.O.M:
i) Flexibility - Muscle/ligament tightness
ii) Muscle bulk - Imagine a guy with a small bicep that is untrained, he'll be able to flex the elbow joint to perhaps 20degrees.. but a guy with a 50cm circumference bicep, he'll definitely not be able to flex the elbow joint as much as the small bicep guy.
iii) Injury - Injury can cause fibrosis or scarring on the muscle fibres that will require manipulation or stretching to release. Injury may also cause one's joint to totally stop working and thus losing it's functionality.
iv) Joint abnormalities - Some people are born with double joint and thus can hyper flex/extend safely, some are born with lesser R.O.M
v) Improper training - When you train a muscle group and don't go through the full range of motion, what happens is that the muscle fibre triggering sequence will be remembered and thus some angles of the improperly trained joint will "lose" it's functionality.
vi) Tension - Tension causes stiff joints as muscles are all contracting. Tension can be due to the anxious emotions and/or improper training (tensing up the upper trapezius or shrugging when shoulder pressing) form.
3) Lack of understanding of how a human body respond to training stimulus of different intensity/nature
I will generally classify training into 2 types for an endurance sport athlete. Firstly, it's general body conditioning (basic strength, flexibility, core strength and technique work). Then it's energy system training (Aerobic, anaerobic, ATP-CP).
Knowing how one's body react to different training stimuli and the reason behind why one's applying that form of stimuli at a specific intensity is important.
Training is unlike the case of "I'm eating this because i'm hungry.".. it is more like "I need more vitamin B complex because I am deficient of it and thus I need to eat this, this and this rather than that, that and that.".
Knowing which level your body is working at right now and how efficient it is is crucial to getting continual improvement and a healthy training program that feeds the body, mind and soul.
For a very vague example, trainee girl A was never a lifetime athlete and being a girl who has never undergone any serious training, the general conditioning of the body was really weak. It will not make sense to put her through hard anaerobic training because she'll not be able to exert at that intensity at all. And even if she does, the joints may not be strong enough to withstand the amount of momentum that will be present during the high exertion rate and thus working out that way will pose a risk to her health instead.
What girl A needs will be to go through general conditioning in the gym under the supervision of an instructor to ensure that A learns all necessary proper movements of her joints and muscle parts before partaking in more sports specific training.
4) Lack of understanding of how progressive overloading is about.
Very often, I see athletes who are disappointed with their training because they don't see result as soon as they expect and in an attempt to achieve more, they increase the training volume (intensity and/or duration of workout) according to their motivation to improve and/or freshness of their body on training day.
That is a very risky form of doing training because whether or not the body is ready for such training is not determined by how fresh you feel but how well verse/understanding you are about your body.
There are a lot of top athletes who swear by "no pain no gain" or "its worth it to take a risk if it presents opportunity for huge growth in physical development". I strongly beg to differ.
I believe in the following:
i) Training is to improve one's life, NOT risk or endanger it.
ii) One should partake in the absolute minimal amount of training that gives the maximal amount of training benefits
iii) Training is NOT life. Life is Family, Love, Friends, Fun, Joy, Laughter and EVERYTHING ELSE that isn't training. Training should merely gives you better fitness to enjoy Life better because of lesser effort needed to accomplish the absolute necessities.
iv) Fitness gained over a long period of time by building a strong base and then gradually and progressively increasing intensity of training will last you longer than fitness that is gained through shorter time spent on base training and lots of high intensity training.
v) We have limited time for everything. If you over trained in this session, you'll have lesser for the next session. That means decreased quality of training. That means Waste of time.
Point V is what I want to elaborate because the rest are easily understandable even by the bicep-brains.
Imagine you have this workout plan for the week.
Monday - Long Swim
Tuesday - Easy run at night
Wednesday - Hard short fast swim in the morning
Thursday - Time Trial effort mid D run
Friday - Sunday Rest
So on Tuesday night, you felt REALLY fresh and strong and have slightly more time than usual for the run. You decided that you might as well go for a 100% increase of run distance and that usually means more than 100% increase in duration of run due to slow down (fatigue).
Will you be able to recover in time for the Hard swim in the morning on Wednesday?
Recently I have a case of an athlete getting insomnia because he overreached in the previous night and totally missing the morning workout on the next day. By right, his fitness for the hard swim the next morning should be very high if he did a normal run at night to boost the Cardio Respiratory system. But the training session in the morning was missed out and the swim fitness would have dropped.
Even if he made it up for the swim in the evening, he'd not be well recovered to do the fast swim fast enough with the lower muscle and liver glycogen level that he used up during the over clocking run the night before. A fast swim swam slow is a wasted workout and in the worst case scenario, a risk of injury is there because of the lack of control by a sharp mind and body.. at the very least, one'll feel demotivated to train because the fast swim will be slow.
This is a classic case of "I feel good." OR "I got more time!" OR "I feel VERY STRONG!" then I do more. Doing more is OK, but how much more? An athlete has to have a progress log handily available to track his/her work load over the weeks and even months to make sure that one is ready for the over clocking/over reaching.
In any case, unless it is a specifically planned breakthrough workout that is accompanied by many days of easy days or rest before and after.. it is not recommended to just increase work load/volume by feel because how we fresh or strong we feel is largely determined by the external stress factors in life. That does not give us the right of path to just overload the body anyway we like.
Risk of injury is priority consideration. Second consideration is the after effect of the uber hard training.. will it affect the rest of the week's workout in anyway? If yes, then you'd have lost fitness in the long running week. Consistent (read daily, weekly, monthly) progressive overloading is KEY to maintaining/improving fitness. If one workout is overdone and it affects the quality of the other workouts, then you'd have wasted many precious hours doing sub-par workout. Is it worth it? Answer the question yourself.
5) Lack of self discipline/neutral party's implementation on the Recovery aspect
Its simple to understand. Really.
Training = breaking down your muscles because you're overloading your ability to work
Does it make you stronger? No. It makes you tired, and gives your body the potential to adapt to the workout once it RECOVERS.
Recovery = Letting the torn muscle fibres heal and grow bigger to withstand a higher load.
Does it make you stronger? Yes. It makes you feel fresh and stronger.. leaves you wanting to do more and more importantly, realises the potential of getting stronger that your body gotten through training.
It's been a long post and I tried very hard not to condense it with scientific details. Thank you guys for reading and I hope all these help you whether a trained "old bird" athlete or aspiring couch potato turning fitness personnels.. to want to strive to know your body better and make better use of your time to do quality workout and quality everything that will expose your body to less risk but more enjoyment. =)
Cheers
Coach KK
Email: kenguwc@uwcsea.edu.sg
H/P: 8180 0621
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
SWIM SQUAD 30/12/2011
Group 1:
Name (max effort gauge)
Sam (200m below 3:50, 100m below 1:45)
Teck Beng (200m below 3:30, 100m below 1:40)
Calvin (200m below 3:40, 100m below 1:40)
Ewin (200m below 3:10, 100m below 1:35)
Group 2:
Sumiko
Andrew
Ebnu
Musaib
KH
Sher jie
BELOW IS THREE POINT OF FOCUS. To be used to remind yourself in different sets.
Focus 1: Gradual increase of hand+arm velocity from Catch to push phase. Always ending with a HARD Push phase on every stroke, i.e maximum velocity/uncontrolled extension of elbow at the end phase of the arm stroke which recoils into recovery.
Focus 2: Near catch up stroke. Holding arm extended in front until the pulling arm catches up at past forehead before start of next catch.
Focus 3: Fast arm turnover and kick coordination
WARM UP:
- 1000m Fist Swim with pull buoy. LONG GLIDE and Catch up stroke. (30mins)
- Focus 2.
REST 5mins
MAIN SET 1:
Group 1:
4x200 on 4:30 MAX EFFORT (18mins)
Rest 5mins
5x100 on 2:15 MAX EFFORT (12mins)
Rest 5mins
Focus: I DON'T CARE WHAT/HOW YOU DO. GIVE ME MY TIME. EVEN IF YOU DIE ON THE FIRST SET, I WANT THE FIRST SET TO BE AT TARGET TIME - LOOK ABOVE BESIDE YOUR NAMES.
Group 2:
- 1500m (Sumiko Tan do 2000m) continuous pulling with paddle and pull buoy STRICTLY NO KICKING and LONG GLIDE. (40minutes)
- Focus 1 AND 2. I suggest mentally you break it down into sets of 500 to focus. I want an average stroke count per 50m for every 500m swam.
REST 5mins
Main set 2:
- 10 x 50 (Thanks Andrew Ngo) 25 max effort plus 25 easy on 1:30 (15mins)
Mu and Ebnu can put on flippers here
sumiko, me, KH, sam, ewin and teckbeng do first 5 FLY with buoy next 5 FR
- Focus 3 - ALL OUT GUYS.
Name (max effort gauge)
Sam (200m below 3:50, 100m below 1:45)
Teck Beng (200m below 3:30, 100m below 1:40)
Calvin (200m below 3:40, 100m below 1:40)
Ewin (200m below 3:10, 100m below 1:35)
Group 2:
Sumiko
Andrew
Ebnu
Musaib
KH
Sher jie
BELOW IS THREE POINT OF FOCUS. To be used to remind yourself in different sets.
Focus 1: Gradual increase of hand+arm velocity from Catch to push phase. Always ending with a HARD Push phase on every stroke, i.e maximum velocity/uncontrolled extension of elbow at the end phase of the arm stroke which recoils into recovery.
Focus 2: Near catch up stroke. Holding arm extended in front until the pulling arm catches up at past forehead before start of next catch.
Focus 3: Fast arm turnover and kick coordination
WARM UP:
- 1000m Fist Swim with pull buoy. LONG GLIDE and Catch up stroke. (30mins)
- Focus 2.
REST 5mins
MAIN SET 1:
Group 1:
4x200 on 4:30 MAX EFFORT (18mins)
Rest 5mins
5x100 on 2:15 MAX EFFORT (12mins)
Rest 5mins
Focus: I DON'T CARE WHAT/HOW YOU DO. GIVE ME MY TIME. EVEN IF YOU DIE ON THE FIRST SET, I WANT THE FIRST SET TO BE AT TARGET TIME - LOOK ABOVE BESIDE YOUR NAMES.
Group 2:
- 1500m (Sumiko Tan do 2000m) continuous pulling with paddle and pull buoy STRICTLY NO KICKING and LONG GLIDE. (40minutes)
- Focus 1 AND 2. I suggest mentally you break it down into sets of 500 to focus. I want an average stroke count per 50m for every 500m swam.
REST 5mins
Main set 2:
- 10 x 50 (Thanks Andrew Ngo) 25 max effort plus 25 easy on 1:30 (15mins)
Mu and Ebnu can put on flippers here
sumiko, me, KH, sam, ewin and teckbeng do first 5 FLY with buoy next 5 FR
- Focus 3 - ALL OUT GUYS.
REST 3 mins
Cool down:
500m Kick with fins (15mins)
500m Kick with fins (15mins)
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Pre Race.
27 June 2011 was when I started training with Coach Cheng Qiang.
3 months later...
24 September 2011 is this Saturday and it is the Biggest Open Water Swim Race for me. It mean so much to me:
1) An assessment to what I have done over the past 3 months
2) A day I test myself to the limit
3) A swim that allows me to see where exactly am I in a field of strong competitors
4) A chance to get my PB.
5) An opportunity to do my Coach and my Team proud.
6) Last but not least, a time to enjoy myself and finally swim without thinking, just let the body do what it was trained to do.
I am writing this because the race almost meant to much to me. I am taking this opportunity to relieve myself from the pressure that the meaning of this race is secretly putting on me. I find it especially heavy a burden to balance the expectation of my own performance versus the imaginary expectations of all the other people in my life.
Coach Cheng Qiang has voluntarily and sincerely coached me for free no matter how much or what I try to repay him with. I kept the thoughts in my heart and in each and every single session of training when I felt that I am so tired that I can't give as much as I want to, I often push to give as much as I could.
Going through the 3 months of intensive training, I've learnt what you want to do may not be what you could, but what you could do, may not necessarily equate to what you initially wanted too. In other words, never discount yourself just because you felt that you come from a minor class of athlete.
I've always been very conscious of myself, in the sense that I am too big to be an endurance athlete, I am too curvy to be a streamline swimmer, I am too bulky to just swim bike run fast. But I realized this year, that in the past couple of years of racing, I have been discounting myself just because I FELT that I am inferior genetically.
It is one thing to preach what is right as a coach, but it is another to truly believe and practice it on yourself. I find it especially hard to let down my pride to prove myself wrong so I can learn it afresh and make things work as it should. This year, I took a big step and asked my inner self to go screw itself and I will decide the what the limit of my body should be. It has proved to be very fruitful thus far.
I have always gave my best and the fact I puked 2 weeks back during our training session on a wednesday has strengthened my mentality on what I could take and how much I could shut off my mind's screaming and let the body do the job in the water. That is an invaluable asset in giving an ALL-OUT RACE EFFORT.
My timing is honestly very slow compared to the rest of the top field swimmers, but I'd like to see exactly how far away am I from them? One sore spot of mine has always been that I started late, I am knowledgeable cos of the extra thirst that came from the delayed development, but I am also lagging so far behind in terms of racing experience and base mileage in every sport.
I believe I earn all the respect for my coaching and racing over the relentless attitudes in years of studying and practices that people see that is still ongoing and will always be. However, I just lack the glorifying achievements in my resume that will support the amount of goodness I assume I have from the hard work I put in to improve myself as a person, as a coach and a trustworthy friend of all. I want so much to climb to the top and it takes time. I am setting myself 3 years to build the base and I want race competitively at the elite level after this 3 years of practice and training.
I want and needs to earn time and to do that, I have to stop discounting myself, let go of my expectations - Real and Imaginary - and NIKE (Just Do It!).
With that, I end my entry, together with my worries on how I will perform versus the field. I will do my best, for that is what matters the most, just like I've been doing every single session of practice..
I will constantly push myself no matter how bad I feel.
I am BULLET PROOF.
I am The Shark in the school of Fishes.
I am The Champion, in Sam's heart, in Coach's interest in me, in KH's motivation, and in my World.
So, KK, How Bad do you want it?
SO . FREAKING . BAD .
I.W.W,
Coach KK
3 months later...
24 September 2011 is this Saturday and it is the Biggest Open Water Swim Race for me. It mean so much to me:
1) An assessment to what I have done over the past 3 months
2) A day I test myself to the limit
3) A swim that allows me to see where exactly am I in a field of strong competitors
4) A chance to get my PB.
5) An opportunity to do my Coach and my Team proud.
6) Last but not least, a time to enjoy myself and finally swim without thinking, just let the body do what it was trained to do.
I am writing this because the race almost meant to much to me. I am taking this opportunity to relieve myself from the pressure that the meaning of this race is secretly putting on me. I find it especially heavy a burden to balance the expectation of my own performance versus the imaginary expectations of all the other people in my life.
Coach Cheng Qiang has voluntarily and sincerely coached me for free no matter how much or what I try to repay him with. I kept the thoughts in my heart and in each and every single session of training when I felt that I am so tired that I can't give as much as I want to, I often push to give as much as I could.
Going through the 3 months of intensive training, I've learnt what you want to do may not be what you could, but what you could do, may not necessarily equate to what you initially wanted too. In other words, never discount yourself just because you felt that you come from a minor class of athlete.
I've always been very conscious of myself, in the sense that I am too big to be an endurance athlete, I am too curvy to be a streamline swimmer, I am too bulky to just swim bike run fast. But I realized this year, that in the past couple of years of racing, I have been discounting myself just because I FELT that I am inferior genetically.
It is one thing to preach what is right as a coach, but it is another to truly believe and practice it on yourself. I find it especially hard to let down my pride to prove myself wrong so I can learn it afresh and make things work as it should. This year, I took a big step and asked my inner self to go screw itself and I will decide the what the limit of my body should be. It has proved to be very fruitful thus far.
I have always gave my best and the fact I puked 2 weeks back during our training session on a wednesday has strengthened my mentality on what I could take and how much I could shut off my mind's screaming and let the body do the job in the water. That is an invaluable asset in giving an ALL-OUT RACE EFFORT.
My timing is honestly very slow compared to the rest of the top field swimmers, but I'd like to see exactly how far away am I from them? One sore spot of mine has always been that I started late, I am knowledgeable cos of the extra thirst that came from the delayed development, but I am also lagging so far behind in terms of racing experience and base mileage in every sport.
I believe I earn all the respect for my coaching and racing over the relentless attitudes in years of studying and practices that people see that is still ongoing and will always be. However, I just lack the glorifying achievements in my resume that will support the amount of goodness I assume I have from the hard work I put in to improve myself as a person, as a coach and a trustworthy friend of all. I want so much to climb to the top and it takes time. I am setting myself 3 years to build the base and I want race competitively at the elite level after this 3 years of practice and training.
I want and needs to earn time and to do that, I have to stop discounting myself, let go of my expectations - Real and Imaginary - and NIKE (Just Do It!).
With that, I end my entry, together with my worries on how I will perform versus the field. I will do my best, for that is what matters the most, just like I've been doing every single session of practice..
I will constantly push myself no matter how bad I feel.
I am BULLET PROOF.
I am The Shark in the school of Fishes.
I am The Champion, in Sam's heart, in Coach's interest in me, in KH's motivation, and in my World.
So, KK, How Bad do you want it?
SO . FREAKING . BAD .
I.W.W,
Coach KK
Friday, September 9, 2011
Shelly's Swim
Please see the below review on your swim. It was a quick glance from you swimming beside as I was doing my own.. so please pardon if it is a little vague. Besides, there are a lot of things that I need to show in the pool in order for you to understand.
So, here we go, FREESTYLE REVIEW.
Good points:
- Streamlining is OKAY, not optimal, but OKAY.
- Roughly gets the general idea of "freestyle swim" thus you could clip a board on and pull on and on
- Capability to turn and breathe with less than disruptive body position
- Core strength to maintain hip stability while body twist from side to side is notable as you pull through the water in a snaky manner
- Stamina is not too bad.
Note: Core = Shoulder, Chest, Back, Abs, Lower Back, Buttock, Hamstrings and Thigh and Calves. Not just the abs.
Ugly points:
-Head position was too much forward, like breast stroke. Need to look diagonally forward, in a proud, chest up posture.
- Body was "snaking", thus not optimal streamline position. Unsure of which muscle parts to activate to keep the body straight and long.
- Pull was REAL short, it ends before the palm even reaches the stomach
- Besides pull being short, the pitching of palm was not in the correct "attack" angles. No signs of sculling knowledge.
- There was no Catch, no Pull, no Push, just one straight pull through
- Kick was not from the hips
- Body rotation was very dominant on the breathing side, i.e when breathing, the twist of body was very hard and thus causing the body to twist, adding to the "snaking"
- Breathing rhythm was not right, there was not rhythm of "hold breathe, relax, breathe out quick, inhale quick, return head position..."
- Arm Recovery was rushed forward because of the short pull, top it up with the rapid breathing patterns with no tries to relax, the swim was a struggle and tensed up affair right from the first 3 strokes you take.
Reason for the not so optimal swim:
- Lack of understanding that swim is really all about reducing drag to the ABSOLUTE MINIMAL, before increasing propulsion power.
- Lack of awareness on how body "looks like" when you're swimming.
- Basically just going through the motions, moving the arms and legs and body on its own, without knowing the specific purpose on what each movement is supposed to do to help you swim better
- Due to the above points, you do not know when to relax, when to breathe, when to exert force and when to STAY STILL and hold position.
Before we meet again, I need you to find somebody, maybe your boyfriend, to video your swim from the deck and let you see what you are doing and compare against this list of items I listed. Try to understand and then we will work on your freestyle soon.
Note: Efficient Swimming = Holding a rigid streamline posture relaxed-ly to allow optimal transfer of power from the limbs to constant forward velocity.
Keywords are: Rigid, Streamline, Relax, Constant Forward Velocity.
Cheers
KK
So, here we go, FREESTYLE REVIEW.
Good points:
- Streamlining is OKAY, not optimal, but OKAY.
- Roughly gets the general idea of "freestyle swim" thus you could clip a board on and pull on and on
- Capability to turn and breathe with less than disruptive body position
- Core strength to maintain hip stability while body twist from side to side is notable as you pull through the water in a snaky manner
- Stamina is not too bad.
Note: Core = Shoulder, Chest, Back, Abs, Lower Back, Buttock, Hamstrings and Thigh and Calves. Not just the abs.
Ugly points:
-Head position was too much forward, like breast stroke. Need to look diagonally forward, in a proud, chest up posture.
- Body was "snaking", thus not optimal streamline position. Unsure of which muscle parts to activate to keep the body straight and long.
- Pull was REAL short, it ends before the palm even reaches the stomach
- Besides pull being short, the pitching of palm was not in the correct "attack" angles. No signs of sculling knowledge.
- There was no Catch, no Pull, no Push, just one straight pull through
- Kick was not from the hips
- Body rotation was very dominant on the breathing side, i.e when breathing, the twist of body was very hard and thus causing the body to twist, adding to the "snaking"
- Breathing rhythm was not right, there was not rhythm of "hold breathe, relax, breathe out quick, inhale quick, return head position..."
- Arm Recovery was rushed forward because of the short pull, top it up with the rapid breathing patterns with no tries to relax, the swim was a struggle and tensed up affair right from the first 3 strokes you take.
Reason for the not so optimal swim:
- Lack of understanding that swim is really all about reducing drag to the ABSOLUTE MINIMAL, before increasing propulsion power.
- Lack of awareness on how body "looks like" when you're swimming.
- Basically just going through the motions, moving the arms and legs and body on its own, without knowing the specific purpose on what each movement is supposed to do to help you swim better
- Due to the above points, you do not know when to relax, when to breathe, when to exert force and when to STAY STILL and hold position.
Before we meet again, I need you to find somebody, maybe your boyfriend, to video your swim from the deck and let you see what you are doing and compare against this list of items I listed. Try to understand and then we will work on your freestyle soon.
Note: Efficient Swimming = Holding a rigid streamline posture relaxed-ly to allow optimal transfer of power from the limbs to constant forward velocity.
Keywords are: Rigid, Streamline, Relax, Constant Forward Velocity.
Cheers
KK
Sunday, August 28, 2011
KAYAK STROKE Versus FRONT QUADRANT SWIM (FQS)
First up:
THE VIDEOS!
BEFORE you watch the videos.. Take note:
To compare constant velocity of the body moving through the water, DO NOT look at anything else... JUST STARE at the hip and the nearest object next to it (i.e the lane rope, line on the floor or the deck floor)... Remember to offset the CAMERA's movement with the person's velocity. When the camera is moving together with the person in the frame in the same direction, the person will look always like he is in constant velocity.
For example, Scott Neyedli's SLOW SWIM at 2:25 - 2:45 which we will use for relative comparison here.. looks SMOOTHER than what it actually was. Compare the hip with the lane rope beside and you'll see that when he don't kick that much during that 2:25 2:45 period, his hips have a start stop or deceleration and acceleration phase as well just like Front Quadrant Swim (FQS).
KK SLOW SWIM - Note my cruise speed (80% 1500m) for 50m is about 52.5seconds so this is about 28seconds for 25m.. I've slowed down quite a lot and thus the hips are sinking a little cos I am trying very hard not to kick that much and reduced my arm pull to just forms and almost effortless push backs.. all just to save energy and do a relaxed continuous pull as suggested by Teck Beng... however.. from these 2 videos, I noticed that I do have start and stop instead of constant velocity! Read on to find out what I've discovered!
Scott Neyedli -- SLOW SWIM PART at 2:25 ~ 2:4
ALEXANDER POPOV (World Record Holder Olympian)
Shinji -- T.I at Perfection Nirvana-esque level.
After looking at my video of my slow swim until I cock eyed and then finally a moment of enlightenment struck.. I realized what went wrong. It was a case of thinking too much about one thing and forgotten where we came from.
We kind of forgotten about the benchmark of comparison - The Front Quadrant swim.
Most importantly, we kind of misinterpreted what is needed to be done for constant velocity to happen.
Allow me to explain.
First of all, notice that Alexander Popov and Scott Neyedli did their swim with STRONG kicks that are SUPERBLY CONTINUAL and with no pauses at all.
Constant velocity OF THE ENTIRE BODY in front crawl swimming is very tough to achieve. It requires the kick to be continually firing to compensate for the inevitable rise and fall of speed (or dead spot) in the arm stroke phases.
Yes.. I meant INEVITIBLE.
FOLLOW ME TIGHT AND CLOSELY THROUGH THE BELOW "ILLUSTRATION".
Arm stroke phases:
1) Out Sweep and Catch (No propulsion)
2) In Sweep and Push Back (Propulsion Starts, Optimum Velocity Achieved)
3) Exit and Recovery (No Propulsion)
4) Reach and Entry (No Propulsion)
In Front Quadrant swim:
After finishing the first pull to phase 3 (to make things easier to reference, we'll say we start with the RIGHT pull)...
The LEFT arm stays extended at the front without doing anything until the RIGHT arm recovers past the Forehead.
Once the RIGHT arm passes the forehead and reaches in front for Entry (phase 4), the LEFT arm starts the Out Sweep and Catch (phase 1) and upon the RIGHT arm's entry, the LEFT arm will do the In Sweep and Push back (phase 2) for it's optimum propulsion.
In Kayak Stroke:
After finishing the first pull, again RIGHT pull, the RIGHT arm will begin Recovery and Exit (Phase 3).
At this moment, there will be no waiting extension from the LEFT arm. The LEFT arm will start simultaneously the Out Sweep and Catch (phase 1).
Once the Right arm reaches and performs the entry (Phase 4), the LEFT arm is simultaneously doing the In Sweep and Push Back (Phase 2) to achieve optimum propulsion.
------------------ Are you lost? if yes, read from "ILLUSTRATION" again and then continue below for a Flow Chart ------------------
Clear?
Now we look at both stroking technique and we will notice from this following part of the cycle to be exactly the same:
Phase 3 (Exit and Recovery) --> Phase 4 (Reach and Entry) --> Phase 1 (Out Sweep and Catch)
There are NO propulsion coming from the arm AT ALL.
The only thing we can do here is to MAINTAIN OPTIMUM VELOCITY. KEYWORD is MAINTAIN.
There are TWO ways we CAN maintain velocity:
1) ALWAYS travel at the constant velocity.
2) REDUCE number of pauses and also the durations of each pause.
BUT EXACTLY... HOWWWWWW??????
There are TWO things we CAN DO to achieve that:
1) To add a continuous and strong kick that will keep pushing us forward REGARDLESS OF WHAT OUR ARMS ARE DOING.
2) Don't glide. I.E don't do front quadrant swim (FQS).
----------------------------
Before we carry on, let's break the swim down into diagrams and you'll see it much clearly in the phases.
KAYAK SWIM STROKE CHART and FQS SWIM STROKE CHART
If you go up and look at Shinji's stroke and compare it with the diagram of FQS SWIM chart above, you'll notice that there is a phase (in RED) that is two stages of non propulsion which causes the propulsion phase (phase 2 of In Sweep and Push Back) to kick in one stage later than the KAYAK SWIM STROKE. That causes an EXTRA DECELERATION as compared to the continuous KAYAK SWIM STROKE whereby there is no prolonged pause of stage 4 which is the arm extension of the non pulling arm while waiting for recovery hand to pass the forehead.
As for the continuous KAYAK SWIM STROKE, there is only one stage of Deceleration.
--------------------------------------------------------------
With that, we conclude that the KAYAK SWIM STROKE achieved Objective number 2 on maintaining Velocity mentioned above on reducing number of pauses. While FQS SWIM STROKE totally denied Objective number 2 by increasing the duration of the pause and even dragging the pause to the next phase (thus increasing the number of pauses).
The duration of the pause, i.e the Speed of the arm doing the recovery will then be the determining factor for KAYAK SWIM STROKE when deciding to go faster or slower.
The above points now clearly dictate that Kayak Stroke is the more efficient stroke of the two.
However, it is important to note that both strokes CAN be fast. And CONSTANT VELOCITY IS ACHIEVABLE with BOTH STROKE TYPES.
The trick as stated above, other than not choosing FQS, is to compensate with a continuous and strong kick which will continually propel you forward regardless of what the arms are doing. The strong kick will thus eliminate the deceleration phase(s) of each stroke. Of course, the kick has to be much stronger in the FQS SWIM STROKE because of the extra deceleration phase.
I hope this article clarify ALL details on the stroke cycle efficiency of KAYAK swim stroke versus FQS other than knowing exactly when to relax and when to contract while performing the stroke itself which is ABSOLUTELY vital in getting the KAYAK swim stroke to work at a slow swim state. Without knowing when to relax, your KAYAK swim stroke will feel like thrashing water and breathlessness will haunt you throughout your whole swim. I hope Teck Beng can help explain upon that if you have the time as I've passed to you and Calvin all that I could explain on that day and I hope you guys did absorb on the exertion part too and now it's your time to give~ hehehee..
Cheers
KK
THE VIDEOS!
BEFORE you watch the videos.. Take note:
To compare constant velocity of the body moving through the water, DO NOT look at anything else... JUST STARE at the hip and the nearest object next to it (i.e the lane rope, line on the floor or the deck floor)... Remember to offset the CAMERA's movement with the person's velocity. When the camera is moving together with the person in the frame in the same direction, the person will look always like he is in constant velocity.
For example, Scott Neyedli's SLOW SWIM at 2:25 - 2:45 which we will use for relative comparison here.. looks SMOOTHER than what it actually was. Compare the hip with the lane rope beside and you'll see that when he don't kick that much during that 2:25 2:45 period, his hips have a start stop or deceleration and acceleration phase as well just like Front Quadrant Swim (FQS).
KK SLOW SWIM - Note my cruise speed (80% 1500m) for 50m is about 52.5seconds so this is about 28seconds for 25m.. I've slowed down quite a lot and thus the hips are sinking a little cos I am trying very hard not to kick that much and reduced my arm pull to just forms and almost effortless push backs.. all just to save energy and do a relaxed continuous pull as suggested by Teck Beng... however.. from these 2 videos, I noticed that I do have start and stop instead of constant velocity! Read on to find out what I've discovered!
Scott Neyedli -- SLOW SWIM PART at 2:25 ~ 2:4
ALEXANDER POPOV (World Record Holder Olympian)
Shinji -- T.I at Perfection Nirvana-esque level.
After looking at my video of my slow swim until I cock eyed and then finally a moment of enlightenment struck.. I realized what went wrong. It was a case of thinking too much about one thing and forgotten where we came from.
We kind of forgotten about the benchmark of comparison - The Front Quadrant swim.
Most importantly, we kind of misinterpreted what is needed to be done for constant velocity to happen.
Allow me to explain.
First of all, notice that Alexander Popov and Scott Neyedli did their swim with STRONG kicks that are SUPERBLY CONTINUAL and with no pauses at all.
Constant velocity OF THE ENTIRE BODY in front crawl swimming is very tough to achieve. It requires the kick to be continually firing to compensate for the inevitable rise and fall of speed (or dead spot) in the arm stroke phases.
Yes.. I meant INEVITIBLE.
FOLLOW ME TIGHT AND CLOSELY THROUGH THE BELOW "ILLUSTRATION".
Arm stroke phases:
1) Out Sweep and Catch (No propulsion)
2) In Sweep and Push Back (Propulsion Starts, Optimum Velocity Achieved)
3) Exit and Recovery (No Propulsion)
4) Reach and Entry (No Propulsion)
In Front Quadrant swim:
After finishing the first pull to phase 3 (to make things easier to reference, we'll say we start with the RIGHT pull)...
The LEFT arm stays extended at the front without doing anything until the RIGHT arm recovers past the Forehead.
Once the RIGHT arm passes the forehead and reaches in front for Entry (phase 4), the LEFT arm starts the Out Sweep and Catch (phase 1) and upon the RIGHT arm's entry, the LEFT arm will do the In Sweep and Push back (phase 2) for it's optimum propulsion.
In Kayak Stroke:
After finishing the first pull, again RIGHT pull, the RIGHT arm will begin Recovery and Exit (Phase 3).
At this moment, there will be no waiting extension from the LEFT arm. The LEFT arm will start simultaneously the Out Sweep and Catch (phase 1).
Once the Right arm reaches and performs the entry (Phase 4), the LEFT arm is simultaneously doing the In Sweep and Push Back (Phase 2) to achieve optimum propulsion.
------------------ Are you lost? if yes, read from "ILLUSTRATION" again and then continue below for a Flow Chart ------------------
Clear?
Now we look at both stroking technique and we will notice from this following part of the cycle to be exactly the same:
Phase 3 (Exit and Recovery) --> Phase 4 (Reach and Entry) --> Phase 1 (Out Sweep and Catch)
There are NO propulsion coming from the arm AT ALL.
The only thing we can do here is to MAINTAIN OPTIMUM VELOCITY. KEYWORD is MAINTAIN.
There are TWO ways we CAN maintain velocity:
1) ALWAYS travel at the constant velocity.
2) REDUCE number of pauses and also the durations of each pause.
BUT EXACTLY... HOWWWWWW??????
There are TWO things we CAN DO to achieve that:
1) To add a continuous and strong kick that will keep pushing us forward REGARDLESS OF WHAT OUR ARMS ARE DOING.
2) Don't glide. I.E don't do front quadrant swim (FQS).
----------------------------
Before we carry on, let's break the swim down into diagrams and you'll see it much clearly in the phases.
KAYAK SWIM STROKE CHART and FQS SWIM STROKE CHART
If you go up and look at Shinji's stroke and compare it with the diagram of FQS SWIM chart above, you'll notice that there is a phase (in RED) that is two stages of non propulsion which causes the propulsion phase (phase 2 of In Sweep and Push Back) to kick in one stage later than the KAYAK SWIM STROKE. That causes an EXTRA DECELERATION as compared to the continuous KAYAK SWIM STROKE whereby there is no prolonged pause of stage 4 which is the arm extension of the non pulling arm while waiting for recovery hand to pass the forehead.
As for the continuous KAYAK SWIM STROKE, there is only one stage of Deceleration.
--------------------------------------------------------------
With that, we conclude that the KAYAK SWIM STROKE achieved Objective number 2 on maintaining Velocity mentioned above on reducing number of pauses. While FQS SWIM STROKE totally denied Objective number 2 by increasing the duration of the pause and even dragging the pause to the next phase (thus increasing the number of pauses).
The duration of the pause, i.e the Speed of the arm doing the recovery will then be the determining factor for KAYAK SWIM STROKE when deciding to go faster or slower.
The above points now clearly dictate that Kayak Stroke is the more efficient stroke of the two.
However, it is important to note that both strokes CAN be fast. And CONSTANT VELOCITY IS ACHIEVABLE with BOTH STROKE TYPES.
The trick as stated above, other than not choosing FQS, is to compensate with a continuous and strong kick which will continually propel you forward regardless of what the arms are doing. The strong kick will thus eliminate the deceleration phase(s) of each stroke. Of course, the kick has to be much stronger in the FQS SWIM STROKE because of the extra deceleration phase.
I hope this article clarify ALL details on the stroke cycle efficiency of KAYAK swim stroke versus FQS other than knowing exactly when to relax and when to contract while performing the stroke itself which is ABSOLUTELY vital in getting the KAYAK swim stroke to work at a slow swim state. Without knowing when to relax, your KAYAK swim stroke will feel like thrashing water and breathlessness will haunt you throughout your whole swim. I hope Teck Beng can help explain upon that if you have the time as I've passed to you and Calvin all that I could explain on that day and I hope you guys did absorb on the exertion part too and now it's your time to give~ hehehee..
Cheers
KK
On Continous Pull and front quandrant swimming
Just a few points i picked up from Coach KK last Saturday in the pool.
He mentioned that by doing a continuous pull (AKA kayak stroke), you are actually swimming smoother as compares to doing the front quadrant swim (Start catch when recovery arm pass your ear, aka TI).
Now, by smoother, i immediately think of less splashes, calmer and maybe even stealthier. But actually, what KK meant by smoother is "constant speed" through the water. Constant speed, zero acceleration or deceleration.
And so my search of evidence if this is really true, i found this....
Below is a clip of Bill Kerby's swim (he is doing a front quadrant), with very obvious glide time. He is really, really 'smooth' and the swim really looks effortless (he IS an Olympian...)but i am only looking at his butt.
By fixing on his butt, you get a clear sense of his speed and acceleration in the water (see 1:10min on). It's clear that in every stroke, there is a deceleration and acceleration phase and if you look as closely as i did, it not difficult to notice the slowing down happens during the gliding.
Now, compare this to Scott Neyedli, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND1L8I2ZY5w&feature=relmfu), he is using the kayaking stroke. Observe his butt again, you will notice the constant speed (smooth) through the waters.
now, surely there is an obvious difference in excretion. So the question is, is there a video of a continuous stroke relax swim?
He mentioned that by doing a continuous pull (AKA kayak stroke), you are actually swimming smoother as compares to doing the front quadrant swim (Start catch when recovery arm pass your ear, aka TI).
Now, by smoother, i immediately think of less splashes, calmer and maybe even stealthier. But actually, what KK meant by smoother is "constant speed" through the water. Constant speed, zero acceleration or deceleration.
And so my search of evidence if this is really true, i found this....
Below is a clip of Bill Kerby's swim (he is doing a front quadrant), with very obvious glide time. He is really, really 'smooth' and the swim really looks effortless (he IS an Olympian...)but i am only looking at his butt.
By fixing on his butt, you get a clear sense of his speed and acceleration in the water (see 1:10min on). It's clear that in every stroke, there is a deceleration and acceleration phase and if you look as closely as i did, it not difficult to notice the slowing down happens during the gliding.
Now, compare this to Scott Neyedli, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND1L8I2ZY5w&feature=relmfu), he is using the kayaking stroke. Observe his butt again, you will notice the constant speed (smooth) through the waters.
now, surely there is an obvious difference in excretion. So the question is, is there a video of a continuous stroke relax swim?
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Training Consistency
It's been a long time since I blogged. Mainly because I haven't found meaningful new topics to cover since I've religiously did that week after week for 1.5yrs. I miss sharing more fruitful experiences but I'd prefer them to be tried and tested and to be full of values that I can bring myself to believe firmly BEFORE I post them out here.
A few caring friends and team mates of mine has asked me to used this blog as a form of revenue generating thing by posting "teasers" or meaningful items that needs elaboration but I have to politely object because in my world, sharing is Free and sharing is a MUST in order for improvements to come by and go forth. I cannot bring myself to simply network this blog and make it into a money making thing. I am still awfully thankful for all my friends who have and are trying to help me improve my business... it is incredibly humbling and incredibly gratifying for everything I've done that is ever so minimal to giving back the world of sports.
Tonight, I'm going to write about Training Consistency.
I believe I've written or touched on about this topic before in my previous blog but I've since then experienced a much more enlightening process of consistent training and also the result when there is suddenly a lack of the consistency due to some issues (it may be injury or sickness).
As for those of you who are still following this blog would have read.. I've been training under this China Coach named Cheng Qiang. I have full trust in whatever he prescribe for me and just like Team Sapphire's devotion to my training programs, I am willing to do a thousand sets of 100 if that is what he prescribe for me one day.
As a result of my faith, I've followed his training with utmost diligence. Trust me, having a coach to coach you personally, and I mean WATCH YOU SWIM from the deck at least once a week is a difference between heaven and earth as compared to when you train by yourself. I've improved to an extent whereby I've about 5-8 minutes ahead of my team mates in a 1500m swim and I am consistently doing 1:30-1:40 in my 100m sets. They are not crazy fast timing but to think that I've came from 1:45 - 1:55 for my 100m sets just 3 months back.. I think it is not a step but a leap of stairs up the ladder of improvement.
To set the record straight, Coach's rule of thumb for training consistency is never stop training for more than 2 days. I.E 2 days of rest is the max you can allow. I've stuck to it to a level whereby I will not allow more than 48hrs of non training.
The reason is simple to understand but I'm going to put it into details here. If you're yawning now, you should click the 'X' on the top right of the browser (windows) because it's going to get worst. If you truly care about what you're doing in the pool or whatever training then read on. A cup of coffee should help.
I started with alternating days of training.
I.E Training Monday - Wednesday - Friday
Rest Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
I stuck with that for 4 weeks at the start and I've experienced tonnes of improvements. In terms of technique and also a very consistent swim timing.
Subsequently, I trained on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and Rested only on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It was rather manageable and I carried on for 4 weeks and at times, I found that recovery was a little tough especially when one has work to juggle unlike a professional athlete.
But Coach always says that you'll definitely feel tired once in a while and it is important to push through the tiredness and just finish the session.
He further supported the statement by prescribing all my training with just percentage effort requirements and no timing requirements except for the sprints.
And then after 2 weeks of that, I noticed my timing in swim training has been going up and down despite holding the same effort level day in and day out. However, after 1 day of down in workout, I'd come back feeling much stronger once I fully recover.
Very soon, I finally embarked on training 6 days a week with only Thursday as my rest day. Improvements was leaps and bounds for 3 weeks straight. Then I went to holiday and I couldn't find any pool to swim for 5 days. Then things started going downhill and I had to train 7 days straight to recover my fitness. Now I'm almost 80% back to pre holiday state of fitness.
I was doing 24:00 for 1500m at RPE of about 8/10 on the week before I go 5 days without training, after I came back, I was doing 25:30 - 26:00 for 1500m at RPE of about 9/10. And I am into my second 6 days cycle of fitness recovery training and I still can't get back at 100% pre holiday.
That is a brief account of what I went through.. I've spare the details of the training till next time.
------------------------------------------
You see, what actually happens is that when a person train in a workout, the fitness improves once he recovers. However, when you follow a scheduled routine.. say training every alternate days and you start on a Monday.
By the time Friday comes, you'd have done 2 swims and going for the 3rd one. Imagine you're doing the following set every time you train:
Warmup: 400m
Main set: 1500m at 80%
Rest 5 mins
10 x 50 on 1min
Rest 5 mins
400 freestyle kick only (25m sprint, 25m easy)
When Friday comes, your legs would have felt pretty used up if you're like me training kick sprints for the first time. In fact, on Wednesday, I was already feeling the drag in my 50 on 1min sets.
But if you do nothing on the Saturday and completely rest it up, you'd probably recover much better than the Tuesday and Thursday which is a work day and you have to be busy while recovering from your workout. Then on Sunday's swim, you'd probably feel a boost of energy because your fatigue has dropped but you fitness is higher than Monday before you trained.
As I mentioned before, Fatigue and Fitness rise TOGETHER.
Which means:
If you Train, you get fitter once you recover and adapt to the workload.
If you DON'T TRAIN, you lose your fitness because the body don't feel the need to adapt and thus goes back to sedentary state to "survive" or just live your normal daily life. Period.
Using that simple sentence, you can see that if you can train every single day and recover well, you ought to become fitter and fitter and there will be no limits to how best you can become!
HOWEVER, the limit here is fatigue. If there is no fatigue, we will all be superhumans, at least for those who are willing to train everyday. When you train, you get tired right? And because fatigue increases simultaneously with fitness, you'll not be able to ALWAYS BE ON FORM and be at your best in every single training 100% of the time. It is just near impossible to be that perfect unless you live your life with no life and just eat-train-sleep with no friends or family or work to entertain at ALL.
Thus that brings us to the fact that we have to manage our fatigue level while training consistently in order to get the fittest state we can possibly be.
Managing that fatigue level will mean:
- Ignoring swim timing and focus solely on effort percentage and stroke integrity only unless it's a speed work set or time trial.
- Put more focus on the recovery things to do rather than just solely thinking about doing more.
I feel that the above are the absolute important points to understand in terms of training consistency.
Because serious athletes who train all the time will measure their performance in terms of timing results. As science has taught us, only quantifiable results can be useful in tracking milestones and benchmarks.
And that has led to many people forgetting about the other part of the Fitness equation, which is the fatigue.
Fatigue can come not just from your training but your external stress factors such as sleep deprivation and work requirements.
And like the example sets I prescribed above, if you carried on doing that for 2 weeks and somehow, you always have Over Time to work on Saturdays and maybe Tuesdays then you'd probably not recover well and thus your swim time on Wednesday and especially on the second week of continuous training may probably reflect pretty badly.
It is important to note that this bad timing reflection is not a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) of just your fitness but it is an indicator of a combination of how well rested you are versus how trained/fit you are.
Thus having a bad day or two in a week is actually very normal especially if you work in high stress environments or basically not getting enough social supports or simply not able to sleep well enough.
However, after having such bad days then you'd have to take particular notes on recovering well on the following rest days or going easy on the next one and focus solely on technique if you're training every day like I am.
The key here is to maintain the effort and push on in the training and do your best to maintain that 80% RPE and STROKE PERFORMANCE INTEGRITY regardless of your fatigue level AS LONG AS YOU MADE SURE YOU'VE DONE YOUR BEST TO RECOVER.
The reason that you do at 80% RPE in swim is that it is an effort level whereby you can do a hard long swim (At least 1500m) and thus it is aerobic. Training aerobically or near the aerobic threshold when you're on good form, is fantastic for building fitness because you train your body to use Oxygen at the maximal level your body is capable of and many studies have confirmed that training at Aerobic threshold is the best way to improve fitness.
And by knowing that your timing may fluctuate due to many external factors, the only compounding factor in training will be your mental strength. When you look at a Wednesday's swim time and see that it is 2minutes slower than the Monday swim time, your body will definitely shout "TIRED!!!"... But after 1 day of complete rest or whichever way you ensure you are completely rested before the next workout, physiologically your body should be ready for the training unless you fell sick.
But from my experience, the Friday's swim are always the toughest despite I have a full rest day always on Thursday. The reason is my mind always tells me "Wednesday's swim was tough to maintain at 80% and good form man.. I could hardly complete it!"
What the mind didn't take into consideration is that I had a full day of rest on Thursday and the micro torn muscles would have recovered by now and adapted to the training.
By ensuring that you follow the 80% training effort in your long swims unless speedwork requires you to go all out.. you can be sure that whether you're tired or not, you're performing your best AEROBICALLY and thus not increasing the intensity to something too much that will complicate the recovery to get ready for the next training session.
----------------------------------------
On the other hand, for those who don't have a coach to manage your swim time, you have to note that in a training program, you have to take note of the intensity, duration and also the weekly volume of workouts.
Fatigue rise way way way way way way faster than fitness while it takes years to cultivate supreme base fitness to build the speed on. If all athletes look long term enough in terms of achieving your goal, then the overtraining side of training will probably not happen at all but most people wants results fast and with less work.
Commercial training always tell you "FASTER, HIGH INTENSITY = MORE GAINS". That is right in a way provided you can recover.
If you can't recover, then doing high intensity workouts for days after days, you may simply just be breaking your body down again and again without allowing it to recover adequately.
Note: It is possible to ALWAYS stay and live in that overtrained fatigue state. Some people think it is normal to be tired all the time. Not true. A good athlete should feel energetic all the time because of good recovery.
We come back to the point whereby fitness is only gained when you recover and body adapts to the training load. Without that happening, the fatigue will accumulate and the body will not adapt and when that happens, you're just on a one way ticket to overtraining and consistent fatigue with minimal to little fitness gain or even fitness loss in long term because of the inability to train due to injury or burnout exhaustion from the overtraining.
--------------------------------------------------
I know the article is alittle messy here and there but I write as I think and if you lost me somewhere, comment here or write me an email at enquiry@sapphireswimming.com or SMS me at (+65) 8180 0621 and I will gladly reply you what you wish to know.
Cheers
Coach KK
A few caring friends and team mates of mine has asked me to used this blog as a form of revenue generating thing by posting "teasers" or meaningful items that needs elaboration but I have to politely object because in my world, sharing is Free and sharing is a MUST in order for improvements to come by and go forth. I cannot bring myself to simply network this blog and make it into a money making thing. I am still awfully thankful for all my friends who have and are trying to help me improve my business... it is incredibly humbling and incredibly gratifying for everything I've done that is ever so minimal to giving back the world of sports.
Tonight, I'm going to write about Training Consistency.
I believe I've written or touched on about this topic before in my previous blog but I've since then experienced a much more enlightening process of consistent training and also the result when there is suddenly a lack of the consistency due to some issues (it may be injury or sickness).
As for those of you who are still following this blog would have read.. I've been training under this China Coach named Cheng Qiang. I have full trust in whatever he prescribe for me and just like Team Sapphire's devotion to my training programs, I am willing to do a thousand sets of 100 if that is what he prescribe for me one day.
As a result of my faith, I've followed his training with utmost diligence. Trust me, having a coach to coach you personally, and I mean WATCH YOU SWIM from the deck at least once a week is a difference between heaven and earth as compared to when you train by yourself. I've improved to an extent whereby I've about 5-8 minutes ahead of my team mates in a 1500m swim and I am consistently doing 1:30-1:40 in my 100m sets. They are not crazy fast timing but to think that I've came from 1:45 - 1:55 for my 100m sets just 3 months back.. I think it is not a step but a leap of stairs up the ladder of improvement.
To set the record straight, Coach's rule of thumb for training consistency is never stop training for more than 2 days. I.E 2 days of rest is the max you can allow. I've stuck to it to a level whereby I will not allow more than 48hrs of non training.
The reason is simple to understand but I'm going to put it into details here. If you're yawning now, you should click the 'X' on the top right of the browser (windows) because it's going to get worst. If you truly care about what you're doing in the pool or whatever training then read on. A cup of coffee should help.
I started with alternating days of training.
I.E Training Monday - Wednesday - Friday
Rest Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
I stuck with that for 4 weeks at the start and I've experienced tonnes of improvements. In terms of technique and also a very consistent swim timing.
Subsequently, I trained on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and Rested only on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It was rather manageable and I carried on for 4 weeks and at times, I found that recovery was a little tough especially when one has work to juggle unlike a professional athlete.
But Coach always says that you'll definitely feel tired once in a while and it is important to push through the tiredness and just finish the session.
He further supported the statement by prescribing all my training with just percentage effort requirements and no timing requirements except for the sprints.
And then after 2 weeks of that, I noticed my timing in swim training has been going up and down despite holding the same effort level day in and day out. However, after 1 day of down in workout, I'd come back feeling much stronger once I fully recover.
Very soon, I finally embarked on training 6 days a week with only Thursday as my rest day. Improvements was leaps and bounds for 3 weeks straight. Then I went to holiday and I couldn't find any pool to swim for 5 days. Then things started going downhill and I had to train 7 days straight to recover my fitness. Now I'm almost 80% back to pre holiday state of fitness.
I was doing 24:00 for 1500m at RPE of about 8/10 on the week before I go 5 days without training, after I came back, I was doing 25:30 - 26:00 for 1500m at RPE of about 9/10. And I am into my second 6 days cycle of fitness recovery training and I still can't get back at 100% pre holiday.
That is a brief account of what I went through.. I've spare the details of the training till next time.
------------------------------------------
You see, what actually happens is that when a person train in a workout, the fitness improves once he recovers. However, when you follow a scheduled routine.. say training every alternate days and you start on a Monday.
By the time Friday comes, you'd have done 2 swims and going for the 3rd one. Imagine you're doing the following set every time you train:
Warmup: 400m
Main set: 1500m at 80%
Rest 5 mins
10 x 50 on 1min
Rest 5 mins
400 freestyle kick only (25m sprint, 25m easy)
When Friday comes, your legs would have felt pretty used up if you're like me training kick sprints for the first time. In fact, on Wednesday, I was already feeling the drag in my 50 on 1min sets.
But if you do nothing on the Saturday and completely rest it up, you'd probably recover much better than the Tuesday and Thursday which is a work day and you have to be busy while recovering from your workout. Then on Sunday's swim, you'd probably feel a boost of energy because your fatigue has dropped but you fitness is higher than Monday before you trained.
As I mentioned before, Fatigue and Fitness rise TOGETHER.
Which means:
If you Train, you get fitter once you recover and adapt to the workload.
If you DON'T TRAIN, you lose your fitness because the body don't feel the need to adapt and thus goes back to sedentary state to "survive" or just live your normal daily life. Period.
Using that simple sentence, you can see that if you can train every single day and recover well, you ought to become fitter and fitter and there will be no limits to how best you can become!
HOWEVER, the limit here is fatigue. If there is no fatigue, we will all be superhumans, at least for those who are willing to train everyday. When you train, you get tired right? And because fatigue increases simultaneously with fitness, you'll not be able to ALWAYS BE ON FORM and be at your best in every single training 100% of the time. It is just near impossible to be that perfect unless you live your life with no life and just eat-train-sleep with no friends or family or work to entertain at ALL.
Thus that brings us to the fact that we have to manage our fatigue level while training consistently in order to get the fittest state we can possibly be.
Managing that fatigue level will mean:
- Ignoring swim timing and focus solely on effort percentage and stroke integrity only unless it's a speed work set or time trial.
- Put more focus on the recovery things to do rather than just solely thinking about doing more.
I feel that the above are the absolute important points to understand in terms of training consistency.
Because serious athletes who train all the time will measure their performance in terms of timing results. As science has taught us, only quantifiable results can be useful in tracking milestones and benchmarks.
And that has led to many people forgetting about the other part of the Fitness equation, which is the fatigue.
Fatigue can come not just from your training but your external stress factors such as sleep deprivation and work requirements.
And like the example sets I prescribed above, if you carried on doing that for 2 weeks and somehow, you always have Over Time to work on Saturdays and maybe Tuesdays then you'd probably not recover well and thus your swim time on Wednesday and especially on the second week of continuous training may probably reflect pretty badly.
It is important to note that this bad timing reflection is not a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) of just your fitness but it is an indicator of a combination of how well rested you are versus how trained/fit you are.
Thus having a bad day or two in a week is actually very normal especially if you work in high stress environments or basically not getting enough social supports or simply not able to sleep well enough.
However, after having such bad days then you'd have to take particular notes on recovering well on the following rest days or going easy on the next one and focus solely on technique if you're training every day like I am.
The key here is to maintain the effort and push on in the training and do your best to maintain that 80% RPE and STROKE PERFORMANCE INTEGRITY regardless of your fatigue level AS LONG AS YOU MADE SURE YOU'VE DONE YOUR BEST TO RECOVER.
The reason that you do at 80% RPE in swim is that it is an effort level whereby you can do a hard long swim (At least 1500m) and thus it is aerobic. Training aerobically or near the aerobic threshold when you're on good form, is fantastic for building fitness because you train your body to use Oxygen at the maximal level your body is capable of and many studies have confirmed that training at Aerobic threshold is the best way to improve fitness.
And by knowing that your timing may fluctuate due to many external factors, the only compounding factor in training will be your mental strength. When you look at a Wednesday's swim time and see that it is 2minutes slower than the Monday swim time, your body will definitely shout "TIRED!!!"... But after 1 day of complete rest or whichever way you ensure you are completely rested before the next workout, physiologically your body should be ready for the training unless you fell sick.
But from my experience, the Friday's swim are always the toughest despite I have a full rest day always on Thursday. The reason is my mind always tells me "Wednesday's swim was tough to maintain at 80% and good form man.. I could hardly complete it!"
What the mind didn't take into consideration is that I had a full day of rest on Thursday and the micro torn muscles would have recovered by now and adapted to the training.
By ensuring that you follow the 80% training effort in your long swims unless speedwork requires you to go all out.. you can be sure that whether you're tired or not, you're performing your best AEROBICALLY and thus not increasing the intensity to something too much that will complicate the recovery to get ready for the next training session.
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On the other hand, for those who don't have a coach to manage your swim time, you have to note that in a training program, you have to take note of the intensity, duration and also the weekly volume of workouts.
Fatigue rise way way way way way way faster than fitness while it takes years to cultivate supreme base fitness to build the speed on. If all athletes look long term enough in terms of achieving your goal, then the overtraining side of training will probably not happen at all but most people wants results fast and with less work.
Commercial training always tell you "FASTER, HIGH INTENSITY = MORE GAINS". That is right in a way provided you can recover.
If you can't recover, then doing high intensity workouts for days after days, you may simply just be breaking your body down again and again without allowing it to recover adequately.
Note: It is possible to ALWAYS stay and live in that overtrained fatigue state. Some people think it is normal to be tired all the time. Not true. A good athlete should feel energetic all the time because of good recovery.
We come back to the point whereby fitness is only gained when you recover and body adapts to the training load. Without that happening, the fatigue will accumulate and the body will not adapt and when that happens, you're just on a one way ticket to overtraining and consistent fatigue with minimal to little fitness gain or even fitness loss in long term because of the inability to train due to injury or burnout exhaustion from the overtraining.
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I know the article is alittle messy here and there but I write as I think and if you lost me somewhere, comment here or write me an email at enquiry@sapphireswimming.com or SMS me at (+65) 8180 0621 and I will gladly reply you what you wish to know.
Cheers
Coach KK
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