While the Olympics gives us truly amazing performances, it also gives us an opportunity to peek into the athletes’ training programs. While watching the Men’s 50m Freestyle final I heard the announcer mention that the winner, Australia’s Cameron McEvoy, had been out of the water for 12 mo’s. Wait…he didn’t swim for a whole year? The announcer went on to say that when McEvoy did get back in the water to train, he utilized an innovative program focused purely on the demands of his event – speed. Traditionally, swimmers do lots of yardage – 70,000 km/week is not unheard of. By comparison, McEvoy did about 3 km/week…yep…you read that correctly…roughly 3300 yds per week! Of course, I had to do a bit of investigation into his philosophies. And wow…are they interesting & different! So, without further ado, here are three training nuggets from an Olympic swimmer!
Nugget #1 – Identify the Key Elements of Your Sport
They don’t call McEvoy “The Professor” for nothing! His love of physics & mathematics has helped him parse out all the critical elements of his event. Once he identified those elements, he then looked at how other sports with similar elements train. Then he developed specific & measurable ways to train those key elements. He likens the 50m Freestyle to doing 20 Pull-Ups through full range of motion with 60lb of added weight as fast as possible. If you think about the event that way, the training for it becomes much clearer. You need strength, speed & technique. Strength & speed, of course, are best built through short, hard, high-intensity efforts followed by lots of rest. Technique does need slower speeds to be developed (initially), but the primary goal in the end is to transfer that technique into faster paces. Basically, this program has little need for lots of low-moderate volume training.
Endurance Athlete Take-Away – We, of course, do events that last hours rather than seconds. So, what can we take away from this Nugget? Well, most of us want to get faster…regardless of the race distance. In order to “get faster” the endurance world has learned that the focus needs to shift away from lots of low-moderate intensity volume in favor of shorter, higher intensity training. We need to let go of a bunch of those Level 2-3’ish miles. We need more recovery time to give us energy to add in higher intensity workouts.
Nugget #2 – Look for Answers Elsewhere
McEvoy’s success has shown that looking for inspiration outside of your own sport can be very beneficial. In the year he spent out of the water, he looked at the training programs of track & cycling sprinters, gymnasts & rock climbers. Those athletes, he found, spent a lot of time building strength (i.e., weight training), working on explosiveness (i.e., fast movement patterns) & refining & honing technique at speed. But very little time was spent doing aerobic training. He decided to apply the same principles to swimming – a sport notorious for high volume training. (Consequently, swimmers have high burnout & high injury rates. Could it be all that volume?? Perhaps.) He found that he was much less stressed, was sleeping better (he doesn’t wake up to an alarm) & much more excited & energetic to train. His success in Paris speaks for itself!
Endurance Athlete Take-Away – Maybe it’s time for we endurance athletes try some new tactics. Many of us train a ton, but our speed consistently stays the same or gets slower. That should be a wakeup call for a training change. (And no, it’s not just that “you’re getting older”. McEvoy won his gold medal at age 30…in an event with an average gold medal age of 23.9! Try something radical like cut your volume 50% so you can…
- sleep more
- truly rest
- lower your cortisol levels
- eat better
- have great energy for some high intensity training
Seriously, what’s the worst that can happen?
Nugget #3 – s = d/t
In case you are unfamiliar with that formula, it’s the formula for Speed. Speed (s) is based on two things: distance traveled (d) & time elapsed (t). McEvoy embraced this formula 500%. He recognized that the part of that formula that we have the most control over is distance traveled. And the primary way in which we can increase distance traveled is to get stronger. So, he hit the strength training in varied ways – calisthenics, gymnastics, rock climbing & weightlifting both in & out of the water (Check out this crazy video of one of his in-water strength training methods!). There are a host of ways in which stronger muscles improve speed:
- increases rate of force production (for faster acceleration)
- improved motor unit recruitment (increases number of muscles fibers activated)
- improved elasticity of muscles & tendons (for better absorption & production of force)
- less injury risk during speed work
- improved neuromuscular firing (improves muscle coordination & speed of contraction)
- improved posture & balance (critical for speed improvement)
- resistance to fatigue (increases ability to sustain speed)
Endurance Athlete Take-Away – I don’t know an endurance athlete out there who doesn’t want to get faster! We all want to improve our swim pace/100yd, bike mph’s & run min/mile. Yet so few of us do any weight training at all…and of those that do, many fail to stimulate the muscle structure enough to really improve strength. (There’s an older guy I see at Axiom who does modified cable tricep extensions for minutes. Although I applaud that he’s in the gym doing something, I question how much muscle strengthening is really occurring. First off, his motion pattern is so small…only an inch or two of movement…that the muscle really isn’t being adequately worked. Second, doing a lift for minutes means that his weight is not nearly heavy enough to stimulate much change.) So, my dear athletes, if you truly want to get faster, develop a solid strength program & free up some time to regularly do it!
And there you have it! Three training nuggets from an Olympic swimmer that you can ponder, debate & use in your own training programs. Comment away! I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Happy Training,
Coach Michelle
For info on Coaching options, click here.