Our swim teams sets suck........bad....?

Question

ok,well im a 14 year old swimmer on a year round club team.The problem is we dont have many older swimmers and most of them suck.I am the fastest freestyle swimmer on the team and im only 14. My friend is the fastest breastroker by far and he's 13. Our team does incredibly slow sets,like hundreds on the 1:30(freestyle) 50's on the 45(freestyle again). I've talked to people from other teams and they do MUCH faster sets. Are our teams sets slow? How can i convince my coach to make faster sets,as our pool is to small for me to get my own lane.

Answer 1

well somebodys a show off :(

Answer 2

You are mistaken.  A set of 100's on 1:30 is not slow.  The idea is to swim and finish each 100 in say 1:00 minute for example.  Doing this ten times will tire you out.  The idea is to be consistent each swim.  For the 50's, you should finish in :30 seconds and repeat ech the same.  The idea is to build a lactate tolerance.  Lactate build up slows you down but training like this teaches your body to quickly clear it and continue on.  You can improve your results by seting harder and harder goals at the same repeat.  Say you can only do ten 50's in 30 seconds, next time, try a faster time and maintain it.  Maintaining it is key.  I used to train for sprinting with a set at the end of practice that went like this:  10 x 50's on 1 minute.  Do not laugh, it is hard trust me.  You sprint 25 yds all out...(I would do it in 10 seconds.) Then you swim slowly the other 25 yds.  The entire loop is done on a 1 minute interval.  (That is, from the time you start your 25 yd sprint, until you finish your other 25 and catch your breath.)  After 5-6 of these at 10 second 25's, you will hurt.   Of course, varying your sets will improve you in different ways.   Work on improving your technique at times, too.  Technique work is best learned at a slower pace.  Good luck!  

Answer 3

well our team does slowish sets but we are still the league champs.  It does not matter how fast u go during practice its getting technique and endurance to be able to go faster during races. just because the intervals are slow does not mean u have to go that pace go whatever pace u want.  If you go faster u will have more time to rest.