ASCA World Clinic 2001 Summary

Physiology School Notes

Stroke School Notes

Rick Curl Notes

Vern Gambetta Notes

Dick Jochums Notes

David Marsh Notes

Rob Mirande Notes

Eddie Reese Notes

Bill Sweetnam Notes

Physiology School Notes

• Reinforce the concept that we do not "know" anything in swimming.
• As coaches we should remain OPEN and FLEXIBLE to new ideas
• I noticed a deep respect for female athletes -- much more than in triathlon, cycling or running -- no doubt this is due to AG girls being more competitive than boys, generally easier to work with and able to compete on an equal footing throughout the sport.

• Speed equals propulsion less resistance
• Goal is to increase propulsion and decrease resistance -- we need to balance our training between the forces that are at work. Physiology provides the energy to do both forms of training. Note that the goal is to continue to increase propulsion and decrease resistance continually OVER TIME.
• Biomechanics change over time therefore our approach to training will have to change over time -- an acknowledgement that different training techniques for different stages of athletic development.
• Even as a physiologist, he thinks that mechanics are more important than physiology -- mechanical improvements can yield 100-200% increases in speed, the most physiology will ever yield is as a 15-20% improvement in VO2 Max. We have much more to gain from teaching skills than focusing on huge yardage -- work technique and physiology will come.
• Question -- Why do mega yardage? Answer -- Because it works. From a Darwinian perspective, with 200,000 athletes in the sport -- mega yardage will force swimmers to adapt or they won't survive.
• Two ways to improve economy -- #1 Teach, Practice, Teach, Practice... #2 Mega Volume. Method #1 is a high percentage strategy but requires excellent coaching ability. Method #2 requires a lot of athletes. Some combination of the two strategies is likely best.
• Tested the fastskin suits -- note difference in times from a physiological viewpoint -- however, the placebo effect should not be discounted. No differences in buoyancy ("dry" and "wet" tests).
• Noted that many people underestimate the heat stress of swimming -- at Iowa State, male collegiate swimmers will lose up to five pounds in a two-hour swimming session (even while drinking!).

• Noted an interesting study by Jane Cappaert, Journal of Applied Biomechanics -- Elite swimmers -- the fastest group were using 16% less power to swim 3s per 100 faster. Physiology is important -- in a supporting role. The greatest gains come from being able to reduce active drag. His studies on the impact of shaving down point to a huge improvement -- 9% lower VO2 cost and 15% lower blood lactate for a given speed. Interestingly, it didn't seem to matter how hairy one was -- women and non-hairy men also experienced similar gains.
• Anecdotally, head shaving appears to give a better feel for the water. He has no science but is in favor.
• There is a peak responsive period to aerobic training in kids -- typically, 12-14 years old. What is the danger of missing this window? Should kids really crank in this window? His view is that if you miss the window then there is no info to suggest that it is too late. However, he also notes that there are some amazing results that can happen in this window with increased volume.

• ATP is the energy source for all muscle contractions.
• Had a great chart explaining how the three major systems work (plumbing analogy) -- nice and simple way to explain what is going on. I'll just note some highlights.
• Three main ways to produce ATP -- #1 Creatine Phosphate (CP), #2 Glycolosis, and #3 Aerobic.
• In swimming, glycolosis relies almost exclusively on muscle glycogen -- this is due to the nature of event duration. He noted that every race in swimming is done at a pace in excess of 90% of VO2 Max.
• All three systems are always working at all times.
• Even at moderate efforts (used example of 150-watt cycling test), CP levels drop significantly, stay low for duration of effort and take 4-6 minutes to recover.
• Noted the importance of long recoveries when training the high-end energy systems -- otherwise we exhaust them.
• TIP -- In his mind the single biggest error in swim training is not having enough recovery built into the high intensity sets -- Don't count yards, instead focus on main sets that are targeted at specific energy systems as well as technique gains. My coach this summer never cared about yards, only the main set, work and rest intervals. This reminded me of the benefit of the walk-back when doing strides in run training.
• He favors active recovery for LaTol (lactate tolerance sets) -- lactate clears fastest at 40-50% of VO2 Max, important for SS run sessions. Note this is a different sort of training from CP resynthesis.
• Some coaches like to train lactate clearance separately from lactate production -- in his opinion both systems are being trained with LaTol work.
• Lactate is not the problem! The true limiter is the change in muscle pH levels. Contractions stop at around 6.3/6.4 pH -- at rest muscles are neutral (7 pH). The amount of lactate required to reach a level of 6.3 varies from person to person and this is what he seeks to train.
• Interestingly, lactic acid inhibits the body's ability to produce lactate -- a built in safety device so we don't "melt" ourselves.
• Phosphate loading works but he is cautious as some athletes will experience explosive diarrhea. Reported a swimming double blind study were 200 times dropped from 2:03 to 2:00.
• Aerobic training improves the body's ability to remove blood lactate. This is an important element of performance for sprinters and is why even sprinters need to do aerobic endurance training (to train this ability).
• Note -- if you see an athlete with outstanding endurance, but no top-end speed, then perhaps they are glycogen depleted or over-reached. They have an impaired explosive ability. The taper works magic for this athlete -- not because of a peak, but because they are able to move from a "depleted" to a "normal" state. Very common in swimmers. His view is that chronic glycogen depletion is the most common source of overtraining in swimmers.

1. Aerobic Endurance -- AE, ability to sustain a sub-maximal pace for an extended period
2. Aerobic Power -- AP, VO2 max, maximum ability to consume oxygen
3. Lactate Tolerance -- LaTol, the ability to prevent large drops in pH when lactic acid accumulates, physiological (buffer capacity) and psychological (pain tolerance) factors
4. Anaerobic Power -- Sprints, ability to reach and maintain maximum velocity
5. Economy -- oxygen cost of exercising at any given intensity

• These are the five adaptations that we should seek to develop in our training.
• We don't want to rely on accidental success. We should have targeted success with targeted workouts (sounds like BTs to me!).

----	AE	AP	LaTol	Sprint
USS Name	EN2	EN3	SP1	SP3
Distance /	>1,000	800-2000	400-1200	150-500
Work Interval Time	>10 min	8-20 min	4-12 min	1.5-5 min
Rep Distance /	100-1650	100-400	50-200	<50
Rep Time	1-15 min	1-4 min	30s-2 min	<30s
Rest Interval	10s - 1 min	50% of rep	2-4x rep	4-10x rep
Intensity	70-80% of max HR 95-100% of T30	80-90% of max HR 104-107% of T30	>90% of max HR >90% of best time	All out
Max Freq P/Wk	10	3	2	4-5

NOTES

• The distance and rep distance set for swimmers (about 1 min per 100 yds -- triathletes should focus on times, rather than distances)
• LaTol sets have the greatest risk for overtraining
• Implications for Masters swimming triathletes are obvious
• Applications across all three sports -- if athlete is multiple undertaking LaTol sets in all three sports then stress load is extremely high
• Competitive swimmers appear to be able to tolerate aerobic sets of far shorter rest periods than in other sports (Personally, I think their definition of aerobic is far different!).
• The old method of 220-AGE is useless as it has a standard deviation of 15 bpm -- he is a believer in common sense training for HRs, particularly for swimming (basically, he is a believer in pace and RPE).
• Very difficult to get accurate T30 data with kids and novice athletes -- they have an inability (physical and psychological) to push for that long.
• Key consideration is to build a set that properly targets what you are seeking to train rather than getting tied up with data set calculations.
• In his experience, females handle training stress better than males.
• Not a lot of difference between AP and LaTol sets. Some may argue that AP is redundant.
• Huge difference between athletes in ability to tolerate intensity. Big implication for triathletes. Particularly, triathletes pushing their endurance envelopes.
• Made a neat point about most athletes tolerating high intensity better late in the day -- implications for timing of BT sessions (I had my best BTs in mid to late afternoon this year). However, also made point that early meets could cause problems for athletes used to training mid to late afternoon (not when you wake up at midnight before an IM, then have a 60 min "nap" at 2AM -- my strategy for IMC2001).
• For all athletes -- some short sprint work is important to maintain speed -- otherwise it disappears. Most people cheat themselves on their rest interval. In general, people can handle more sprint work than LaTol work due to the increased rest interval and the shorter work interval.

• There is no hypoxic effect from hypoxic sets. O2 levels remain constant due to increased breath volume as increased O2 utilization from each breath.
• However, CO2 level goes way up, there may be some CO2 tolerance benefit but this also screws up the blood acidity when CO2 is removed. His view is that these systems are adequately trained with normal push offs and other methods.
• Sees a roll for breath control is assisting athletes to balance their strokes.
• Athletes can easily augment their ability to hold their breath with dry land reps. Only takes about four weeks to double breath hold ability.

Many coaches cycle training volume rather than training stress. Some of the highest stress days can be low volume days. Other coaches increase non-swimming stress on "recovery" days. The total "life" stress has to be low on a recovery -- this includes all aspects of stress (volume, intensity, frequency, non-training...)

Kick Sets

In his opinion, the main benefit of kick sets for pure swimmers is to rest the upper body and train the legs to consume lactate.

Rick Sharp's Scale of Training Stress

Set	Rest Interval	Intensity	Time	Index	Stress Score
5 x 3 min	15s	72%	15 min	AE -- 2	30
10 x 30s	2 min	95%	5 min	LaTol -- 8	40
10 x 1 min	30s	85%	10 min	AP -- 6	60
8 x 2 min	4 min	90%	16 min	LaTol -- 8	128
10 x 6 min	45s	75%	60 min	AE -- 2	120

Stress index multiples -- AE 2x -- S 4x -- AP 6x -- LaTol 8x -- the multiplier applies as a multiple of minimum aerobic effort.

Multipliers based on:

1. Stress hormone elevation
2. Tissue damage
3. Protein catabolism
4. Lactic acid accumulation
5. Psychological stress
6. Muscle glycogen depletion

• Never do LaTol and AP sets back to back
• Important to log main sets to be able to track stress level
• If you are working hard and not improving then check overall stress load of training plan
• Need to have the ability to replicate success -- therefore logs and planning are important
• Need to build stress scores gradually over time and ensure that the total stress load decreases over time.
• The most important thing is to be thinking about the relative stress loads of different days -- don't get hung up on exact stress load.
• This gives coaches a framework to be able to modify "training stress" rather than "training volume" -- very similar to the BT concept.
• Interesting implications for IM triathletes who seek to crank volume and intensity -- the overall system stress goes through the roof!

• Rick likes HR profiles to track progress and look for signs of under and over training.
• Protocol is 2x200m -- first 200m is swum at 70% (even aerobic pace) -- rest five minutes and swim the second at close to all out pace.
• He tracks either 15s HR immediately after or the sum of 3x10s taken at 0s, 30s and 90s following repeat (note that is 30s worth of heart beats). When using the summation method, he makes no adjustment, just tracks the sum.
• He doesn't like lactate analysis due to difficulty of field application.