With the opening ceremony's in a few hours and the competition starting tomorrow, Rio is actually here. But as a reader of this blog, you're probably wondering what you're gonna do until the exciting stuff (a.k.a. people running in circles) starts a week from now. Lucky for you, all of the swimming events are going to be happening the week before track starts, so you have some action to get you warmed up before the real fun starts.
Now if you like watching the world's best run in circles really fast, you might also like watching the world's best swim back and forth really fast. But if you aren't quite of that mindset yet, or if you want to watch swimming but have no real clue what to watch for, or if you just read every single thing that pops up on this site, than this is for you.
1. Just like track, its racing at its core
Every swimmer stepping up on the blocks is doing the exact same thing that every runner who toes the line is doing: trying to beat the person next to them. Everyone loves a good race, track fans especially. Every race in Rio will be exciting in its own way, and the swimming will be just as good as (if not better) than the big oval. The two sports are the same at their core.
Now, if you're looking for a more direct comparison between the two disciplines, taking a race distance in the pool and multiplying it by 4 gives you pretty much the same race distance on the track (it breaks down a little bit outside the middle distances, but it's still close). Don't believe me? Let's look at some world records.
Men's 100m Freestyle/400m dash: 46.91/43.18
Men's 200m Freestyle/800m run: 1:42.00/1:40.91.
Men's 400m Freestyle/Mile run: 3:40.07/3:43.13.
Men's 800m Freestyle/3000m run: 7:32.12/7:20.61
While this obviously isn't perfect, it's pretty good at letting the avid track and field fan have some inkling as to what kind of race they're watching.
2. Katie Ledecky
I'm going to do my best not to go on for pages about her, but she will steal the show at Rio. After becoming a surprise gold medalist in the women's 800m freestyle at age 15 in the London Games, Ledecky has quickly cemented herself as the top distance swimmer in the entire world. She holds the world records in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle. She is undefeated in major international competition, with 1 Olympic gold medal and 9 world championship gold medals. She holds the 10 fastest times in all of history in the 800m freestyle, and is over 7 seconds faster than anyone in history. She has set world records at small in-season meets just because she can.
Now, as any track and field fan should rightly suspect, the doping question is immediately raised. However, as far as we know, she has passed every drug test she has ever been required to take, and taken additional drug testing in support of having a clean sport. Her big secret? She trains with the boys and isn't afraid of them. And i don't mean she lags behind the male olympic distance swimmers that she trains with. She keeps up with, and even beats them in practice day in and day out. Her drive and determination is other-worldly, and she is going to demolish the competition in Rio. If you want to see someone win a distance race from the start and push to the very end, watch for when Katie Ledecky comes on TV. You won't be dissapointed.
3. Experienced veterans vs youthful energy
This is a headline that we could also be seeing in track and field. Just as an aging Mo Farah will try to go out on top in the 5k and 10k, the 31-year-old Michael Phelps, 32-year-old Ryan Lochte, 30-year-old Lazlo Cseh, and 35-year-old Anthony Ervin will be battling the youthful racers in the likes of Japanese superstar Kosuke Hagino, Austrailia's Cam McEvoy (who came within .13 of a WR in season this year), and many other new faces on the U.S team, some of whom upset defending Olympic gold medalists at US Trials just to get on the team, will engage in a battle of the decades up and down the pool. Perhaps we could see the same thing with the likes of Clayton Murphy, Boris Berian, Robby Andrews, running on the same team as Bernard Lagat and many others competing for the U.S. on the track in a week.
4. Michael Phelps
Ok, yes, we've seen him winning medals and breaking world records for the past 16 years. But as he pulls a Brett Favre and swears he's retiring "for good" this time, we are actually seeing a very different Phelps than usual. He's not the quiet, laser-focused, machine that we saw in '04 or '08. He's not a 20-something party animal who gets DUI's or bong photo's plastered all over the internet. He's not even the guy we saw two years ago make a soft comeback "just for fun." He's a changed man, who has now revealed that he had a lot of inner demons that made him not even want to be in London for the 2012 Olympics. He's a sober man, a man who has finally reconnected with his estranged father, and a man who has recently become a father himself and has a wedding planned for after the games.
He's put in training that his coach "hasn't seen him do since the lead up to '08." In the 3 individual events that he will be contesting, he owns the World #1 times from all of 2015. He's been talking about wanting to go personal bests, which for him, would be World Records. But at 31, he'll face stiff international competition, including Chad Le Clos of South Africa, who ran him down in London for the 200m butterfly gold. The 200m fly is Phelps' signature event, it's where he made his first Olympic team in 2000, made his first world record in 2001, and where he has the world leading time for 2015 (a time faster than what won gold in London). Many believe Phelps is coming back for revenge on what happened in 2012, and will be out to do what he couldn't last time around in his best event. Oh, and he has the chance to become the first swimmer ever to win 4 consecutive golds in his other two individuals. History. Revenge. Phelps. You won't want to miss the G.O.A.T's last races.
5. There's never any tactical jogging. Its all racing
If there's one thing that a lot of modern track and field fans don't like, its watching elite athletes jog for 95% of a race and let it come down to who's a better sprinter when they're a little tired. Swimming doesn't see that, ever. Every race in the pool will see an assault on the World Record and everyone pushing their limits on the biggest stage.
The main reason for this is that everyone is in their own lane, so passing someone doesn't require covering extra distance and trying to get around somebody. In the pool, you just speed up and go for it. Everyone trains this way, so they train to give it their all and challenge not only the people around them, but challenge themselves as hard as possible. In the end medals will be won, records will fall, and everyone in the pool will have pushed themselves to their absolute maximum.
Get hype
-Paul Hayes
Showing posts with label xtrain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label xtrain. Show all posts
How to swim like a runner
By Paul Hayes
Running is innate to human life, a built-in function of evolution that is ingrained into human genetic code in various ways. It comes naturally to us and is something that we are built for; humans are the best long distance runners on the planet. You don’t have to get taught how to run when you first try it. Running is just part of life.
Swimming does not come with the same built-in ability in humans. We’re not evolved to swim. We’re not built for the water, especially when compared to other animals. We have to be taught by others how to swim when we first try it. Swimming with no experience invites death.
But yet, professional athletes compete in both athletic ventures the same way: against the clock, and against others. The key to this, is learning. You may not have to learn how to run, but you do have to learn how to run the right way in order to run fast. Once you have learned to stay alive in the water, you can learn how to swim the right way in order to swim fast. The two sports share very similar ideas and basis, but swimming comes with a much steeper learning curve. And that learning curve gets just plain weird when you try to cross the two and want to learn the right way to swim in order to run fast. And hopefully I can clear some things up.
I’ve highlighted previously that swimming can be used by runners as an improved form of recovery. Scheduling a swim in-between hard running sessions can really help keep a distance runners ability to perform well during such tough training. However, you can hop in the pool and really murder your legs if you want to. A few keys to a recovery swim are as follows:
1. The swim itself should be a like a recovery run: easy, slow, and anywhere from 20-45 minutes. You should feel better after this type of swim.
2. If you’re using swim trunks or board shorts, ditch them and just use compression shorts (or a speedo if you’re a real man). The extra drag everywhere from the loose shorts is really going to hurt your stroke and make you over-work. It would be like running in basketball shorts 3 sizes too big with your phone and wallet in your pockets.
3. You should be trying to take it easy on your legs.This means not kicking too hard, and letting your upper body do most of the work during the swim. Watch 1500m world record holder Sun Yang’s stroke during his Olympic gold/WR performance through a multi-angle group of shots that someone else was cool enough to put together [1]. That video is what 1450m of swimming slightly under world record pace looks like: an easy, stabilizing kick to keep the hips up and not much else, while the upper body does the majority of the work. This keeps lactic acid and inflammation from building up in his legs, which would cause them to drop and drag in the water. It also allows Sun to be able to pick up his kick rate massively at the end for a strong finish. If you want to model a recovery-based stroke off a professional, Sun’s is the best.
So if you’re going for a recovery swim, the two tips above should help a good deal. As always, please put any questions you have in the comments section and I would love to answer them.
Swimming for a workout can be a very tough thing, especially for a beginner. Working nearly every muscle in the body while taxing the aerobic system in an abnormal way, all while wondering whether or not it’s fast or even totally right will be exhausting both physically and mentally. And while just getting in and swimming hard can be beneficial to any runner, there are some specific things that distance runners who want to cross train in the water should and shouldn’t do. So here are the DO’s and DON’T’s of swimming for a runner’s workout:
• DO listen to your body and figure out what does and doesn’t work for you. I can’t stress that point enough, you should be doing this for your body, so pay attention to how it responds. Try backstroke or breaststroke, see what you think works best
• DO engage a strong kick with a technique focused upon leg drive. Michael Phelps’ freestyle is an excellent example of a very leg-driven stroke. Check out a multi-angle view of his freestyle [2] and his 200m freestyle Olympic gold in ’08[3], the most dominant race of his perfect 8-for-8 in my opinion. You can see how much work his legs do the entire race and how well it pays off.
• DO make sure that your kick is driven from the hips. The motion starts there and travels through the leg muscles, not starting in the leg muscles. It’s a weird concept to put into words but its how swimmers kick. If you watch that mutli-angle video again [2] you can see that the motion starts from the hips and travels through the legs.
• DO control your breathing so that you stress your aerobic system in a way you’re not used to. What I really mean is don’t breathe every stroke if you can help it, and try to push a bit through the pain you might feel in your lungs. Your body can use oxygen a lot more efficiently than you think, and though you may have to force it at first, you will adjust.
• DO be creative with your workouts and changing things up, again to see what works. If you have a favorite running workout that you want to adapt to the pool, the simple math is to divide the distance by 4 to get similar repeats (e.g. repeat 1600’s on land would be repeat 400’s in the water).
• DO look at other resources for how to swim. I don’t know everyone’s ability levels and I can’t teach you very well from a blog. YouTube is a great starting point, and there are other great resources out there, all you really need to do is look around for them. If enough people ask, I’ll put a playlist together on my YouTube channel and share it here.
• DON’T quit because you suck at first. It’s not in any way easy and the learning curve is steep, but a little commitment can go a long way.
• DON’T stress out over your times in the water. Remember that the main purpose is the times out on the course and the track.
• DON’T forget to have fun with it. That’s why I started running in the first place.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uncOBURz-6o
Why runners should swim part 2: It’s a darn good workout
By Paul Hayes
The aerobic benefits of swimming are, in my opinion greater than or equal to those of distance running. When I was in high school, I constantly had to transition between swimming and running every time the seasons changed, summer included. Every time swimming ended and I started running, my lungs and cardiovascular fitness were great; the most noticeable part of the transition was running with leg hair stubble growing back. But when I finished a track season and hopped back into the pool, I could barely swim 100 yards before I had to stop at the wall to catch my breath, frustrated at my fatigue.
I’ve tried to put some research into VO2Max levels of swimmers and runners, but unfortunately haven’t found anything conclusive. For those who don’t know, VO2Max is how much oxygen an athletes lungs can take in under physical stress, or basically how efficient your lungs are. Studies that have been done show that swimmers generally test lower than runners for VO2Max, but those tests are done by putting a runner on a treadmill with an oxygen sensor mask and running them to fatigue, and then also putting a swimmer on a treadmill and running them to fatigue. For obvious reasons, this isn’t a fair test, and the unfortunate reality is that getting an oxygen sensor mask on a swimmer as they push to fatigue in their own sport seems pretty impossible because that technology doesn’t mix too well with water or the motion swimmer’s need to breathe.
What I can say about oxygen consumption and aerobic capacity from my own experience is that swimming hard takes a lot more than running hard, primarily due to the limited opportunity for oxygen intake that swimmers get. When I run a max-effort race, I talk to the people that finished around me, say good race, make friendships that last about as long a snapchat, whatever. When I swim at max-effort, I’ve found myself so far into oxygen debt that I can’t speak, and tend to just shake hands of the guys next to me, who are also gasping for that delicious air.
What I was able to find is that swimmers and runners tend to have very similar resting heart rates, both in the 40-60 range, with averages around 55. RHR is a good measure of cardiovascular fitness, as it indicates how efficiently your heart works at getting blood where blood needs to go. So the quick conclusion is that swimming and running have similar effects on the cardiovascular system, an important part of any endurance sport. So swimming is a great aerobic/cardiovascular workout.
Additionally, swimming can provide some great anaerobic work, and can help build muscle, especially in some places that are difficult to target. This Website shows all the different muscles that can be used, with names and videos of what gets activated in each of the four strokes. I’m going to break this down a lot more in an upcoming post, but the basic takeaway is that swimming is a workout for nearly all muscles, including the running ones (especially the core, if you do it right). What muscles get worked and how hard really depends on how you swim though, which is what I will be addressing in the next post. But pretty much everything is available for work in the water.
So if you want a workout that taxes your cardiovascular, aerobic, and muscular system while at no impact to your body (no risk of stress fractures, shin splints, or other common running/overuse injuries), I think you should hop in the pool. I also think it’s a lot of fun, but maybe that’s just me.
Why runners should swim part 1: Recovery
By Paul Hayes
Have you ever just had those times when your legs feel like complete junk walking around because of the heavy training and/or hard racing? Do your cool-downs, stretches, and ice baths just feel like they’re not enough keep you on your training plan? Then swimming might be the answer for you.
As I stated in the previous post, this is something I believe Sam Ritz uses to be able to race fast multiple times per week, even across the country. Ritz is a former swimmer for GA and has access to a pool in his high school, and he comes off in his interviews as a very smart runner who takes an informed approach to training. I can’t say for sure without talking to him, but I would bet money that he gets in the pool at least once a week to recover from his intense racing and training.
I can speak from personal experience that swimming is a very effective way of reducing the amount of soreness in one’s legs after hard races or workouts. During my high school running career I would get in the pool every Sunday for an easy swim just to workout with my dad, not knowing until late in senior year that it was what helped me feel better at practice Monday.
How exactly this works is a little bit over my head, but this study1 shows that well-trained triathletes performed an average of 14% better on a running workout when recovering with a swim workout versus a passive recovery (i.e. lying around on your off day). What’s important to note, however, is the details. (I wish I had access to the full report, but the abstract gives some very key points that I can hit on.) First off, the swim recovery session wasn’t exactly what one would call a “recovery” swim. They did a set of 20x100m @ 90% of 1km TT speed. In runner terms, this would be like doing 20x400 @ 90% 3200 pace. For experienced swimmers this isn’t a terribly painful set, but it certainly isn’t easy, and definitely not something you do for the strict purpose of recovery. (A quick example of a recovery swim is really just long and easy, about 30-45 minutes of smooth, easy swimming with a light but steady kick.) These triathletes basically put in a normal swim training session the evening after their run and then tested themselves again the next day against those who skipped out on the swim workout. Furthermore, the study tested the levels of inflammation in the athletes’ leg muscles by observing CRP, a protein-based indicator of inflammation, which, if you didn’t know, is the cause of post-race/workout soreness in the muscles. At the physical level, the swim helped “flush out” the soreness in their legs from the previous running workout, which is the main part of recovery.
So if you think you’re too sore to keep up with your demanding running training, use other forms of training. Hop in the pool and get some easy swimming in. It’s like a combination of active rest, an ice bath, and foam rolling, all spun together in an aerobic workout. I’d say it’s a pretty awesome sport too, but maybe that’s just me…
Introducing Cross-Train
Allow Me to Officially Introduce Mr. Paul Hayes ...
How has Sam Ritz been able to run fast in 3+ meets/week? How has Jaxson Hoey been able to maintain fitness despite 5 months off? What common secret do these two (as well as a few others) share that gives them an edge over the competition, and what can any runner do with this?
Find out the answers to these questions and more in a new section called “Cross-Train”, where Paul Hayes explores how runners can train off the roads and trails, and in ways most people don’t consider.
Find his first post here
The Real Introduction
by Paul Hayes
Welcome to Cross-Train! This section will be devoted to how cross-training impacts running. As of right now I plan on exploring common methods of cross-training, specifically the two I know best: swimming and weight training. I am certainly willing to research and put information together on anything else that anyone is curious about (yoga, cycling, core workouts, whatever), but I need people to express those interests in the comments section, so please leave feedback. Each method that is explored will have at least one post explaining how/why it helps with running, and at least one post giving the tools and knowledge for you to go out and try it. Because of my own background of over a decade of swimming experience, as of right now there will be more posts about swimming, and swimming posts will be more detailed.
As for answers to the questions on the front page post, the simple answer is swimming. Both the Ritz and Hoey families have all swam competitively at some point, and from personal knowledge I know that Jaxson and Josh, as well as Sam Ritz get in the pool at least once per week in season. I’m speculating a tad here, but I have to imagine that Jaxson got in the pool more often while dealing with his broken foot, in order to try to keep his aerobic fitness levels up. It’s important to note that any exercise in the water has virtually zero-impact upon joints, bones, and ligaments. This is why doctors recommend aqua-jogging to aid recovery, and why I end up watching a bunch of arthritis-ridden elderly folks do simple exercises in the water every morning (I get paid to watch and make sure they don’t die. Lifeguarding is a pretty sweet deal). Ritz on the other hand, I have to believe/speculate/theorize that he uses the pool to recover from hard workouts or races. A light swimming workout is an excellent way to speed up recovery, as evidenced by a study here, swimming can aid recovery by 14% on average. Consider again that Sam Ritz has easy access to the pool at Germantown Academy, and now it’s more reasonable that he’s able to race 3x per week, or have two good races in a weekend that he flies across the country twice.
Again, let me know what you guys are interested in, what you do or don’t like, or whether or not anybody even reads this in the comments section below.
Coming soon: Why runners should swim, part 1: Recovery
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