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How to improve your swimmer's performance |
First get Jan Olbrecht's new ebook
The Science of Winning |
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Read Introduction of book here and First Chapter here |
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1. Get the best book in the world on swim training or just plain training. The Science of Winning is now available as an ebook. It will be available for the Kindle, IPad/IPhone, Android and Nook. It was released October 1, 2012 for the Kindle. It should shortly be available for the IPad and other formats. Here is the link for the Kindle
Science of Winning on the Kindle |
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Book Description
It's very rare that a book can mean so much for the professional training of athletes; Prof. Dr. Jan Olbrecht's book does! - He has a Ph. D. in physiology and bio mechanics and is training adviser to numerous world class athletes - His method is based upon careful planning and a unique method of lactate testing to assess and optimize the athlete's conditioning and potential - His book should be considered as a manual for the modern coach who wants to know before planning and periodizing what kind of conditioning adaptations to expect - It provides knowledge and shares experience in a very understandable way and is applicable to every training situation - It advances some new important concepts, most notably that training at anaerobic threshold speeds is not the most effective way to improve aerobic endurance and that aerobic and anaerobic metabolism must be developed to optimum levels, not maximum, in order to perform well in competition.
See our page on the The Science of Winning for a list of the world class athletes that Jan has advised.
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2. Jan Olbrecht's approach to the training of swimmers is two fold. First there is systematic and appropriately timed testing which indicates the swimmer's aerobic and anaerobic capacities. With this evaluation in hand Jan can now evaluate the training that the swimmer has performed since the last test. The swimmer either continues on with the planned training program or modifies it based on the test results. Finally, the swimmer then enters the next training period with the adjusted training program.
You train, you test, and then you adjust the athlete's training based on what the testing shows. This is called the steering principle which is something Jan learned as a student years ago from others who trained high level athletes. The following graphic depicts the process. Feedback from testing is essential for success with any level of athlete. |
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3. Jan's approach to training is illustrated by the following model of metabolism. This model is based on the interaction of the aerobic and anaerobic systems. It explains why an outstanding 50 m and 100 freestyle swimmer may only be a good 200 m freestyle swimmer and just an average 400 m swimmer or why an outstanding 400 m swimmer may not be fast enough to make the 4 x 100 m freestyle relay. It also explains just what has to be trained to make the swimmer faster at his or her desired event.
A full discussion of the concepts behind this model are in the Science of Winning. A shorter discussion is also available on this site at our lactate threshold page. |
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4. A youtube video shows Jan and his wife Pascale during a lactate testing session with a swim team in Belgium. The computer program that Jan Olbrecht is using in this video will be made available to all swim coaches in about 6 months. Work on the web application is currently proceeding.
This site is just beginning and many more examples and links will be added shortly that discuss how best to use lactate testing in swimming. |
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Some other examples of the use of lactate testing for swimmers |
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A very popular use of lactate testing in swimming is to indicate whether the swimmer is ready for the next heat. A competitor often swims as many as 3-4 times in a single session as he or she competes in preliminary heats, semi-finals and finals for individual events as well as relays.
The following are two charts which show how a world class swimmer uses lactate testing. This athlete has swum in several world championships and two Olympics; he holds several international records. In preparation for the London Olympics, he measured his lactate levels using the Lactate Plus in important meets to determine if his lactate levels were low enough to swim optimally in the next event. A reading was taken within a couple of minutes of the finish, and then additional readings were taken after recovery swims prior to the next event. Since he often has more than one event in a given session, he needs to lower his lactate levels to around 2.0 mmol/l before his next event. |
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The above chart indicates that it takes 800 m or more of a cool-down swim to lower the lactate levels to near resting levels. And in some occasions, more than one cool-down swim is required. For example, for the highest reading in the above chart, it was necessary to do three cool-down swims that totaled over 1600 m. These swims are easy. If they are too fast, then the athlete may generate additional lactate instead of clearing it.
The lactate levels would return to resting levels in an hour or more on their own. But this may not be in time for the swimmer’s next heat. The aerobic system eliminates nearly all the lactate as it prefers it as a fuel. The cool-down swim accelerates lactate removal from the muscles because the aerobic system uses the lactate more quickly than it would at rest.
Another useful bit of information is the lactate level after the swim. Maximum lactate levels after an important event are very good indicators of the anaerobic capacity of the swimmer. Usually higher lactate levels are associated with faster times and more utilization of the anaerobic system, but there are times when this is not quite true. Research has shown that swimmers usually swim faster in semi-finals and finals than in preliminary heats and most of the time will generate higher lactate levels. This indicates that they have probably utilized more of their anaerobic capacity.
Here is another chart from past years using different analyzers
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This swimmer also monitors his training sets after various workouts to make sure that lactate levels are not too high. This is a control test used to ensure that specific sets are not more intense than planned.
As an aside, Jan Olbrecht who has worked with the Dutch swim team for several years and some of their world record holders and Olympic medalists, has told us that a competition swim with the long cool down afterwards is an aerobic capacity exercise. But because a swimmer usually competes in several of these events during an important meet the effect will be a loss of aerobic capacity over a long meet. But one way to motivate a swimmer is to have him or her swim in their best event during a local swim meet and then do a long cool down swim. This one competitive swim and cool down will enhance aerobic capacity as the competition replaces an anaerobic set during a weekly workout schedule as it also indicates the progress of the swimmer. |
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Finally, we have on our site a presentation from over 12 years ago by Clive Rushton who once studied German to learn what the old East Germans did to monitor and train their swimmers.
Clive is still publishing and is planning five books on swimming. Here is a link to his first book, Water, Elements of Swimming Vol 1. Also Clive has some other books on the internet and in them he is highly positive on Jan Olbrecht's The Science of Winning and lists some top coaches who also claim Jan as the source of many of their coaching ideas. See A Thimble Half Full. These books are titled
- A Thimble Half Full
- Reasonable Expectations of a Serious Swimmer
- Long Term Athlete Development
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