Discussion: Physiology

I am not well versed in the study of physiology. I mainly have done some reading, and go off of observation and from what I hear from other coaches. So, please take any of this with a grain of salt, and feel free to correct me or any other kind of response. Again, I am not that trained in this field.

Swimming demands a great amount of aerobic conditioning. As I coach age-groupers, I have athletes that are in the very beginning of aerobic development, and it is very important in my seasonal plan to ensure that I develop this in my young swimmers for future success.

Swimming in itself is a mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercise as it requires some kind of breathe holding. I read though that the anaerobic levels can only be developed so much, so it isn't quite as vital to develop as the aerobic. I think about the great long distance runners from Kenya though. Isn't the argument that they are able to train at such high altitudes that they have been able to become so good. So, in essence this aerobic exercise has taken on a anaerobic aspect as the thinner air wouldn't provide as much oxygen to the blood. So these runners should go into oxygen debt faster and develop lactate tolerance by being able to perform through oxygen debt.

Could this be a reason why my swimmers who do cross country are getting better now that they swim for certain seasons?

Then, are we not pushing anaerobic exercise enough in our training for even our distance swimmers. Yes, Sprinters and middle distance have a decent amount of anaerobic training, but are we putting too much emphasis on the aerobic side and not enough on the anaerobic side of training.

Senior Swimmers whether they are sprinters, middle distance, or distance; would it be beneficial to do more lactate tolerance? More anaerobic?

I think we need to be careful of course about recognizing anaerobic exercise from pushing the limits of no oxygen. We just lost a swimmer from testing his own limit of no oxygen from Oklahoma Baptist. That is not what I am talking about. Hypoxic swims can be controlled and not push the limit to extended time of no oxygen.

I am sure there are coaches out there that already do a lot of anaerobic and emphasize it, but so many times I hear about the amount of aerobic yards that teams do.

I think my one example of Kenyan runners is only one example, and not enough to come up with a great conclusion. It just made me think about how I have heard about training, and how I have interpreted some of the readings that I have done.

I don't coach senior swimmers, so really it doesn't effect me, but I am trying to do more anaerobic this season than I did the season before to see how it effects the performances of my age-groupers. I still focus on the aerobic side, but I wanted to see if I had pulled too far off the anaerobic this last season. That planning is how I got to thinking about the training of senior swimmers, and looking at other athletes to consider the training methods that we traditional have done.