From The Deck
Nov 23, 2004 | Women's Swimming and Diving
Nov. 15, 2004
NEW ORLEANS, La. - Hello Everyone,
It is hard to believe that it has already been 12 weeks. Time continues to fly by for us.
This past week saw a shift in training focus for the swimmers from almost exclusively aerobic and threshold work to a bit more maximum oxygen uptake work (VO2 max) and a bit of race pace (race tempo) work. This work is vital at this point in the season as we are four weeks out of the Akron invitational which is our focus meet for this semester. Unfortunately that same necessary speed development work is also very fatiguing and it did lead to us being a little flat this weekend versus Arkansas-Little Rock and UNO. That is why this time of year I try to avoid scheduling really high intensity meets. It is best in weeks 11, 12, and 13 of any season training that I design to have lower key meets where the swimmers can focus on some "off" or third and fourth events.
In the weight room and in dryland, we were in the fourth week of a six-week power phase (for sprint and mid dist ladies) and endurance phase (milers). Just as we are in the pool, we are adding a little more explosive work each week to the weight room work as in dryland. We have added med ball training to the routine. Again, this will cause some soreness and lactate to accumulate. A necessary evil if we are to swim a little faster in December and even faster in February! Nothing good comes easy in this sport!
Running has transitioned to one day of more explosive type drills and one day of shorter aerobic runs. The aerobic runs right now are shorter overall than they were early in the year because they are just to maintain the conditioning we have already aquired. These steady state runs are not designed to enhance the aerobic capacity. They are just designed to maintain it. The more explosive track workout contains high level sprints and low level aerobic efforts and less of the middle efforts such as threshold effort running. In the weight room, the team is not lifting much on the legs relative to September and most of October since we are hitting it on the track one day a week at high intensities. Basically the shift was from the weight room to the track for the explosive leg work.
Diving is continuing to condition two mornings a week and they continue to lift two days a week as well. Strength and conditioning is in maintenance mode right now. The board work is intensifying every week so that the list of dives she will compete cleans up in preparation for the Akron Invitational.
I feel like we are right on track to reach all of our goals this season. A few people are a little behind schedule, but that is normal in any given year and on any given team. We are not immune to that reality. It would not be normal if everyone was perfectly on track. That is not really realistic although it always remains the objective. However, we do have quite a few ladies who are actually ahead of schedule. So there is the balance we strive for all year and that is what makes us a team. When someone is not quite up to their best then someone else steps up to fill the role. That is exactly how a team functions all season and we are doing exactly that! We are a good, solid, consistent team because we all work at it every day of the week. Getting 22 young athletes on the same page is no small thing but we strive for that daily and frankly I think we do it better than most!
See you at Akron!
Daniella Irle Head Coach Tulane Swimming & Diving
