COACH FORUM: Artery Sessions Questions
Athletes - now that the artery sessions have hit the training calendar, we want to answer any questions surrounding them. Whether technical in nature on how to execute or diving into the methodology, now is your time to get your question answered.
- The Purple Patch team
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I noticed the effort level from 80%-100% felt correct, but the pace only went down 5-6 seconds. I seem to thrash a lot as I get above 90% rpe. What is a good way to think about getting faster in the water as rpe rises? Or what should I focus on? I feel fast and smooth at 85%, but then everything starts to unravel above that.
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Aaron Kent - definitely one of the benefits of the artery swim set is learning how to maintain that feeling of smooth swimming while still increasing pace with effort. One thing to focus on is maintaining your "hold" or "grip" on the water even as stroke rate speeds up. But for smoothness, here’s a suggestion you can take with you as you move through the next couple of iterations of the session: this is the perfect time of year to translate all of that technical focus, specifically the Purple Patch Drill swimming, that you're doing with the other swim sessions into your artery tracker. Take that feeling of connection from shoulder to hip and carry it into the faster swimming, keeping your mental focus on swimming with your body, not just your arms or shoulders. See if that makes a difference for you.Robert Schwartz - that's a tough one, it's one of the biggest benefits of the smart trainer option, in my opinion. If you don't have any flexibility to increase resistance on your specific trainer, you simply have to get the best possible gearing combination you can and work towards the intent. Even if you can't hit the power numbers spot on, you can still execute the cadence as prescribed and work through the goals of the session (for this phase of training) maintaining rhythm and intent of the SE work at moderate output. In this situation, choose good cadence work over the power target, knowing that the artery session will evolve with the season.-Brad, PPF Coach -
Aaron Kent-
Effort is increasing appropriately, that's good. As we increase effort, we increase stroke rate, as we should. It sounds like your form is falling apart as your effort and stroke rate go up. Don't think of it as you're "thrashing", think more that you're likely slipping and/or not finishing the stroke. When we increase stroke rate we want to do so by accelerating the pull through the back off the stroke into a quick recovery. What tends to happen is that to get the stroke rate up, we cut the stroke short by either not finishing all the way through the back or by not getting a full catch up from. The other thing that can happen is that in an effort to feel like we're moving the arms faster, the elbow drops on the catch and we end up slipping through the pull. We all have a "break point" with stroke rate where we stop holding water and start slipping, at this point effort goes up but speed plateaus, so if you keep trying harder and keep increasing the stroke rate but don't go any faster, you're just wasting energy. Think of a car on ice, you can slam on the gas and spin the tires super fast but if they are spinning too fast, there's no traction and despite the engine working hard, the car isn't moving. So it's important to understand when you start slipping and how increase stroke rate without losing form. Even with a faster stroke rate, we want to have a good high elbow catch at the front of the stroke, anchor that hand and arm, grabbing water, and then after the catch accelerate the pull and rotation, finishing the stroke all the way past the hip and allow the hand and arm to accelerate right into a fast recovery. That's one of the keys to this session, set up form early and then aim to maintain form as you increase effort.
- John Stevens
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James Slaba Transition week does mean recovery week, of a sort. Think of it as a stimulus change, chance to freshen up a bit from the heavier load of the "work" weeks, while still having a productive training week. You'll notice in the current phase of training you're balancing out the SE work with some higher intensity during the transition to help keep you feeling sharp.
Artery bike - don't do anything different, expected result. The lag will differ from athlete to athlete, wouldn't expect to see a full zone for everyone, but that is what you should be expecting to see with the SE pedaling, and is a piece of the puzzle you'll be keeping an eye on as you track these artery sessions.
-Brad, PPF Coach
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Swim bands - Matt noted in the Sunday special today that volume on bands is different than in water. When designing band sessions, how do you setup in this regard? Let’s say in the water, you 20 x 100 main set with building effort. Thru what lens are you looking with bands? Shorter intervals? Fewer intervals? Totally different. Etc. Not looking for precision, but rather context on banded workout design. Thanks! (Feb 4, 5pm Pacific for live call on topic)
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This is less to do with artery sessions than structured swim sessions in general. The last swim session I did had such short rest intervals between sets (e.g. 10 seconds, 15 seconds), that I couldn't even put on or remove toys during this timeframe. Could someone please rethink this? Maybe the short time intervals should be without so much gear. It takes me a minimum of 45 sec to add a snorkel, noseplugs, a buoy and band. I do appreciate the variety, however, so that's a huge plus!!
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James Slaba- I'll touch on this briefly here and yes, we can discuss more on the Feb 4th meeting. You are correct, volume with the bands is different than swimming. We generally keep the intervals, as well as the overall session, shorter so as not to put too much stress on your shoulders and other muscles. For the most part, we don't directly translate a pool swim session to a swim band session. The intervals are shorter than what you would do in a pool and there are fewer of them. Generally, we don't go longer than 1-2 minutes at a time, vary the intensity, mix in both some single and double arm pulls, and integrate a good amount of core work. The benefit of the swim bands is swim specific strength, muscle memory, and a technique focus. These are the things we try to keep in mind when thinking about a swim band session. Hope to see you on the meeting Feb 4th!
Katherine Thom - As this is more of a general comment, I'll touch on it quickly. It is tough to get all those toys on and off quickly (I'm always putting the wrong paddle on the wrong hand!) and it will take different people different amounts of time. With that, we put in the ideal rest interval to meet the goals of the set but if it calls for only 15 sec of rest and you need to strip all of your gear and it takes you 30 sec, your rest interval just became 30 sec, no need to overthink it, just do the best you can!
- John, PPF Coach
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Coach John - Swim question going into Artery 75s this week. My winter focus in pool has been making alternate side breathing routine. It has helped greatly with body position and to even out my stroke. To make it a habit, I have been ONLY doing alternate side breathing, which is a limiter respiratory distress-wise on harder, longer efforts. Coach Gerry R Tower 26 (from his podcast discussions) is all about breathing every stroke during hard efforts and races for O2 intake purposes. How would you balance out every other with every? In context of the 75s, the first 10 fine. 11-15 not so fine. 16-20 I expect effort to be held back with alternate side breathing (recognizing my stroke likely better / smoother!). Thanks for the guidance here!
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That's great to hear you've been able to integrate those changes with some success!
Getting comfortable breathing on both sides (bilateral breathing) is a hugely beneficial. Let's talk about that first, being comfortable bilateral breathing in triathlon is not always breathing every three strokes, it's being comfortable only breathing only to one side but being able to do that to both sides. Let's say you were doing an out and back swim and on the way out the sun was rising from your right and the wind was up from the same direction. In this scenario you would only want to breathe to the left on the way out. Then, on the way back, only breath to the right. You are breathing every stroke but you are able to do it to either side. I would suggest mixing in some harder efforts only breathing to the right and also mix in some harder efforts only breathing to the left.
Now to get you your question on the Artery swim. This swim is more about effort and pacing, that's the objective. In this type of set, I would mix in some bilateral breathing on the first five to ten, then choose the side you are most comfortable breathing to and execute the set as best you can, focusing on effort and pacing. Good luck!
- John, PPF Coach
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