Michael Andrew has broken yet another National Age Group Record in Florida while swimming at the NASA Showcase Classic in Clearwater this weekend. This meet will be his last as a 13-14 before aging up (his birthday comes on Friday, but by USA Swimming rules, as a 14-year old at the meet’s start, his records count for 13-14’s).
Andrew started his meet out with a 1:44.02 in the 200 yard backstroke, which takes a full second off of his own record of 1:45.14 set at the Jenks Sectional in early March.
Andrew now sits well out in front of the all-time top 5 in this event among 13-14’s:
- Michael Andrew, 1:44.02
- Benjamin Ho, 1:45.73
- Ethan Young, 1:46.56
- Ryan Murphy, 1:46.67
- Jack Conger, 1:46.82
He’s still about three seconds away from Ryan Murphy’s 15-16 record in the event.
Andrew has particular motivation this week, as his grandparents have made the trip in from South Africa to watch him swim – the first time they’ve seen him race since his star has grown so large.
More context to come when he officially ages up.
Happy Bday Michael!
The greatest year of swimming by a 14 year old ever in the history of the planet!!
Thanks for all your hard work and even more impressive, your willingness to give back. You and your family gladly share how you destroy records and competitors.
Thanks for helping start the USRPT/Ultimate Swimmer Revolution. Thanks for showing us you can be really fast, have a balanced life, love God and love others!
We are excited to support you this next year too. In the meantime, have an awesome day!!!
ALL agegroupers with quantum leap growth spurts/performances see other of their competitors who haven’t had said growth catch up to some degree.
But 1. highly unlikely that any of his current agegroupers will match him lol….and 2. that leveling has nothing to do with USRPT….other than the fact that if they’re on conventional high-volume work they’re just being held back to some degree now.
Interesting will be his/USRPT athlete’s choice of college program. I trained swimmers with predominantly low volume high intensity work for years , and sadly they didn’t have much luck when going to higher volume collegiate training….if for no other reason psychologically….having to put up with swimming like shit in season compared to previous experiences.
I can see how finding a college program would be really tough for a race pace athlete. Do really well until 18 when you go to college, then you stop improving because of the high volume/exhaustion. Your college coach says it’s because you didn’t “build the aerobic base” when you were 14, when you probably would have kept improving if you’d stayed with a fast program. That definitely adds confusion to the capacity vs. utilization debate.
If the time converter on this site is to be relied upon, the finals time is the equivalent of a 1:56 LC. I tend to use a different converter which is more realistic, but it is what it is…
Thank god Michael Andrews has turned 15. Hopefully we won’t have to hear about him for a year or so. I’ve grown tired to hearing about how he is the next Michael Phelps.
No question he is the best 13-14 in history but look at his physique at 14 relative to Phelps at 15 – one’s a man, the others a boy.
I hope only good things for him but suspect he will come back to the pack over the next 2 years.
Dude. He’s already ahead of “the pack” for basically every agegroup. He could stay the same for the next 4 years, and still be better than 99% of everyone his age. He’s already about to break 15/16 agegroup records, so you can bet your ass you’re gonna keep hearing about him. Give him some credit. I for one would love to continue hearing about his unbelievable swims every week.
The comments above by “PACO” and “DEVAN” perfectly represent both extremes of what irks me about the usual comments on these articles.
So, bravo, friends.
Steve, I appreciate the ignorance, but I am not to one extreme or the other. I am a huge supporter of Michael, but also recognize he won’t be dropping time forever. My issue with the above statement was the prediction that he would basically drop back into normal ranges of swimming within the next 2 years. That is a dumb statement to make, as his times are so ludicrous (at 14 no less) they can hold their own in college. I am a very neutral observer, but i don’t appreciate anything less than encouragement for age groupers.
Well, this comment is a bit more composed.
MA has the NAG for 15-16 butterfly – already.
1:43.15 in finals….
143.1 tonight….wow
Way to go! How about the Bruce Lee of swimming. He needs a yellow jammer with a black stripe.
Sven,
I’m not sure this is the right forum, but I had a question re:training.
If MA (or any swimmer) does a set of 20×50 @ 1’00 (200 pace) is the reason that this is both aerobic and anaerobic is that because when they are swimming their heart rate is mostly at anaerobic levels and while they are resting it’s mostly beating at aerobic levels?
Thx for humoring my poorly worded question
Simply, yes.
The theory/thought behind it is based in the contributions from both energy systems during a race. For a 200 race, it’s about 60/40 aerobic/anaerobic. The rest is such to allow some recovery, but not for the heart rate to drop so much that you are out of range, changing the energetics towards more anaerobic. Yes the heart is still beating quite fast and that means its still getting work at an aerobic level, but more importantly is the arms/legs, major propelling muscle groups needed to race a 200 are getting work at/near race pace as much as possible. You spend as much time as possible building the strength for those races and the myelin to maintain those race pace habits.… Read more »
I think that is a large part of it, yes. Coach Erik hit on another point as well, in that you use your aerobic system in the 200, so swimming at 200 pace works the aerobic system even if you break it up in order to extend the time you spend in that “zone.”
Another way of looking at it comes from studies on high intensity interval training. The most famous study was done by a Japanese researcher named Tabata. He had two groups on stationary bikes. One was doing 45-60 minutes per day at an aerobic effort level, just doing steady state cardio. The other group was doing 8 rounds of 20 seconds all out, 10 seconds rest (for… Read more »
Also note, the periodization that they talk about toward the end of that link is very similar to what most coaches do these days. A couple weeks/months aerobic, add in more speed and interval work, and a few weeks out from the big meet, start doing the really race-specific stuff. Basically, start the season with the least specific stuff (“garbage yardage”), get a bit more specific when you move to interval work and speed work, and then increase the specificity to best simulate race conditions in order to peak at the desired time.
I think that on a land sport such as running, where the act of continually resisting gravity by catching your bodyweight and then exploding back upward/forward, the… Read more »
Very helpful. It basically explained some things I’ve been wondering about for quite a while. One more questions (this one is more belief based, so it’s a bit loaded). Do you agree with the theory that technique is easier to fix at race speeds only as opposed to drills/etc.? Also, because swimming is so technical is it possible that by doing long slower swims working on certain elements of stroke this may work out the kinks more than race pace training? I’m mostly playing devils advocate as I don’t like watching long/slower swims and don’t necessarily see good technique happening during them either. I only ask you as I have seen on these forums that you’re a huge advocate of… Read more »
I much prefer making the adjustments at race pace. Doing slow drills teaches you how go do slow drills better. And when you go fast, your body line changes, your body position in the water changes, and your timing changes.
I’d say that depends on the swimmer and the stroke. I think that in general, the slower you go, the farther your technique is from competition. Especially in the short axis strokes where slow swimming will result in a drastically different technique than fast swimming. I think it’s mentally harder for the swimmer to tweak technique at high speed, but that once they learn to do that it’s a quicker and more effective process. Still, even some high school swimmers have trouble with giving a strong effort and making changes at the same time, so it might be worthwhile to find a slightly lower speed and build them up.
I think that backstroke changes the least with velocity, so I’m… Read more »
Another performance factor: Great anaerobic performance (1-4min performance events) athletes have enlarged hearts, thick aortic walls and significantly more powerful stroke volume output (vs stroke rate).
Stroke volumes responses take place during the recovery portion of high intensity intervals. Sustained endurance work has a suppressive effect on stroke volume.
Swimming has just been way behind in terms of training 100, 200 and 400mtr athletes.
Put a world class miler through even ONE HALF the relative volume a 400mtr swimmer does and they’d be grounded within a month or 2.
I’m not sure usrpt is the complete ideal answer. I think Salo is a little closer.
I agree re: Salo. I think USRPT lies too much on extremes. I think that the core of a program should be race pace, with emphasis on best simulating different aspects of races, rather than basing it on aerobic capacity. Honestly, despite my ramblings on here, I think that there is a place for some long aerobic swimming in a program, I just don’t think it should be something we spend over half of our time in the pool working on.
I think Rushall’s mostly on the right track on the conditioning and adaptation aspects of swimming, particularly with events 400/500 and below. I disagree with some of his observations on technique, but that’s bound to happen. I think he’s… Read more »