Summer 2025 Week 1: Technical and Conditioning Focus: March 23 – March 29: Email 2 of 3: Explaining Training Cycles

Summer 2025 Week 1: Technical and Conditioning Focus: March 23 – March 29: Email 2 of 3: Explaining Training Cycles

Explaining Training Cycles

• Macrocycle: Summer 1: March 23 – May 31
• Mesocycle: March 23 – April 12: General Preparation
• Microcycle: March 23 – March 29
  • Catch, Pull, & Body Position

Hello Swim Families!

Welcome to email #2 of this week’s probably overly-in-depth explanations of our upcoming technical and conditioning focuses.

Today, I would like to explain my formatting of these emails, specifically, the bullet points.

• Macrocycle: A season-long training plan encompassing of smaller more specific training cycles. A macrocycle concludes with preparation for a championship competition.
• Mesocycle: A smaller part of the macrocycle, typically lasting 2-6 weeks that emphasizes work on a goal such as increased aerobic capacity, sprint tolerance, or power.
• Microcycle: A smaller portion of the mesocycle typically lasting 1-2 weeks that homes in on one or two specific aspects important to the objectives of the macrocycle. As the macrocycle comes to an end, each microcycle becomes increasingly more focused on high performance and race preparation and execution.

For the Marlins specifically, these are the upcoming Macro-, Meso-, and Microcycles. Of course, these cycles will change on a regular and scheduled basis as the season progresses.

• Macrocycle: Summer 1: This is our build-up to the summer season. Technically, the summer season begins once Sectionals ends. This represents a transition to a focus on long course meters (LCM), the 50-meter Olympic pool. Aerobic endurance and abdominal strength are vital to success in the long course pool (in short course too [25 yards/meters]), and I’m sure there is no need for me to deliberate on this further. We homo sapiens are bipedal primates, meaning we are used to seeing the world from a higher perspective than other animals—your very good boy/girl yellow lab for example, whom yes, you should give a treat to now--with forelimbs that don’t have to function as arms, per se—views the world from a horizontal perspective, meaning when they swim, they are oriented just as they are when walking. Humans, on the other hand, being placed in a medium (water) where we are horizontal and must therefore keep ourselves at the surface to swim quickly and efficiently is, essentially, weird!
• Mesocycle; General Aerobic: means an emphasis on an athlete’s aerobic capacity. At the start of every season, an athlete needs to build their aerobic base. That doesn’t mean cranking out 10,000 yards per practice; rather, building aerobic capacity to swim for more than 150 yards in one go at a high intensity. In recent years in the coaching community, “aerobic capacity” has taken some harsh criticism, particularly from those who promote Ultra-Short Race Pace training (USRPT) and the “sprint revolution;” however, coaches like Bob Bowman, Gregg Troy, Anthony Nesty, and Jack Bauerle, don’t shy away from old school high-volume training, and their premier athletes include Leon Marchand, Katie Ledecky, Bobby Finke, Josh Liendo, Hali Flickinger, Chase Kalisz, Olivia Smoliga, Jay Literland, and, though retired, Michael Phelps. Good company, in my opinion (Carlson, 2025).
• Microcycle: Catch, Pull, & Body Position: Catch emphasizes the beginning of a swimmer’s stroke—the beginning of the pull, specifically—and how they apply pressure on the water. Pull is the motion that follows as the hand, forearm, and arm move from in front of the swimmer’s head to their hips (or breast/armpits in breaststroke). Body position is a swimmer’s body relative to the surface of the water. A high body position is imperative to fast swimming. For reference, anyone who’s taken a Red Cross lifeguarding class knows that the first signs of a “swimmer in distress” is a vertical body position. It is very difficult to move forward through the water in a vertical or even somewhat-vertical body position.

These training cycles come from the concept of periodization, which is described by DeWeese, Hornsby, Stone, and Stone in the following terms:

“Periodization provides the basic framework in terms of fitness phases and timelines, while programming involves making decisions related to the number of repetitions, sets, intensity of exercise and training, volume, and rate of progression,” (DeWeese, Hornsby, Stone, Stone, 2015).

The above definitions of the macro-, meso-, and microcycle are my own. What follows are the definitions provided by DeWeese, Hornsby, Stone, and Stone:

“Traditional-periodized training can be divided into three stages or levels: the macrocycle (long-length cycle), the mesocycle (middle-length cycle), and the microcycle (short-length cycle, or day-to-day variation). Each macro- and mesocycle generally begins with high-volume, low-intensity training and ends with high-intensity, low-volume training. The macro- and mesocycle can consist of four fitness phases: (a) preparation (general and special), (b) competition, (c) peaking, and (d) transition or active rest. These phases typically have different goals and can require different degrees of variation within the training elements. It should be noted that a mesocycle can also consist of largely one phase (preparation, etc.) depending upon the level of athlete and their needs. Beginners often progress quite well using some variation of traditional programming in which alterations in volume and intensity typically occur more gradually. However, advanced athletes require greater variation in exercise selection, volume and intensity of training compared to beginning athletes to promote continued adaptations to the training stimulus,” (DeWeese, Hornsby, Stone, Stone, 2015).

Had enough of long quotes? Well, prepare for another long quote from Periodization Training for Sports: Third Edition, by Tudor O. Bompa, PhD, and Carlo A. Buzzichelli:

Role of Strength in Water Sports

“For sports performed in or on water—such as swimming, synchronized swimming, water polo, rowing, kayaking, and canoeing—the body or boat moves forward as a result of force. As force is exerted against the water, the water exerts an equal and opposite force, known as drag, on the body or boat. As the boat or the swimmer moves through the water, the drag slows the forward motion or glide. To overcome drag, athletes must produce equal force to maintain speed and superior force to increase speed. The magnitude of the drag acting on a body moving through the water can be computed using the following equation (Hay 1993):

Fd = CdPAV²/2

In this equation, Fd = drag force, Cd = coefficient of drag, P = fluid density, A = frontal area exposed to the flow, and V² = body velocity relative to the water. The coefficients of drag refer to the nature and shape of the body, including its orientation relative to the water flow. Long and slender vessels (such as canoes, kayaks, and racing shells) have a smaller CD if the long axis of the boat is exactly parallel to the water flow. A simplified version of the equation is as follows.

D ~ V²

It means that drag is proportional to the square of velocity. This equation is not only easier to understand but also easier to apply. In water sports, velocity increases when athletes apply force against the water. As force increases, the body moves faster. However, as velocity increases, drag increases proportionally to the square of velocity. Here is an example to demonstrate. Assume that an athlete swims or rows at 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) per second:

D ~ V² = 2² = 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds)

In other words, the athlete pulls with a force of 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) per stroke. To be more competitive, the athlete has to swim or row faster—say, at 3 meters (9.8 feet) per second:

D ~ V² = 3² = 9 kilograms (19.8 pounds)

For an even higher velocity of 4 meters (13 feet) per second, drag is 16 kilograms (35 pounds). In order to pull with increased force, of course, one must increase maximum strength, because a body cannot generate increased velocity without increasing the force per stroke unit. The training implications are obvious: Not only must the athlete increase maximum strength, but also the coach must ensure that the athlete exerts almost the same force on all strokes for the duration of the race, because all water sports have a strong endurance component. This reality means that, as suggested in chapter 14, training must include both a phase addressing maximum strength and a phase addressing adequate muscular endurance,” (Bompa & Buzzichelli, 2015).

The second excerpt is more about strength training than swimming, per se, even if it doesn’t specifically say it except for in the section title. Strength training is extremely important, and we will talk about it soon—as we swimmers affectionally call it, dryland!

Sources

Bompa, T.O., Buzzichelli, C.A. (2015). Periodization Training for Sports: Third Edition. Human Kinetics. ISBN: 978-1-4504-6943-2

Carlson, R. (2025). Summer 2025 Week 1: Technical and Conditioning Focus: March 23 – March 29: Email 1 of 3. Manhattan Marlins. https://www.gomotionapp.com/team/mvmm/controller/cms/admin/index?team=mvmm#/news-admin/current/543999

DeWeese, B.H., Hornsby, G., Stone, M., Stone, M.H. (2015). The training process: Planning for strength–power training in track and field. Part 2: Practical and applied aspects. ScienceDirect. Journal of Sport and Health Science 4 (2015) 318–324.