When Coach Bob Young took over the Hudson Area Swimming Association (HASA) swim program in Hudson, Wisconsin in 2012, his approach was to help transition a somewhat recreational team into a competitive swim club. His goal was to instill a unique training program that could accommodate both his advanced swimmers, as well as those still in the learning phase of the sport, while improving the club’s overall performance in local, regional and national competitions.
Enter Ultra Short Race Pace Training (USRPT). Coach Young had begun hearing about the USRPT method and had the pleasure of the meeting Michael Andrew’s family at a meet in 2013.  He continued researching the ins and outs of the training program and decided, with athlete and parental support, to begin USRPT implementation with select segments of the HASA club in 2014.
What started as a trial period for one swimmer turned into applying the USRPT program to five more swimmers, resulting in all six kids dropping time at their first meet post-trying out this new approach. Â The success continued with the club seeing ten athletes qualify for zones in the summer of 2014, the most the club had ever had at one time. As a team, HASA also went on to win Regionals and Age Group States in the form of placing first in the A division in both for the 2015 season.
How has applying USRPT principles helped the HASA team achieve these feats?  Coach Young attributes his club’s recent success to the sheer confidence kids take on after racing in practice each and every day, one of the cornerstones of the USRPT program.  The athletes have a good feeling for how their races are going to turn out at meets, based on the times they’ve been able to hit in the pool with their specific events’ practice sets.
Coach Young also says his kids are “able to make stroke corrections faster because the kids are paying attention in practice.”  He says “Kids are dialed in to the practice and trust their training.  Competition anxiety has gone down and kids don’t agonize over race strategy any more because, through their practice sets, they can know what their race’s results will be.”
Do you and your club want to learn more about Ultra Short Race Pace Training (USRPT) and how the program could potentially work with your athletes? Â
HASA Swim Club proudly presents Peter Andrew and young swimming phenom Michael Andrew, USRPT’s foremost practitioners, at a clinic on Sunday, September 13th at Hudson High School in Hudson, Wisconsin. Swimmers will have the opportunity to implement technique principles learned in the pool, experience a USRPT set, race Michael Andrew and ask questions.  The Clinic will end with an autograph and photograph session and coaches are welcome to attend.
EVENT INFO
Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015 from 12pm – 5pm
$99 for Athletes (Age 10 & Up), $40 for Coaches
Hudson Middle School, 1300 Carmichael Rd, Hudson, WI
Online Registration Only: http://usrpt.eventbrite.com
Contact: Tina Andrew 785-760-0601
Email: [email protected]
Registration Deadline August 31st, 2015
About Michael Andrew
Michael Andrew is on a rapid rise to the national swimming scene and then possibly the world stage. He has broken 76 National Age Group records in all strokes, long course meters and short course yards. His success gets plenty of attention, but he keeps it all in check and focused on his goals. “My swimming doesn’t define me,” he said. He credits his parents for taking the pressure off, which he readily admits he applies himself.
See Team Andrew’s USRPT HQ here.Â
Follow Michael Andrew on Instagram here.
Follow Michael Andrew on Twitter here.
About BREAKOUT Swim Clinic Founder Josh Davis
Josh Davis was the first American to go 1:46 in the 200m free at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He just recently broke his own Masters American Record in the 40-45 age group going :20.6 He has been leading the Mutual Of Omaha BREAKout! Swim Clinic Tour for 8 years to challenge the next generation of swimmers to work harder, swim smarter and have more fun. Josh is a proud 2 breather and he will race anybody, anytime, anyplace.
Follow Josh Davis on Twitter here.
Fan the Mutual of Omaha BREAKOUT Swim Clinic on Facebook here.
Mutual of Omaha BREAKOUT Swim Clinic HQ.
Become the Ultimate Swimmer. See here.
Swimming News is courtesy of Mutual of Omaha BREAKOUT Swim Clinic, a SwimSwam partner.
The article states that the team transitioned from a rec team to a competitive team. Is USRPT responsible for their success, or the team focus on competition? Would they have done as well under a traditional swim program? Since the focus was changed, how many kids transferred onto the team? They had 3 kids swim individual events at sectionals this year, and 2 last year, although 2 were new this year so that’s a step in the right direction. Once again, is team focus or USRPT responsible?
Maybe form a swimmers Union. Fina was able to accumulate $100 million in cash “profit” over the last several years And we had to twist their arm to bump up the world prize money. Look at the pro sports model….they have target percentages for how much the teams can pay the athletes each year. Fina doesn’t need to accumulate $1 more. Pay it to the swimmers.
This is the reason that I wish USA swimming could make major changes to make swimming a pro league and to build up market by attracting audience so that those athletes could be paid what they deserve.
“I wish there was more money for these athletes to continue to train for Rio and beyond”
“Ugh, this story was really an AD? Boo-hooh, bad form”
It’s one or the other folks… either we kick them to the curb after college, or we support (or at least tolerate) them marketing themselves to keep the money coming in.
It’s been a while since we haven’t debated about USRPT. 🙂
Watching these USRPT arguments play out reminds me of a book I read by a neuroscientist called “On Being Certain: Believing you are right even when you aren’t.” In part of this book, it explains an experiment in which hardcore democrats and republicans where hooked up to mri’s and brain scanning devices and were presented unfavorable and negative information about their favorite candidate. When giving this information, they found that the logic and reasoning centers of the brain were literally inactive. Since a lot of people have strong feelings one way or the other about USRPT, this is why these arguments never get anywhere. I don’t like how the validity of someone’s argument depends on their status or how highly… Read more »
Are there examples of someone who swam real fast in practice, but never swam real fast in a meet? I mean, if you make training fast a habit, its going to happen. There was a great article on SW about how the content of the practices is less important than how they are executed, and I tend to agree. A happy, confident, motivated swimmer who trains well is going to be more likely to perform well.
Michael is coached 1 on 1 with pool at his house…. how many kids do truly experience this kind of coaching ??? Any talented kid with OK coach would do very well in this situation
This allowed Andrews to develop fast swimming earlier , he was basically groomed day in and day out with 100 % of his dad’s attention and unlimited workout time …. Come on and think … I feel I could make any semi talented swimmer great in same scenario
Now I want to see his dad make someone else good the regular way, that every other coach has to do it
Swimbot 300 – While it was before maybe he was doing pure, ultra-scientific USRPT, Peter Andrew was the coach of the Aberdeen Aquaholics, where he was doing something rather similar conceptually and coached several state champions in South Dakota: http://articles.aberdeennews.com/2009-08-11/news/26376683_1_state-champions-michael-andrew-zone-championships
It’s been a while since we spoke about it, but I remember the first time I interviewed Peter, he related that he had sort of come into USRPT a little by accident – he had a big group of swimmers, and the majority of their practices were just massive sprint relays.
It’s not enough of a sample size to prove or disprove any training system, however I just wanted to make sure that you… Read more »
So go ahead and do it if it’s so easy. We’ll be here waiting.
No need to wait.Several kids in top 10 US age group already , not that hard to train them to that level in right circumstances… but still I do not have access to my own personal swimming pool and its so “sad”, that parents of my swimmers WILL NOT agree to home school all of my swimmers and are not willing to do 2 workouts a day at 10 years old … no matter how much I ask and ask ^_^ only if …