USRPT: How This ‘Unconventional’ Training Works
Every athlete trains differently, and no one training regimen is the same for every athlete. This fact is especially true in the world of swimming. Over the course of the swimming’s history, training has evolved through advancements in technology and approach. Over time, different kicks and breathing patterns have been implemented, along with the introductions of advancements such as flip turns. The sport is continuously moving forward.
In this current era, many training approaches have similarities. And then there is USRPT, a uniquely different approach to training.
What is USRPT?
Created by Dr. Brent Rushall, Ultra Short Race Pace training or USRPT as it is often called, is a type of training in which athletes are continuously trying to reach another level and break through an unfamiliar threshold. According to the official Ultra Short Race Pace Training Website: “USRPT refers to the brief and strictly monitored work and rest intervals that swimmers are required to hold.” In USRPT, swimmers hold a certain time corresponding to the event in the set they are going to swim.
An example of an Ultra Short Race Pace Training set, according to USRPT.com, would be a set of 30 x 25s with a target time of 12.5 on a 30 second interval. This set is not designed for the swimmer to complete all 30 repetitions. After the body adjusts to the set (about six repetitions), if the swimmer swims 13.0 seconds on a repetition, it is considered a failure. The athlete then skips the following two 25s and rejoins the set until they fail. (back-to-back failures or three failures total).
What Makes USRPT Different?
In USRPT, everything is based upon personal times, unlike many traditional ways of training. Everything done in USRPT has a science behind it and is ultimately based upon the swimmer.
Ultra Short Race Training is unconventional in many ways. When training USRPT, swimmers have to be honest with themselves unlike in traditional training, where they may be able to back off. USRPT does not allow this. Backing down results in the miss of a repeat, and the goal of USRPT is to go until swimmers have nothing left, and when they back off, they are jeopardizing their training.
It is easy to fall into the temptation to sit out, but the overarching goal of USRPT is to push swimmers to that next level. It is a level that is not often seen in traditional training. For decades it was thought that the more yardage swimmers put in, the better swimmer they will be. USRPT goes against that thought.
Why USRPT?
USRPT is not a new way of training. It was first written about in the early 1970s by Dr. Rushall, but it has only been popularly utilized by athletes for just over a decade. More, not many people in the swim community believe in this way of training. Many doubt this training for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest reason being the failure to completely and fully understand what USRPT is and how it works.
USRPT may not work for every swimmer, but there is one swimmer competing on the national and world stage that has shown the USRPT philosophy and training program works for them. This swimmer is Michael Andrew.
Andrew has come under a lot of controversy in the swim community for training USRPT. Even though many criticize his training style, it’s hard to say that it doesn’t work. He represented the United States at the Tokyo Olympics in three individual events, and won a gold medal in the 400 medley relay. Peter Andrew, Michael’s coach and dad, said they choose to train USRPT because, “it’s about specificity. To train something unspecific, then except to do something specific in a race, doesn’t make sense.”
What Peter Andrew said is at the core of what USRPT is. In swimming, everything has a purpose, so why not hone in on those specific elements, and train them to almost perfection, so that swimmers can reach their full potential.
Conclusion
USRPT is not the training type for every swimmer, but that same argument applies to traditional training. There is no doubt that USRPT is different from any other type of training being used in the world today. As the sport continues to evolve, who knows how this may continue to change. Soon, more teams might choose to adopt this “unconventional” training style.
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
30.69……
Shouldn’t works be the word in quotations there?
I don’t think it worked for Tokyo. If it had he should of won the 200 IM…He won gold in the relay with a good breast swim, but had three outstanding other people on the relay as well. I am glad he got to win. I think a combination of training techniques is the best way to go.
so there’s a point in distance where usrpt no long adequately prepares you for a race, right now it looks like that point is at the 200 distance but andrews has excelled in the 50’s and 100’s of any stroke. who knows what other athletes can achieve with usrpt because the other factor is his keto diet…
Why people have to always think they can judge an entire training methodology by the result in one single meet? So the “traditional” training method never fails? Don’t you see that swimming performance is affected by dozens of factors besides training methodology? Is USRPT perfect? Certainly not, but you can’t say it by the result of a single meet and a single swimmer.
I totally agree
It’s like the Black Hole Set I used to have my older swimmers do.
Interval starts at 1:30, distance starts at 100. Interval decreases by 0:02 each rep. If you miss an interval you drop a 25 and keep going.
Andrew peaked at trials. I believe he was doubting he could manage the team if he didn’t peak at trials, so he kinda took the risk. It is hard to peak a second time when the Olympics are so close and Andrew isn’t a kid anymore to recover overnight. Still, his last leg sucks.. if he can break the WR with that last leg I bet everyone would be like.. okay.. now we recognize senpai Andrew
Finish a 200 and get back to us….:
Have a teammate and get to us?
Envy is really a sh1t
I am 85 and have been using a modified USRPT since Brent Rushall showed me how about 10 years ago when he was in Sydney. 17 World records since then so I am an advocate. The most important factor for me is that I have no desire to crank out miles in the pool. For older swimmers, it is a boon to go home after 1.5km and some race pace activity and still feel fine the day after. That keeps body and mind fresh – as fresh as 85 is, anyway.
Used USRPT with my team. After a season I am a “both and” believer. Both tradition and USRPT. I found it very difficult to use with a team as it is very individualized. But that is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that some swimmers will do it how it is supposed to be done others are lazy! They will stop and go to cool down before they should. I found the solution to be to dictate the number of reps in a set to insure they do them. You just need to carefully monitor the times. Those that do it correctly will drop time quite quickly. Just don’t expect a large taper drop.
The USRPT Learning community is on discord
https://discord.gg/MVdYvvFZam