The final presentation of the FWAC 2018 was with Hungary’s Balazs Virth, the coach of Boglarka Kapas. If you aren’t familiar with Boglarka, she was the youngest Hungarian at the 2008 Olympics at just 15 years old. Eight years later she won Bronze in the 800 Free at the 2016 Olympics. Most recently she won the 200 Fly at 2018 European Championships, stating that, “I love this event because it is so short.”
Balazs Virth was the only coach that dove deeply into their respective physiological training plan. Neither Xu Guoyi nor Zhu Zhigen provided training sets when discussing the training regiments of Ye Shiwen or Sun Yang. Coach Balazs’ very first slide explains how he defines his Energy Zones, or loading specification.
Coach Balazs breaks his energy zones down like this:
A1 = Aerobic
Take your best 200 time, divide by 2. Add 15 seconds.
Kapas: 1:13.5
A2 = Aerobic/Anaerobic Threshold
Take your best 200 time, divide by 2. Add 7-10 seconds.
Kapas: 1:05.5 – 1:08.5
A3 = Anaerobic
Take your best 200 time, divide by 2. Add 4-7 seconds.
Kapas: 1:02.5 – 1:05.5
LE = Lactate Production (25-50-75 meters)
LT = Lactate Tolerance (100-200 meters)
G = MAX with full rest
Everything that Coach Balazs Virth was saying was reminiscent of old school distance training. Boglarka works on all the strokes as well as distance free. If you look close enough, you can see how many meters she is putting in. A few days a week, when she is doing doubles, she is hitting 14,000 meters or thereabouts.
Here are some of the test sets that they do. Interesting enough, Coach Balazs was explaining how some of the more aerobic sets will be scaled back as Boglarka gets older because she will no longer need it. It seems to me that he is incredibly organized, prepared, and is always forward thinking. When your biggest swim meet only comes once every 4 years, you need a detailed plan in place.