You will certainly be wondering what these letters stand for, as I did when I first came across this new training theory. USRPT is the acronym for “Ultra Short Race Pace Training”.
You are probably still turning up your nose, because this has not made you any less sceptical about this new theory I am about to present.
But let’s begin by taking a look back into the past…. USRPT was first mentioned over half a century ago in Australia. That was back in the 1960s and Professor Brent Rushall, who was young back then, began experimenting with what was then a revolutionary method on a number of athletes. The revolutionary thing about Rushall’s approach was to base training around swimming technique and performance quality. Dr Rushall’s ideas reached as far as the USA, so he moved to the States and that is where this interesting theory really took off.
USRPT is, first and foremost, a system focusing on technique, which draws on a special training method to really focus on learning the technique used for racing. The second priority is to make trainers good teachers, so that they can help swimmers change their racing technique. Thirdly, bearing in mind that psychology determines results, this training system tends to emphasise this aspect.
Here is…
