Here is an article about ultra-short interval training, using intervals of less than 10-15 seconds for swimming sprint training: http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/bullets/ultra28.htm
Many people think of short intervals as producing lactic acid and see longer training as producing less lactate in the muscles. However, if the intervals are very short- less than 10 or 15 seconds, the body doesn't produce much lactate. It's longer intervals of 1-3 minutes where the body produces a great deal of lactate.
So, you can train fast, at or faster than race pace for 10-15 seconds with little lactate production. If you do a short rest and repeat many times, you can get in a lot of specific training without being exhausted, as you would if you were doing longer intervals of 1-3 minutes length.
Specificity is an important training principle. Your training should be at or near race pace most of the time for it to be effective.
However, in our sport, doing very short training is sometimes difficult because you want to do gate sequences, and anything less than 10-15 seconds is about 2 or 3 gates. We often do this type of work in the winter in the pool, or on easy whitewater gate sequences.
You can do this as an entire workout, doing lots and lots of short courses, or just do 10 or 12 intervals at the beginning of a workout. Speed training should not be done at the end of a workout when you are exhausted, but at the beginning of a workout when you are fresh. Here is the link to the article:
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