Like many others, I've made the transition to outdoor LCM swimming for the summer. I love it in many ways. But I have noticed that the "garbage yards" problem creeps in when I swim long course. I work on my stroke, which is good, but my tempo and overall intensity drop. I swim with fitness lap swimmers for the most part, or alone. The other day I swam some 100s alternating between easy and hard, and made some progress on the hard ones. But I notice that I anticipate my pool time less because it feels like I'm mailing it in.
Does anybody else have this problem? If so, do you have suggestions for how to introduce more variation and intensity into long course swimming?
Count strokes, vary the pace, vary your breathing patterns, find markings on the pool bottom where you change pace, etc.
Changes strokes in the middle of the pool.
Get a waterproof MP3 player.
I think debugger means if you train regularly in LCM, when you go back to training SCM or SCY it seems easier. Presumably due to the walls being at every 25.
Exactly what I meant, it's definitely easier swim a meet in SCM or SCY after training in LCM than opposite. IMO if there's no other choice and you have to swim in short course it worth to swim interval sets of non-standard lengths. Let's say you plan to swim at the meet LCM 100m any stroke and train in SCY. Then it worth to swim sets of 150 yards like 10x150 instead of 10x100 - that should compensate the difference in preparation.
PS Sorry for my English - it isn't my mother tongue.
It just takes time to get used to LCM. When you train for a long time in LCM you need to concentrate more on turns and breakouts but in general you will feel its much easier to swim later in SCM or SCY.
haha yeah I sometimes feel like switching strokes in the middle of the pool out of boredom. The other day I caught myself thinking about data structures, I was so bored.
But I like the idea of counting strokes and working on DPS. Stroke drills will certainly be more effective.
I find it easier to train full time in SCY and on occasion compete in LCM, rather than training all the time in LCM. I just think of the 100 as a "big 50", and the 200 is a "big 100". Training LCM I just find myself out there in la-la land doing "garbage yardage".
I never really enjoyed it that much when I was younger. The intervals never made since because my mind was stuck in SCY, and I had no sense of pace as well. The weather was always a factor, and swimming in a 10 lane 50 meter pool with no lanelines was quite rough, more like swimming OW, which I also don't care for.
