Hi everybody,
I'm sort of new to swimming (joined a local club about a year and a half ago) and I applied my high school varsity last week. The team's head coach said that if I'm to join the team next season, I have to swim 100m br in less than 1:22m.
I know this isn't too fast, but I have no experience swimming 100m br. My PB for 50m br is 37.11 but that was a long time ago and I'm sure I can swim at least one second faster than that.
So now I have less than two months to become a 100m breaststroker and I'm looking for tips, ideas, drills and workouts to help me swim under 1:20 or at least 1:22.
I'd like to start with splits. What split-technique suits what swimmer?
I thought since I'm more familiar with the 50m br I'd rather try to swim the first length faster (lets say 39 seconds) which will allow me a relatively slower second length (ca.43 seconds), mostly because I'm afraid it'll be harder for me to speed up after 75-80m than to maintain a sub 43s tempo.
What are your beliefs regarding this?
Thanks very much!
Gal
I'm not much of a breaststroker but I do have to do it for an IM. When planning for a race in general I'll:
Do some time trials to get an idea of where I'm at. As mentioned above, you may swim slower in practice than in a meet. I definitely swim slower, as much as 6 seconds on a 100yd free. But I think it'd be very prudent to time yourself (even from a push) to have the best idea of where you're at time-wise, and also to figure out what your best pace/strategy would be for the 100.
One thing that has helped my breaststroke has been learning to do pistols, or basically one-leg squats. If you can do these then you've got some serious quad/ham and qlute strength, which helps with the start and turns, and maybe more on the breaststroke kick than the other 3 kicks. Not sure how to explain it (and maybe it's psychological), but after beginning these I felt more power or snap in my kick. You can work up to doing pistols by beginning one-leg squats with one leg resting on a bench or chair as you develop the coordination/balance/strength. You can do a youtube search to find what the exercise looks like.
Good luck:banana:
I'm not much of a breaststroker but I do have to do it for an IM. When planning for a race in general I'll:
Do some time trials to get an idea of where I'm at. As mentioned above, you may swim slower in practice than in a meet. I definitely swim slower, as much as 6 seconds on a 100yd free. But I think it'd be very prudent to time yourself (even from a push) to have the best idea of where you're at time-wise, and also to figure out what your best pace/strategy would be for the 100.
One thing that has helped my breaststroke has been learning to do pistols, or basically one-leg squats. If you can do these then you've got some serious quad/ham and qlute strength, which helps with the start and turns, and maybe more on the breaststroke kick than the other 3 kicks. Not sure how to explain it (and maybe it's psychological), but after beginning these I felt more power or snap in my kick. You can work up to doing pistols by beginning one-leg squats with one leg resting on a bench or chair as you develop the coordination/balance/strength. You can do a youtube search to find what the exercise looks like.
Good luck:banana:
