I've been focusing on stroke work for the past year or so and I'm hitting on a phase I'm hoping others have hit and have answers to.
My 75-85% efforts are when my stroke is best but 1) It seems to fall apart when I really put the pedal to the metal and 2) If I try to slow down to build endurance, the stroke also does not stay together. If I can't maintain stroke mechanics during peak sprints or cardio/muscular endurance sets would that amount to garbage yardage?
This funky middle ground means I get some decent effort in practice, but it seems too short compared to other swimmers workouts. Without building power or endurance using 'the right stroke' I worry that I'm not really making as good of progress as I can.
Thanks in advance.
I've been focusing on stroke work for the past year or so and I'm hitting on a phase I'm hoping others have hit and have answers to.
My 75-85% efforts are when my stroke is best but 1) It seems to fall apart when I really put the pedal to the metal and 2) If I try to slow down to build endurance, the stroke also does not stay together. If I can't maintain stroke mechanics during peak sprints or cardio/muscular endurance sets would that amount to garbage yardage?
This funky middle ground means I get some decent effort in practice, but it seems too short compared to other swimmers workouts. Without building power or endurance using 'the right stroke' I worry that I'm not really making as good of progress as I can.
Thanks in advance.
You could perhaps try an incremental approach to it.
Let's say you are a 200 swimmer and you swim the 200m free in 2:10. If you were to swim a 200 at 85% effort, you would need to swim a 2:29.5. At 85% effort you say your stroke is at its best. Swim one at 85%, then rest up. Now swim another. This time try and come in a second or two faster than your first time while still maintaining your best stroke.
It doesn't have to be done on the same day. Look at it as a long term project. You will need to time all your efforts. Over a period of months try to reduce your time while maintaining good form.
This way you should slowly acclimatize your muscles and coordination to swimming faster without compromising your form.
The idea of improving in increments is fundamental to my approach to training. Here's another example of how I might use it: if I want to swim a 200 in, say, a 2:08, I would know that I would have to swim each 25 in 16 seconds. Once I could swim a 25 in 16 seconds I would move on to attempting a 50 in 32, then a 100 in 1:04, a 150 in 1:36 and so on. Obviously, this would be over a period of months and my training would include aerobic sets, sprint sets, kicking and stroke work, but at least once a week, I would want to time myself for an all-out effort to see how close I am to achieving my goal.
I've been focusing on stroke work for the past year or so and I'm hitting on a phase I'm hoping others have hit and have answers to.
My 75-85% efforts are when my stroke is best but 1) It seems to fall apart when I really put the pedal to the metal and 2) If I try to slow down to build endurance, the stroke also does not stay together. If I can't maintain stroke mechanics during peak sprints or cardio/muscular endurance sets would that amount to garbage yardage?
This funky middle ground means I get some decent effort in practice, but it seems too short compared to other swimmers workouts. Without building power or endurance using 'the right stroke' I worry that I'm not really making as good of progress as I can.
Thanks in advance.
You could perhaps try an incremental approach to it.
Let's say you are a 200 swimmer and you swim the 200m free in 2:10. If you were to swim a 200 at 85% effort, you would need to swim a 2:29.5. At 85% effort you say your stroke is at its best. Swim one at 85%, then rest up. Now swim another. This time try and come in a second or two faster than your first time while still maintaining your best stroke.
It doesn't have to be done on the same day. Look at it as a long term project. You will need to time all your efforts. Over a period of months try to reduce your time while maintaining good form.
This way you should slowly acclimatize your muscles and coordination to swimming faster without compromising your form.
The idea of improving in increments is fundamental to my approach to training. Here's another example of how I might use it: if I want to swim a 200 in, say, a 2:08, I would know that I would have to swim each 25 in 16 seconds. Once I could swim a 25 in 16 seconds I would move on to attempting a 50 in 32, then a 100 in 1:04, a 150 in 1:36 and so on. Obviously, this would be over a period of months and my training would include aerobic sets, sprint sets, kicking and stroke work, but at least once a week, I would want to time myself for an all-out effort to see how close I am to achieving my goal.
