Hang in there. It gets better if you work at it a little each day. Unfortunately, many Masters coaches don't give much butterfly work because the swimmers all whine about it. If you were a butterflyer before, the feeling will come back. If you hated Butterfly before, that won't change, either.
Managed to struggle my way through a 200 Butterfly, and 400 IM yesterday at the Pierce College swim meet, without getting DQ'd. I decided to do more Butterfly work in my daily workouts. Hang in there and practice, practice, practice.
My Freestyle has been coming along OK so I tried a 200 Fly in a meet last October. BIG mistake.
When younger, I could survive a 200 Fly just fine if I was in good Freestyle shape. That has apparently changed at some point in the last 29 years. I was pleased tonight to complete 3 complete 100s of fly in practice. They were not consecutive.
What do you guys do for FLY workouts? Just swim fly in 25/50/75/100y increments? I'm just needing to survive 25y for the 100IM... I just don't want to be so gassed that it kills my other strokes.
I also practice fly mostly for 100 IMs.
I like to do broken 200s fast, resting when my stroke starts to fall apart. Once or twice a week I also swim a few IMs a day. On my sprint day, I do 6 25 flys as 25fly/25 recovery free on a relatively long interval (currently 1:30).
I have recently added fly with fins, and I do some fly kicking for 25 or 50s (with and without fins).
What do you guys do for FLY workouts? Just swim fly in 25/50/75/100y increments? I'm just needing to survive 25y for the 100IM... I just don't want to be so gassed that it kills my other strokes.If your goal is 25 fly in an IM, then you need to focus on technique instead of a fly workout. 10 or 20 100 fly’s will be somewhat counterproductive, if you can’t hold your sprint stroke together.
For fly in a 100 IM, you should work on your start and breakout. A 12-15 yard start/breakout leaves about 4 strokes of actual swimming. Then work with your coach to get these 4 strokes as fast and efficient as possible.
What do you guys do for FLY workouts? Just swim fly in 25/50/75/100y increments? I'm just needing to survive 25y for the 100IM... I just don't want to be so gassed that it kills my other strokes.
Well I did some 25's yesterday and didn't feel as bad. Only did 3x25. Felt decent. Atleast I was under 20 secs! That was from push off. If I get in tonight I'll increase it to 100-150 total. Its just such a different motion compared to any other stroke.
I swim once a week and do a 2 hour set on saturday lunchtime , and in that particular session our lane can be described as a bunch of middle aged female fatties .. with the odd chap thrown in. The next lane to us was always whizzing past. Two years ago we decided to attack fly as a giggle - I can still remember the first set we had- 15 x 25m fly with fins, all done very slowly with big gaps. My heartrate was still elevated at 10pm that night and I was dozing from early evening. We built up gradually and all of us middle aged female fatties can now do 30x 25m without fins. AND now the coach has a lovely problem - we have all improved our fitness so much as a result of the fly that we are swimming on the same times as the next lane up on all strokes ! he is now threatening to merge us into one- to the chagrin of the other lane
so please persevere - we started off hanging off the end of the pool gasping and thinking we would have heart attacks after a couple of 25s with fins and have now improved our fly and our fitness in ways we didnt think possible ......
You won't be DQ'ed, practice and practice to have nothing to worry about
Control your adrenalin rush on that first 25, and take it out real easy breathing as much as you efficiently can. Use your first IM in decades as a learning experience on the conservative side, leaving you with a positive drive for next time So you come back to it faster for each meet.
My first 1IM was last December. I just wore my warm-up jammer and didn't even use the block. Wanted to calm the nerves and run it for fun leaving room for improvement and a taste for it next time.
I recall the backstroke is the real beast
I completed a set last night of 25's totalling 150y and felt great after. I'm sure I look foolish but as long as I'm hitting easily under 20 with no breakout I'm feeling good. I'm just worried I'll get disqualified.
