Hello!
I´m from Germany 25 years old and I hope my english is understandable... :)
I´m swimming for 3 years now, and I really love it and want to be as good as i can!
For the last year i started practicing very hard. 5-7 times a week, but i have the problem that i dont see any improvements in the 50m of any stroke...
I dont have a Trainer, and there are no forums like this in german where i could ask someone. at the moment i´m swimming with someone i know from university (but he is a much better swimmer than me, 25.2s on 50m) but he doesnt know how to help either, hes just telling me to keep training^^ thats what i will do anyway!!
Maybe someone has experienced a similiar problem and knows how to fix it. i will try to explain where the problems in my swimming skills are...
when i started swimming and learned the techniques by myself, watchning youtube videos and reading a lot of books about swimming i have been improving very fast until i swim ~30s on 50m short course. that was about 1,5years after i started. about half a year later i was down to 28.8s on 50m short course, but from this point on wasnt improving anymore. that 28.8 is still my best time...
last weekend i swam 30.1 on 50m long course. i dont understand it because i put so much effort in my swimming training, and i got better i.e. in holding good times in intervalls, or in 100m and 200m and longer distances. but no improvement in 50m. i believe i´m naturally a sprinter, i always was, in evry sport i did, canoeing, and bicycling which i first did on the street but then changed to velodrome. still i love swimming more than any other sport i did.
that 30.1 makes me kind of upset... so that i want to train even harder >.
My feeling is you've probably reached the limit of your speed with your current swimming technique. Your kick seems like an obvious problem area. Keep working on it. How is your ankle flexibility? Good kicker tend to have very flexible ankles. For your pull are you getting into a high elbow position as early as possible? Fast swimmers get their forearm into a nearly vertical (pointing down at the pool bottom) position early in the stroke to maximize propulsion. How about your starts and your turns?
I think it would be worthwhile for you to find a coach/trainer who could look at your strokes and point you in the right direction. Very often what you think you're doing in the water and what you are really doing are not the same at all!
My feeling is you've probably reached the limit of your speed with your current swimming technique. Your kick seems like an obvious problem area. Keep working on it. How is your ankle flexibility? Good kicker tend to have very flexible ankles. For your pull are you getting into a high elbow position as early as possible? Fast swimmers get their forearm into a nearly vertical (pointing down at the pool bottom) position early in the stroke to maximize propulsion. How about your starts and your turns?
I think it would be worthwhile for you to find a coach/trainer who could look at your strokes and point you in the right direction. Very often what you think you're doing in the water and what you are really doing are not the same at all!
Excellent advice, those were many of the areas I had to work to progress.
As a beginner sprinter I quickly improved then got stuck at 30 sec LCM 50fr too. But I stayed stuck there for over 2 years.
I had to reevaluate everything to find exactly what was holding me back. It was the start, streamline, breakout, stroke efficincy, body position, rhythm and flutter kick - you name it, just about everything. The only thing I had in my favor was strength. Now I am 2 years older, lighter, not as strong - but was able to breakthrough to 28.34 LCM.
I am also trying to make it into the 27's this summer and now flutter kick 50 LCM in 46 seconds. If I can get that down to 41-42 in a few months, I will be well prepared (mentally) to go 27's. Back when I was stuck at 30 -31 I couldn't go under 1:00 flutter kick.
I am also trying to make it into the 27's this summer and now flutter kick 50 LCM in 46 seconds. If I can get that down to 41-42 in a few months, I will be well prepared (mentally) to go 27's. Back when I was stuck at 30 -31 I couldn't go under 1:00 flutter kick.
Wow, that's amazing progress!
A good tool to use is underwater video. You can review and correct on the fly , or even post here (as I have done through the years) for excellent feedback. Video can expose whatever areas are holding you back. Camera's are getting cheaper too, I just bought a new one with 12 megapixels, good for 3M deep for $49.
Thank you both for your fast answers! Yeah i think i will now focus more on my technique, and especially on the things you said: stroke efficiency, body position and rythm, and of course on the flutter kick. I cant go under 1:00 on LC50M too, so that will also be a problem. but i was also swimming as fast as now when i swam 1:20 flutter kick on short course. i think i maybe worked too much on my pull for the time i swim. too much meters with a pullbuoy, that could be the problem why my improvement in flutter kick now isnt paying off?
i think maybe i shouldnt use the pullbuoy until i became faster... and i think i will try to change my training to shorter intervalls, so i can focus more on the technique. i think strength is not my problem, when i started swimming i became strong very fast in my upper body again. i think because of my canoeing background. (although i had a break from sport for 6 years, i also lost about 22lbs)
ankle flexibility is also something i am currently working on using some exercises i saw on "the race club" site.
i will try to get myself filmed at saturday for the first time when im swimming a 50m freestyle and upload it on youtube and post a link inthis thread. i just read a lot of threads here, and i think this might rly help me improving and maybe im going to see my mistakes when i made a video :)
on the whole thing i will now focus on technique more than power and endurance
btw i think ur 46s on 50LCM for the flutterkick are amazing!^^
i think i maybe worked too much on my pull for the time i swim. too much meters with a pullbuoy
I agree with this. A pull buoy can become a "crutch." Not sure if you understand this English idiom, but I mean you are a poor kicker so you are making up for it by using a pull buoy, when really you should be kicking more because that is your weakness. Does that make sense?
You are training like a middle distance swimmer.If you want to be a sprinter you need to sprint. 25s on the min or even more rest or12.5s on the 30 sec would be better. You need race pace work.See the HIT site I mentioned earlier,especially go back into the archives to see some of Leslie's workouts.
You are training like a middle distance swimmer.If you want to be a sprinter you need to sprint. 25s on the min or even more rest or12.5s on the 30 sec would be better. You need race pace work.See the HIT site I mentioned earlier,especially go back into the archives to see some of Leslie's workouts.
Agree. Personally, I do AFAP 15s on 1:00, AFAP 25s on 3:00, and AFAP 50s on 5:00 (both swim and kicks with recovery swimming in-between). When I was training for long course Zones last year (where I set a world and national record in the 50s), that's all I did in my training. AFAPs = both swim & kick.
Specialize and train like a sprinter!
Yes thats making a lot of sense. I think i knew it... thats why i started practicing the kick for the last year, but i need to kick much more, and leave my pullbuoy at home. Because for example when i was training alone, i sometimes just grabbed my pullbuoy when i was tired, so it really was a "crutch" for me.
Yes thats making a lot of sense. I think i knew it... thats why i started practicing the kick for the last year, but i need to kick much more, and leave my pullbuoy at home. Because for example when i was training alone, i sometimes just grabbed my pullbuoy when i was tired, so it really was a "crutch" for me.
You don't really state what kind of training you are doing, but as well as agreeing that technique is probably the issue, it may be that you are not training to swim fast, rather swimming for endurance...?
