200 Butterfly Strategy advice?

Finally a topic I know something about ! The dreaded 200 fly. By the way, I swam my last 200 fly at s/c Nationals last spring. At least, the last one in this galaxy and this lifetime. I say this to underscore that I will tell you the truth. 200 fly races are punishment for the unwary that have decided to try the finest stroke in swimming at an un-natural distance. O.K., enough editorializing; here's the skinny. First consideration - level of fitness and age. When I was 16 and in awesome shape, I swam it any darn way I wanted to. Totally fearless, since I knew I could always finish with style. That changes with advancing age and the sometimes spotty training regimens of adulthood. So-let's assume that you have a nagging distrust of that final 50 due to age or incomplete training. Fly requires a horizontal body position. Once that is lost, you are swimming up-hill. Gravity is a formidable enemy. Through the natural arrangement of our organs, the heart and lungs are located closer to the shoulder girdle and arms than the legs. It should come as no surprise that the first things to tire are the quads. This results in a dropping of the hips and tremendous extra pressure on the arms, shoulders and legs as well. Gravity always wins. Once that happens and you start swimming more vertically, all is lost. This is no fun, honestly, no fun at all. How to combat this ? Simple-save your legs for the end, when you will really need them. You must learn to kick what I call " fast and easy ". No-not a contradiction; fast is the turnover rate, easy is the amount of muscle power applied. A 200 fly is not normally swum with a negative split, but you can approach that goal by saving your legs on the first 100. Start to build the kick on the 3rd 50 and kick your brains out going home. Works for me......... wrong ! Worked for me. Stroke rate, breathing patterns, style - these are different from 50 to 100 to 200....But now I begin to write a book, rather than a reply ! Truly I do wish you luck and good times. Just don't look for me in your 200 heat. ;) Bert

I agree, Bert. Butterfly rules, but the 200 is scary. I welcome this discussion because the 200 fly just might be the one event I can become proficient at. I did 6X50 fly on :50 this morning and thought I would quit and switch to free for the last two, but I finished and despite feeling sick, also felt very good that I completed that set. I've heard that what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, but I don't know. Any more advice on this subject will be helpful. I entered the St. Pat's meet in Atlanta, but didn't sign up for Saturday events that included the 200 cause I just didn't feel confident yet. And Bert, you were right about the quads giving out. On the 6 50's this morning mine were aching on the last one like I haven't felt before.

oh god, I am not the one to respond, but I will anyway. Take it as a cautionary tale. Last December I swam a 200 SCM fly. I went out in a 1:05 and came back in a 1:22 . I remember the guy next to me pass me on the last length like I was standing still. So all I seem to know about that event is how much it hurts, and how I can't seem to pace it. That time I swam it above I tried to have long underwater pushoffs from the wall with lots of kick. The justification was that what quits on me is the arms. They just shut down and won't go around. I was hoping that by minimising their use things would be better at the end, but it did not work. Maybe the (opposite) advice of Bert is better. What worked for me when I had lots of time in the water was training almost totally in fly. When others did free, I did the sets in fly. I can't do that anymore . . . Best of luck. I think it is the true 'tough guy' event, despite what the breastrokers and backstrokers and 1650 freestylers say.

I don't know how many 200 fly races I have swum in my life, but I think it would be over 100, including age group and USMS. I even finished all but one of them legally (that one is another story). Here is my advice... 1. Train a lot of legal fly. Do legal, two armed fly, and legal turns. Or if you are not going to do it legal, do it very illegal so you don't confuse yourself. (I need to take this advice). There is a lot of room for drills, but differentiate between the drills and whole stroke. 2. Train shorter distances fly until you can do longer distances. In college I would do lots of 200 flys in practice because I could. Now I don't think its that important to do 200's in practice, but 100's should be in you training mix. An occasional 200 in training is important to let you know you will make it in a race. 3. As for pacing, most people die in the 200 fly. Somehow you have to find out how you can do the first 100 easy and quick without expending too much energy. I find that I tend to over-exert in the first 100. You may find that going "easy" for the first 100 may only be a second slower, and that energy you save may make your second 100 much faster. This you will need to experiment to figure out. 4. The second half of the race depends on what kind of shape you are in. Try to keep your stroke together on the third 50, and then give it all youve got on the last 50. Steve

Jim, Thanks for posing this question. We're getting a lot of good advice here and I'm actually getting psyched up to attempt another 200 sometime soon, maybe even in practice. I used to watch my daughter swim the 200 meter fly and her stroke was just as pretty at the finish as the beginning, but it's much more relevent to hear from those closer to my age relate their experiences. Thank you, all.

Take the first hundred easy and really focus on breathing - full exhalations underwater, suck in all you can above water. In a two hundred Fly, the name of the game is staving off Oxygen deprevation. Many butterfliers may not realize how small the amounts of air they get while swimming. Try focusing on breathing in practice, you will be amazed. Chris

I aspire to be a 200 flyer. My goal is to learn the stroke well enough that I can go 200 yards without needing the EMTs to get me out of the water at the end. The cold reality is that I rarely break 3:00, and I have to ruthlessly hold myself back the 1st half of the race to finish at all. That is all a long winded way of saying I am a mere mortal who cannot rely on genetics or killer conditioning to power through a 200; I have to rely on cunning and guile to fool my body into completing a 200. 1st concept: Oxygen Management I have finished a 200 fly breathing every other stroke, and oxygen debt was the key limiting factor. But, then I watched carefully the older (60+) swimmers who did the 200 fly at Nationals. Every one of them was breathing more often than that. I think one key to the 200 may be finding a way to keep your hips up and your stroke mechanics together while breathing more often than every other stroke. In a similar vein, a teammate recommended to me long, slow turns at every wall. (She said people have accused her of taking a cigarette break on her turns in the 200.) It was a life saver for me. Take a good, legal two hand touch, then grab the gutter (even if it is several inches higher that the water level), and take two full breaths while you slowly swing your legs under you towards the wall. Will you lose a few tenths at each turn? Sure, but is this a sprint, or are you trying to hang onto the race? 2nd concept: Short Axis Pulse (SAP) Emmett Hines has written an excellent article about using an SAP to generate propulsion in the fly. (You can find it at the H2Ouston Swims web site, in the articles tab, under the title "Slip Slid'n' Away") I am currently trying to rebuild my fly around an SAP technique using Total Immersion concepts. I have not tried it out yet in competition, but I am able to go much longer fly distances in practice with less strain than before. My goal is to build a fly that I could do continuously without having to stop, much in the same way most USMS swimmers can do freestyle. 3rd concept: How Much Fly in Workout Before swimming my most successful 200 fly in competition, I did build myself up for it doing 200 fly in practice. (First I would do a 200 straight through, then a series of broken 200's in the following sequence: 125-75, 100-50-50, 50-50-50-25-25.) Obviously, there was some conditioning going on there, but I was focusing on getting myself to throttle down, as it were, to a 200 pace, and building my confidence in my ability to go 200. After that, I not only expected to finish the 200, I expected it would not be much harder than a 200 free. Well, I did finish, but the piano still landed on my back the last 50. Doing significant fly distance in practice is one school of thought. Another school of thought is doing less fly in workout, but doing it all very well. This is the TI argument that doing too much "butter-struggle" only trains you to struggle through fly in your races. Thus, the theory holds that you should only do as much fly as you can do well so you only practice good mechanics. Get your conditioning from other sets in the workout. I am tending to follow the latter theory lately. These are all some random thoughts. If you are in your 20's, and you can power through a 200 fly, and you are trying to formulate a pacing strategy not much different from your 200 free strategy...Good Luck me boy. You're a better swimmer than I, and you need no advice from me. But, if like me merely finishing a 200 fly is not a trivial exercise, I hope I have given you some food for thought. Matt

Since I have only recently returned to the pool, I cannot even begin to think about swimming the 200 Butterfly. I am still trying to persuade myself to swim the 100 next month. But, I did swim the 200 Fly many times as a youth swimmer. I think that keeping your body vertical is definitely a key to being able to finish the last 50. The reason that most people end up swimming 'standing up' in a 200 Butterfly is exhaustion as mentioned earlier. I think that the easiest way to manitain your form during the second 100 is to breathe every other stroke at a minimum. By keeping your head down on every other stroke, it is easier to keep your hips up and not drag your legs deeper under the surface. It may take parctice to be able to accomplish this feat, but it definitely makes a diferrence on the last 50.

I think I understand. Breath lots the first 100, but breath every other stroke (or less often) for the second 100. Yeah, right, in my dreams.

The last time I watched, Tom Dolan breathed every stroke in the fly in his 400 IM. Of course, his hips didn't sink one bit.