I'm not much of a stroke swimmer...that is to say my workouts are generally pretty much just various sets of crawl stroke...at which I'm very strong...for longer open water swims. Now and then I'd throw in a set of other strokes just to break up the monotony. I can swim the other strokes good enough...endurance-wise...except for BF. It was, and is, always difficult for me to make it just 50m BF. I'd have to rest at each wall. And it seemed that I couldn't just "slow down" to pace myself. It was like I'd have to swim the BF all-out or drown. But a year or so ago, for some reason, I began ending all my workouts with a 400 IM (scm). Slowly but surely my BF got better. I started to notice that I could actually slow down some. Still, I'd usually have to rest on one wall, or go into the modified BF with a breaststroke kick in the last 50. But finally...yesterday I did the whole 100 using the correct BF kick without resting at the wall, and was able to swim the entire 400 IM without stopping. We won't discuss time.
Dan
The 400 IM is the world's greatest and most fun event with a simple race strategy:
On all strokes, aim to feel like you are negative splitting each 100 - always use the first 50 as an opportunity to 'get into' your stroke and then build the last 50
I saw a quote from an Olympic 200 butterflyer once (can't recall the name, but my recollection is that he competed in the Spitz era) who said that he always wanted the first 100 of his 200 fly to feel like he was 'sleeping' through it. I try to apply that concept in my 400 IM. The quickest road to pain and a bad 400 IM is to blast the fly.
Other than that, just enjoy it. No race comes close to the beauty or high that a well-executed 400 IM can produce.
The 400 IM is the world's greatest and most fun event with a simple race strategy:
On all strokes, aim to feel like you are negative splitting each 100 - always use the first 50 as an opportunity to 'get into' your stroke and then build the last 50
I saw a quote from an Olympic 200 butterflyer once (can't recall the name, but my recollection is that he competed in the Spitz era) who said that he always wanted the first 100 of his 200 fly to feel like he was 'sleeping' through it. I try to apply that concept in my 400 IM. The quickest road to pain and a bad 400 IM is to blast the fly.
Other than that, just enjoy it. No race comes close to the beauty or high that a well-executed 400 IM can produce.
