I'm 35 years old 175cm 64kg male self taught swimmer starting from zero 5 years ago. I swam laps for a while, but soon developed interest and passion in swimming fast over short distances and relentless daily practice.
I have times in all strokes, but use freestyle as main benchmark. First time I tried to swim short course 100m freestyle I timed around 1:40. Over time this improved to 1:35, 1:27, 1:17 and reached a plateau there.
So I went through a year or so of the Starting Strength program, deadlifted 100kg in sets of 5 and squatted 80kg. I began to feel like my body line, explosiveness, starts and push offs improved. Freestyle time didn't improve dramatically, only down to 1:15.
At that point I felt I knew plenty about training of energy systems from Olbrecht, so I decided to only focus on improving my pure speed. I take 17 seconds for a push 25 in 18 strokes at 90-100 spm.
I followed Boomer's Freestyle Reimagined and took my stroke apart 4 weeks ago. A stroke change is clearly going to take 4 months or years to happen, not 4 weeks, but I am beginning to lose the enjoyment. I am hugely motivated to see myself break the 15sec 25m and ultimately the freestyle minute, and have no idea whether it is possible with no youth swimming background.
I posted on the UK Swimming Forum, but had no reply and thought I would post here too in search for tips or similar experiences. Would appreciate any comments!
I've seen an adult successfully join an age group program, and haven't tried that myself. I swam with a masters club for 2 years, which was a lot of fun, but these seem to be geared towards fitness and training rather than focused development of speed. Moreover, I am not quite so fast and fit to join some of the higher profile clubs. I've been to see a number of coaches/swimmers for advice, including Swim Smooth, who all had valuable input, but nothing seemed to really point me towards some a big area of improvement. I feel like I might be missing an obvious one. There are definitely areas like "feel for water" and "stroke efficicency" that remain mystical to me despite having read volumes.
... Can you mostly work on pure speed and become a sprinter capable of then sharpening the energy systems to the point your new speed can be taken through an entire 100? Or have you missed something in the process by not doing tons of slower swimming like everyone else? Is this really a shortcut coaches don't normally take, but could?
As far as I know there is absolutely NO shortcut. Aerobic conditioning is a HUGE aspect of swimming fast. My point is that it can't be done to the exclusion of everything else with the expectation that one will get faster over all distances. Just me ranting I guess. now back to your regularly scheduled thread...
This seems so obvious, yet the vast majority of coaches that I have ever known seem to completely ignore (or only give lip service to) the importance of sprint speed. If you can't break :15 for a 25, you certainly can't break 1:00 for a 100, yet they never assign tasks designed to build raw speed. Read Coach Tom Topolski's post, "Do your swimmers know their spot?"
This is such a fundamental point. I'm convinced I wouldn't be able to sustain stomach-churning anaerobic sets long term on my own in public swimming pools without knowing I can ever achieve the necessary speed. So I want to see a sub 15 push 25m. It would probably serve my thread better to title it "break 15 second 25 SCM", because I seem stuck trying to get below 16-17.
I have doubts about this concept, though. Can you really "hack" swimming development this way? Can you mostly work on pure speed and become a sprinter capable of then sharpening the energy systems to the point your new speed can be taken through an entire 100? Or have you missed something in the process by not doing tons of slower swimming like everyone else? Is this really a shortcut coaches don't normally take, but could?
1st challenge - 't know where to begin:
is each challenge push, no dive?
where did you start at challenge 1, and how long did it take you to progress?
was it a linear progression, or dips and plateaus?
how many strokes?
how does a sub 15 feel now compared to what you remember it feeling when it was much slower?
do you focus on taking mighty long strokes or stroking fast, or delicate balance of both?
did you get below 15 with long underwaters, or mostly surface swimming?
did you find that pure strength made a difference?
what has your approach to kick been, how much kick time in training?
is there one thing you could single out that made the most difference?
anything that you found plain wrong and had to be changed?
I know many of these are individual and what worked for you might be wrong for me, but I'm interested to hear about your whole experience
As far as I know there is absolutely NO shortcut. Aerobic conditioning is a HUGE aspect of swimming fast. My point is that it can't be done to the exclusion of everything else with the expectation that one will get faster over all distances. Just me ranting I guess. now back to your regularly scheduled thread...
It depends upon the age and the swimmer. I certainly can't do the yardage I did as a kid. On other hand, I know of someone in their 90's that does more yardage than me. I recommend mixing some sprints and moderate and slow swimming and doing other strokes as well, slow to fast. It helps to reduce injury if you do different strokes than free.
Wow, I have so many questions I don't know where to begin:
is each challenge push, no dive?
where did you start at challenge 1, and how long did it take you to progress?
was it a linear progression, or dips and plateaus?
how many strokes?
how does a sub 15 feel now compared to what you remember it feeling when it was much slower?
do you focus on taking mighty long strokes or stroking fast, or delicate balance of both?
did you get below 15 with long underwaters, or mostly surface swimming?
did you find that pure strength made a difference?
what has your approach to kick been, how much kick time in training?
is there one thing you could single out that made the most difference?
anything that you found plain wrong and had to be changed?
I know many of these are individual and what worked for you might be wrong for me, but I'm interested to hear about your whole experience
PM sent
I am just average for my age group, so my advise can be interpreted as such. Anyhow, the 100 LCM free is a totally different beast than shorter distances in terms of metabolic demands, training required, and preparation. The only similarities would be the need for streamline, turns, starts, shaving, and suit.
For the 100LCM You would have to implement a training regime structured for all the energy systems demanded.
For example a structured regime would be: swim 6 days a week having a exclusive day of rest, work pure speed on 2 of the days, suffer lactate production on 1 day, spend 1 day doing easy swimming keeping your heart rate below 120, and 2 days working on aerobic threshold. Drills, starts, turns, drylands, and kicking should be included throughout. For just a 25 m you can get away with eliminating the aerobic days
1st challenge - 's challenge is a legit way of looking at the steps needed to go under the very lofty goal of 1:00 SCM or LCM. However, by the time you get to the 5th challenge, your other times need to be well below the earlier challenge points. They will need to be like a :13 low for 25scm and at least :28 low for 50 scm/lcm.
Additionally, as you reach your mid-50s it becomes harder and harder to build and retain muscle and it will take more time and opportunity to train in order to get there. That said, there are still swimmers hitting very fast times up into there 70s, but they all probably started out swimming at a young age, were very fast, and kept it up over time.
Hi Larry -
Thanks for the info. The amount of training time seems ok - would be good to know what your volume is as well. Swimming 24 hours/month is good if you are averaging 2000-2500 yds/mtrs per hour, but not so good if you are only doing 1,000 yds/mtrs/hour.
Likewise, the kicking speed seems pretty good as well.
However, a glide of 7 mtrs suggests there is room for considerable improvement in your streamline position. I am about the same height and weight as you and could glide almost 20 yards when I was your age. I am down to 15 yards or so now - leg strength has dropped over the past 28 years. At that time, I was swimming 57 for 100 meters taking 15 strokes/length.
Great streamlining is important because the push-off is the second fastest you will go in a race. You will be faster only during the start. Holding that speed as long as possible is key and it will take you under the wave that follows you into the wall. You can practice the feel for streamlining by hanging from a pull-up bar with your hands overlapped, arms squeezing your ears, legs together, toes pointed, knees locked, and squeezing your belly button towards your spine. When you push off the wall, the top of your head should point towards the end of the pool. if you can see the other end of the pool, your head position is less than optimal.
You should attempt to streamline 7-9 yards off every turn you do. Speaking of which, are you doing open turns or flip turns? Bad flip turns can add 2 seconds/turn to your time.
Another skill to master is floating face down in the streamline position. This will give you immediate feedback about your balance in the water. If you can stay horizontal in a streamline position (holding your breath) with your heels at the surface of the water, you have good balance and muscle control. If you cannot do this, ask a synchronized swimmer to help. The better your balance, the faster you will go.
More to come with your reply.
Paul
Once again, thank you all for your comments. In particular, thanks to __steve__ for his detailed private response.
Unless I missed it, you have not mentioned what your training program is like – frequency and volume/practice. The graphic gives an idea of my training volume in the blue bars for each month. It's actually hours of practice, not meters of distance. The tallest bar is a 24-hour month.
I'll try the kicking and glide tests soon, thanks for the tip. From doing similar tests in the past I'd estimate 22 seconds for the kick and 7m for the glide.
