Hi. So I'm an American high school swimmer originally from Korea who is 16 years old. I wanted to ask you all about how I can improve and build up endurance for fly.
Here is a little bit about me physically and mentally just in case it can help me out by letting you know what kind of person I am so you can analyze my problem more thoroughly. First of all, I'm a sophomore in high school with a height of 6'0" and weigh 150 lb and have been swimming for 8 months (started around February or March of 2017), I've been on club swim (Irvine Novaquatics) for 4 months off and on because I played water polo, I regularly lift weights at the gym (around 3 or 4 times a week, all body work out something similar to www.bodybuilding.com/.../jasonlezak1.htm and just quickly, the max for some basic things which I do 10 reps of, 17.5 lb dumbell each arm shoulder extention, 30 lb standing overhead barbell tricep extention, 30 lb each side bench press, 120lb lat pull downs, 550lb leg press, 140lb leg curl), I go to club swim practices 80% of the time (4 out of 5 in a week), and have the will power to swim alone during the weekend to improve my stroke technique. Some of my pr's for some swims are: 50 free;26.9, 100 free;1:03, 100 ***;1:17, 200 ***;2:57, 100 back;1:21, 100 fly;1:27. Im legit willing to do anything to get better at 100 fly.
My main problem is that I can't do more than 50 fly. I know that my butt comes up after doing the stroke (angulation), I usually glide along the surface but after the turn on the 25, I suddenly just break and doing the recovery becomes really hard. I've swam the 100 fly once and it was just terrible. I was chilling on the first 25 but after that, I just broke down. As I said, my 100 fly is worse than my 100 *** by 10 seconds, although I know that it should be the other way around. I tried doing drills that focus on just the arm motion for fly using a buoy on my leg, left right full stroke drill, butterfly kicks rotating 90 degrees after each 25 kick, and mostly just about everything that I could find online. What am I doing wrong? I just can't seem to get the endurance for it.
Sorry for such a long post but I wanted to list out every possible thing that I could be doing wrong.
If you do lots of waterpolo during the school season you do a lot of head up freestyle and eggbeater kick which is why your free and breastroke are better than your fly. Try working water polo season to swim 2 to 4 times at night on the club team. During the off season of water polo try to swim 5 days a week on the club team. I didn't do much yardage as a kick at 12 I swaim fly at 44 seconds at 12 for a 50 yard and breaststroke at 42. At age 13 I swam fly at a 100 yard at 1:13 and at 14 at 1:11. I swam on novice teams until almost age 15. So, my yardage was between 1,500 to 4,000 yards a day instead of the 5,000 to 7,000 a day practice common with the more elite age groupers of my time. Its possible to break 1:20 fly. Just worked at it. I knew a guy at high school that swam a few years on a club team before high school but once in high school played water polo and swam only during the school season he did a 56 100 yard fly as a senior.
If you do lots of waterpolo during the school season you do a lot of head up freestyle and eggbeater kick which is why your free and breastroke are better than your fly. Try working water polo season to swim 2 to 4 times at night on the club team. During the off season of water polo try to swim 5 days a week on the club team. I didn't do much yardage as a kick at 12 I swaim fly at 44 seconds at 12 for a 50 yard and breaststroke at 42. At age 13 I swam fly at a 100 yard at 1:13 and at 14 at 1:11. I swam on novice teams until almost age 15. So, my yardage was between 1,500 to 4,000 yards a day instead of the 5,000 to 7,000 a day practice common with the more elite age groupers of my time. Its possible to break 1:20 fly. Just worked at it. I knew a guy at high school that swam a few years on a club team before high school but once in high school played water polo and swam only during the school season he did a 56 100 yard fly as a senior.
