So....here's the thing:
I'm actually getting decent at flipturns. I screw a few of them up, but I always know what I did wrong. The ratio of good flips to bad flips keeps going up. But, because there are usually some bad flips along the way, I haven't set any PRs yet when using flips. I'm at 1:25 100m with (some bad) flips, vs 1:22 with decent open-turns. My 50m is hi-39sec vice hi-38sec.
However....
When flipping, of course we are not breathing through the approach, turn, and pushoff. This is not a problem for me in a hard 50m/100m. But in a hard 400m, I'm dying, Man!! The accumulation of not breathing for this period every 25m has me GASPING after 200m. I crave that open-turn breath.
Maybe I will learn to handle this, but I dunno.
Even if you flip well, should you sometimes do open turns because of the oxygen situation?
I appreciate this slight diversion on overtraining - thanks MickYoung and JPEnge for your thoughts.
For the record I am 57, and I started swimming on Feb 21st, 2019. :)
Now.....here's a little story:
I had a FANTASTIC session today. I felt WONDERFUL. Most of my flip-turns were done reasonably well. I'm thrilled. So what happened? I did flip-turns only at the deep-end, and open turns at the shallow-end.
I cannot count how many times I have read that, once you figure out how to do a flip-turn, "DO IT ALWAYS"...ie at every wall, in every swim.
I think that advice is wrong for some/many people. Flip-turns every 25m clearly put me over the red-line, even on a warmup swim. It makes a huge difference if I try it every 50m at this time.
In the future I will introduce more and more swimming where I'm trying it every 25m, but for now, I'm obviously not ready for that.
As an aside, my easy/cooldown 400m today was 7:15....which was race-pace for 400m back in March. :)
I appreciate this slight diversion on overtraining - thanks MickYoung and JPEnge for your thoughts.
For the record I am 57, and I started swimming on Feb 21st, 2019. :)
Now.....here's a little story:
I had a FANTASTIC session today. I felt WONDERFUL. Most of my flip-turns were done reasonably well. I'm thrilled. So what happened? I did flip-turns only at the deep-end, and open turns at the shallow-end.
I cannot count how many times I have read that, once you figure out how to do a flip-turn, "DO IT ALWAYS"...ie at every wall, in every swim.
I think that advice is wrong for some/many people. Flip-turns every 25m clearly put me over the red-line, even on a warmup swim. It makes a huge difference if I try it every 50m at this time.
In the future I will introduce more and more swimming where I'm trying it every 25m, but for now, I'm obviously not ready for that.
As an aside, my easy/cooldown 400m today was 7:15....which was race-pace for 400m back in March. :)
