i used to do mainly breastroke and no rests for my workout a few weeks ago ,since reading many different articles on this forum ,the last couple of weeks have seen a change in my workouts.i now do a warmup of alternate freestyle/breastroke25,50,75 and100m.then i do 20 sets of 125m
(first and last 25m freestyle) the rest (75m) breastroke,i find that my arms are really tired,legs too by the end of these sets(i rest between sets about 20-40 seconds)then i warmdown reverse of warmup.I am hoping to increase the freestyle part but don't know if the tiredness will allow this.(total workout including warmup/down=3000metres,total free=1250,total breastroke=1750metres)is there anything i can do to keep energy levels higher?no drugs though.
Former Member
been again swimming tonight,i think the knee thing is definitely better with less breastroke.Also i think i'm getting fitter by increasing freestyle content,i read that 3000metres was about right for training and as i only go 3 times per week i assumed i wasn't overdoing it.Perhaps i 'll throw in some backstroke sets to break up the other 2 strokes,i try to keep the sets simple as i easily lose count of how many lengths i've done ...<<<
Sparx:
Most of these are obvious;
Try doing some kicking, some freestyle with breathing patterns (that will improve anyone's fitness level), stroke drills (try *** with fly kick), and some underwaters. The way to keep energy levels up is to become a more efficient swimmer and to expand your aerobic capcity. Drills will help.
The reason people are warning you about doing so much breaststroke: You may develop knee injuries. Swimming is a low impact sport, but breastroke can be hard on the knees and fly hard on the shoulders.
As a guide to how much breaststroke to do in training. From the "swim coaching bible". These are 2 top US coaches.
David Salo has his breaststrokers do no more than 25-30% of a session as whole stroke with breaststroke drills being another 50%. Breaststroke swim & drills total 70% of workout.
Jon Urbanchek uses 20% as whole stroke and approx 30% for breaststroke drills. Breaststroke swim & drills total 50% of workout.
I was coaching a good 9yr old breaststroker last night and we did: drills - 2kicks/1 pull, 3 up 3 down (that is 3 strokes underwater, 3 strokes on the surface), arm pull with fly kick.
Then she swum sets of 100m as: 25m kick drill, 25m arm pull drill, 25m swim ***, 25m free.
This totalled 50% of the workout, fly, back and free rounded it off.
When she swum the whole stroke in those sets there was a Focus Point for her to think off.
1st 25m - Work on creating a more powerful kick by a more definite catch, more "dorsi-flexion".
2nd 25m - Have a lower body position for the catch, allow her knees & hips to sink down by delaying the kick by holding her feet in the catch position for 2 seconds.
3rd - Try to keep the knees closer together throughout the kick so that the feet travelled in an arc outside the line of the knees.
4th - Worked on getting more of the side of the foot against the water during her propulsive kick phase.
5th - Worked on her kicking down deeper into the water.
6th - Correction for her head, she was lifting it up and looking too far forward ( "nodding donkey" effect).
This was while i also coached 6 other swimmers on an IM workout.
In all things breaststroke i defer to Wayne Mcauley. His site is: www.breaststroke.info.
In addition the site: www.zoomers.net has a video (Fluid swimming) which goes into specific stretching and strengthening exercises for breaststroke.
That's a lot of breaststroke. You might cutdown some of the yardage. I don't know if you know backstroke or fly but you might do about 200 yards of them. Maybe 4x 25 yard butterfly or 2x 100 yards backstroke. If you know sidestroke do a 100 yards of that. I don't do that much *** or free since I'm able to do some other strokes in my workout. Too much *** can lead to knee problems or groin problems and too much free can lead to shoulder problems. And I'm a breaststroker and rarely swim over 1000 yards in workout breastsroke but if you don't know anyother strokes maybe you should learn at least sidestroke or backstroke,there are books about general swimming that will show the sidestroke and books like total immersion deal with the back and fly.
