actually practicing other strokes

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 15:51:12 GMT

I agree with Wayne, different strokes are the way to go rather than freestyle all the time. Most of my aerobic sets are free or ***. I also do fly and back. Today, I notice a little pain in the knee and I cutdown on the ***. I do workouts usually at 600 to 900 *** and have done over a 1,000 *** in a workout.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 07:15:38 GMT

I am in a somewhat unusual situation, because, while I've been doing freestyle and backstroke for several decades, I didn't do my first lap of breaststroke until March of 2000. In spite of the fact that I had been regularly swimming freestyle and backstroke for a long time, I still got sore muscles when I started practicing the arm stroke for breaststroke. And I still sometimes get sore leg muscles (particularly the muscles that pull my legs together at the end of a breaststroke kick). The point is that doing the other three strokes hadn't developed some of the muscles I use in breaststroke. It has taken actual breaststroke swimming to do that.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 08:22:41 GMT

Wow, this is a great thead. Our little masters team, the El Segundo slugs, have won several National champ small team titles. I believe it is because we swim a lot of variety, all strokes, lots of drills, always the latest stroke techniques. Still as a breaststroker there is toomuch freestyle for me. I have a very bad right shoulder that should have surgery on it. I refuse to let any doc do it other than the doc on Star Trek. I do many sets creatively, breaststroke while others are doing free. But there are times I know I have to swim free, or back or fly. So every 100 becomes 4 x 25, every 200 becomes 8 x 25 etc. I swim one arm butterfly a lot, back and *** does not hurt the shoulder. The biggest thing I have noticed is the HUGE improvements in the triathletes who are made to to other strokes. When they listen to the coaches their free gets so much faster. I watched one for from a 31 fifty to 26.8 fifty free. That was huge.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 08:39:04 GMT

Because.....well the list is endless....mainly to sum it up is variety is the spice of life...maybe i'll get that fly stroke yitt!!

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Sat, 28 Feb 2004 06:41:49 GMT

I'll often do a main long set of a stroke other than freestyle, eg 10-20x100 breastroke or backstroke A long fly set for me is 20x25 I am a breaststroker. The main issue for me is not so much training the endurance of the particular muscles/motions of those strokes as it is working the timing and technique of those strokes. There is time in a long set to work on body position, rotation, and timing. My heart doesn't care what the body is doing, and many of the swimming muscles used are the same for all the strokes. A fun set I like to mix free and backstroke is, 5x100 free 100 back 4x100 free 100 back ... 100 free 100 back All on the same interval, holding the same speed for free and backstroke. For 400 IM training I like 300s 100 bk, 100 br, 100 fr. Fly is just too hard for me to do too much without the stroke breaking down. Swim fast, Greg

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Frank Thompson — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:25:09 GMT

Jim thanks for the reply. Your right about there being no scientific data out there to prove this but there are a lot of coaches and swimmers that claim improvement by it. As a swimmer I can tell you that I feel the effects of IM and non prmary stroke training and it makes me a better skilled and conditioned swimmer for my distance free. You keep mentioning the backstroke and not the IM so that seems to be your primary stroke after free. I have seen you do the fly and that is the one stroke that most people have to be careful of especially masters swimmers because of injury and recovery periods for the next pactice session. Also remember technique really counts while swimming and it can fall apart especially in fly when tired and fatigued. Also remember that everyone has different skills and different abilities when swimmming the competitive strokes. An observation I have made is that breaststoke and then fly are the hardest strokes followed by backstroke. Now I am bias of course because back is my primary stroke along with distance free. Up until 15 years ago I would have said fly but there as been so many changes in breastroke in the last 15 to 20 years that it make it the hardest. I learned to swim breastroke watching Ron Clark, Chet Jastremski, and Bill Mulliken and the stroke has changed so mush especially with the wave action that they have which was evident when Mike Barrowman swam. Since the late 60's back has not changed that much except the starts, turns, and streamlining of the walls underwater. The actual surface swimming has not changed that much. I am kind of familar with some of the workouts that you do because 2 years ago you posted some here done with Bill White and I also remember that you were a sprinter to middle distance back then. In last 2 years I seen improvement in your middle distance to distance times and on this website I saw your improvement in the 1 hour swim. So are you doing more distance free training then back then? And if you are, do you feel the effects in recovery? Does it get boring? Do your swimmers that swim with you not like it? I think your going in the right direction introducing stroke and IM work in your routine. Now I have a set for you. Almost 2 weeks ago on Sunday February 15 I went to the pool for a swim and hardly anyone was there. They had a college meet and all of the lane lines were in the pool and I had a lane to myself and had time to do whatever I wanted. With another person I did a warm up of about 600 choice. Then I did 3X400 IM - 8:00 4X300 IM - 6:00 6X200 IM - 4:00 12X100 IM - 2:00 for a total of a 4800 yard set. The emphasis that I was thinking about was the best race effort I could have with recovery to do the next repeat better. Try to decend but at least don't die while doing this and if your body is telling you to do these evenly then do that. As each set was done it felt easier to do the next because your swimming 1 less 25 of each stroke. The whole point is to recover enough to do the next swim as fast and as good as you can without stroke flaws and really work technique for all 4 strokes and make sure your turns and finishes on the transitions from stroke to stroke are good and legal. Really hit those turns and think of the streamline pushoffs. After the IM work do a nice warm down preferably 300 but get your body in a relaxed zone before you leave the pool. The next day or day after the recovery of your body will tell you what type of shape and conditioning your in and I think it will help your distance free.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

jim thornton — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:55:35 GMT

To all my fellow posters on this topic: Thanks very much for your considered and considerable insights into this subject. Frank, I took the liberty of forwarding your reply to my teammates--I think this will encourage them to give some thought to the benefits of non-freestyle during our practices (this even for the non-competitive fitness swimmers.) Anyhow, I am continuously impressed by the level of intelligence this forum is so frequently capable of--and the advice on any aspect of swimming seems to me outstanding. One thing I am particularly impressed by is how people will exemplify their opinions with specific examples. When there is no readily available data, there is also frequently an acknowledgement of this fact, too. No one pretends to have the final, definitive word--and this, I think, is also a tribute to the good nature and wisdom of my fellow posters. Here is what I personally will take away from this thread: 1. If you want to get good at a specific stroke, it's important to practice this stroke 2. there is probably some cross over effect from one stroke to another, so training backstroke might actually help one's freestyles performance (provided you don't completely drop practicing freestyle) 3. swimming the various strokes regularly, as opposed to just freestyle, will probably make you a stronger overall swimmer; improve your race times in the nonfreestyle strokes; remedy muscle imbalances and possibly give you some extra trained muscles fibers that you can call upon when your conventional freestyle muscles start dying in a race; and finally, as indicated by the 400 IM practice sets Frank mentioned, swimming non-freestyle might actually help distance freestyle race performance (probably because of an accumulation of the aforementioned factors.) 4. none of the above has been proven by swimming scientists, at least that we know of, however, it sounds intuitively plausible. At worst, it's most likely akin to chicken soup for a cold--it won't hurt you! 5. Finally, there are so many factors which go into the physical and mental side of swim training. For many people, doing other strokes in practice will prove a powerful antidote to monotony--not to mention a remedy for overtraining. (As butterflybeer mentioned, I find that by this point in the season, having done primarily freestyle for months, that a switch to more backstroke, etc. allows me to work harder with less fatigue in practice. Maybe my freestyle muscles are a bit overtrained at this point?) Anyhow, thanks again. Now, if someone could just provide advice on how to do a backstroke start before our next meet March 7th...

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Jim Clemmons — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 07:35:28 GMT

Hey, this reminds me that in 1999-2000 I trained for Indy for an attempt to get Fred's 400 IM Nat'l record, missed it, but got the 1650 and 500 free records instead. Until this thread, it hadn't even dawned on me why I went so fast 'cause I did relatively little distance training during that period. We train alternating strokes by weeks along with significant IM training during the year and I'm convinced. In fact, it's rare we swim longer than a straight 300 free. We might do 10 of 'em, hard, but that's a different forum. Jim

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 17:49:05 GMT

I can barely do butterfly at all. What I have noticed, however, is when I do a 25 fly combined with a 50 free, that the free feels infinitely better (smother, easier) and faster. I could backstroke all day, and *** stroke maybe half a day, but I don't know that those necessarily improve my freestyle. Freestyle is still my most difficult stroke in distances over 50 because I have never got comfortable with the breathing and a 6 beat kick :(

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:34:39 GMT

Originally posted by jim thornton One other note/question, and perhaps Fritz and Steve could address this: a guy on our team has a son who swims for a Big East school. One of the son's teammate's had plateaued in terms of her times. Despite tons of freestyle practice, she just wasn't getting any better--and, in fact, was slowing down a bi. The son, on the other hand, kept improving his times in freestyle. The father credits this with the (men's) coach's decision to include lots of stroke sets in their practices. The women's coach, on the other hand, did not insist that her team do this--and the woman who had plateued opted not to, believing her only chance at getting better in freestyle was to swim freestyle exclusively. My friend (the father, for anyone who's getting confused at this point) is convinced that practicing other strokes helps freestyle--partly, as Steve suggested, by training muscles that can get recruited into action during a race when the standard freestyle muscles die, but also by strengthening and balancing muscles generally (lowering injuries and leading to an overall stronger swimmer.) What say ye to this? Obviously, if you swim only backstroke--like Fritz--it will eventually impact your freestyle. But what is the tipping point where swimming other strokes with stop either helping or have no impact on freestyle race performance, to where freestyle begins to suffer? I feel like more diverse training is good for everyone at all levels. While I don't swim free for an entire set, I do IM sets so I get a little there. I don't know why people hit a peak but at some point I'd think maybe they just get bored or their bodies adapt too well to what they are doing and need to do something to mix it up. Plus just training the same muscles all the time without training other muscle groups can't be the best thing to do. I like the idea of building a more rounded swimmer(which I am not at this point). Is there a point where it hurts freestyle if you do a lot of a different stroke? I'm sure there is and it may be easier for us to hit that point because we aren't in the water as much as someone like Phelps. Maybe some of the professional coaches could add something here.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:06:53 GMT

My best events are distance freestyle, though I will do the 50 and 100 in meets to make it worth the trip (1500m @ 18:58). I never do other strokes in meets so I never did other strokes during practice. One day I mixed a set of back and *** in a long string of 200s. Man, was I surprised at how difficult it was to do the back and ***. I was in great freestyle shape, and thought it would translate to the others. It occured to me that when you begin to melt down in the long freestyle swim you are probably tapping other muscles to compensate. Some of these may be built up by the other strokes. Anyway, I have been incorporating other strokes in my sets and my physical conditioning appears to have improved. I haven't tested this with any competition times yet. I probably do a 50/50 mix of strokes. I can't do butterfly anymore due to cronic neck problems that plague me whenever I try it. It used to be my favored stroke.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:41:24 GMT

I am a believer in specific training for a specific outcome with the most efficient use of training time and distance. Let's pretend that you have 6 hours per week of pool time and your goal is to become a better/faster backstroker. Also, I will assume that you have a pretty good handle on freestyle (or any stroke), for the simple conditioning and basic swimming skills components. I would suggest that the most efficient use of your time would be to spend a healthy percentage of this time on backstroke (kick, drill, swim etc). What this percentage is tough to answer exactly. If you want to become a better 200m backstroker, you probably will want to swim a healthy percentage of your distance as well as your time on backstroke. If you are a 50m backstroker, perhaps you do not need as much backstroke distance. As a butterflyer (all distances), and only a butterflyer, I average about 20% of my workout distance as butterfly (swim, kick and drills). However, this ranges widey from 5% up to 45%. Now, I am not saying that swimming something other than backstroke will NOT help backstroke, because it probably will. What I am suggesting is that generally, the best 'bang for your buck' will be in backstroke. Now, let's pretend that you have many more hours to devote to training. In this case, I would suggest that the percentage of time devoted to stroke specific training may be reduced somewhat because the actual distance and time devoted to this stroke will both likely be increased. Some people sware by the cross-over effect of training. That is they swim/train stroke A and stroke(s) B and/or C and/or D improve(s). I believe this is true but only to a certain extent and perhaps only with certain people. For me, I feel that the limitations of the cross-over effect have pretty much been reached. Spending a significant amount of time/effort on stroke B when I want to swim stroke A is not the highest and best use of my workout time. Finally, in answer to Jim's original questions I would say: 1) how many of you out there do distance sets of non freestyle? I swim sets of up to 150's of fly and sometimes even a few 200's of fly. If this counts as distance non-freestyle, then my answer is Yes. 2) do any of you have any data on stroke specific training, i.e., is it just a coincidence or does it really help to better times in these events? I don't have any real data other than personal experience and anecdotal evidence. However, specificity (to a certain point) makes sense to me. 3) assuming you're in pretty good freestyle shape, does shifting to training more backstroke or other non-freestyle stroke cause you to start deconditioning in freestyle? For me, I feel that swimming less freestyle has actually improved my freestyle swimming. I am both faster and feel stronger. I believe this is due to the fact that I find freestyle really fatiguing and I am easily overtrained in it.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Frank Thompson — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 09:14:31 GMT

As a coach and a swimmer I do believe that a variety in swimming workouts will definitely improve swimming performance but sometimes you have to be careful of this. For instance stroke technique is very important when you are doing long IM sets and stroke sets and if swimmers are tired and fatigued they will develop bad habits and not accomplish much. As the swimmer becomes more skillful and better conditioned, he can do lots of stroke and IM training and it will not only help freestyle but the IM and primary strokes as well. I agree with what Phil and Fritz say and I will strongly say work on your primary stroke as much as you can and as much as your body will tolerate it. Richard Shoulberg the great distance and IM coach from the Germantown Academy who trained and coached David Wharton who was American/World Record holder and winner of 4 straight NCAA titles in the 400 IM among others, believes distance swimmers should train a lot of IM. He says "I prefer to train distance swimmers with a lot of IM drills. This type of work is less boring and the change of stroke patterns helps make them stronger. Occassionally, I have them go 3 X 1600 IM. This would consist of a 100 IM, 100 Free, 100 IM, 100 weak stroke, 100 IM, 100 strong stroke (but not freestyle), etc. We will ocassionally do a set of 5 X 800 on 9:45 but I prefer not to do that sort of thing very often because this type of work is very boring". "We conducted a study to compare the effects of training all 400 Free versus 400 IM. Our workout was divided into 2 groups. One group like doing Free work so they did all 400 Free. The other group liked doing IM work so they did all 400 IM. The net result of this study was that the IM group became better distance free swimmers than the Free group. I don't know if that was because of the program or not but the IM group showed more improvement. I have also allowed my swimmers to go overdistance work in breastroke, backstroke, and even fly. This has helped them swim the 1650". Geoge Bole who coached many National Champions for 40 years in England and was a very successful masters coach in St. Pete Fla. and had one Bill Specht as one of his champions believed that stroke and IM training was benefical for successful swimming. He wrote a lot about it in his book "Mastering Masters Swimming". Other factors that come into play in a Masters swimming progam are as follows: 1. The length of available pool time. 2. The degree of organization of the program, for example competitive, fitness, tri, older, skilled, etc. 3. The level of motivation of the swimmer. 4. Will the masters swimmer buy into the program and do the IM or stroke work as its presented to the swimmer. Another words don't just do Free while your suppose to be doing IM or stroke and using the masters perogative. And 5. The level of skill of the swimmer. Such as what kinds of stress can you absorb.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

jim thornton — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 09:12:22 GMT

One other note/question, and perhaps Fritz and Steve could address this: a guy on our team has a son who swims for a Big East school. One of the son's teammate's had plateaued in terms of her times. Despite tons of freestyle practice, she just wasn't getting any better--and, in fact, was slowing down a bi. The son, on the other hand, kept improving his times in freestyle. The father credits this with the (men's) coach's decision to include lots of stroke sets in their practices. The women's coach, on the other hand, did not insist that her team do this--and the woman who had plateued opted not to, believing her only chance at getting better in freestyle was to swim freestyle exclusively. My friend (the father, for anyone who's getting confused at this point) is convinced that practicing other strokes helps freestyle--partly, as Steve suggested, by training muscles that can get recruited into action during a race when the standard freestyle muscles die, but also by strengthening and balancing muscles generally (lowering injuries and leading to an overall stronger swimmer.) What say ye to this? Obviously, if you swim only backstroke--like Fritz--it will eventually impact your freestyle. But what is the tipping point where swimming other strokes with stop either helping or have no impact on freestyle race performance, to where freestyle begins to suffer?

RE: actually practicing other strokes

jim thornton — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:55:56 GMT

I stopped swimming butterfly because it seemed to hurt my lower back. Then I gradually built up to it again, and I've been fine--or at least what passes for fine in me. You might get a coach to take a look at your fly and make recommendations for head position, etc. The other suggestion: build up to swimming fly again extremely slowly. Do 1 x 25 per practice for the first week; then 2 x 25 the second week, with plenty of rest in between. I used this techique to build up to 40 x 25, then went to 8 x 50 on :50, then did a 2:21 in the 200 fly in a meet last year. The key to avoiding injury, I think, is to go very slow so your body can make the necessary changes to accommodate to the new demands your putting on it. I do think with the right strategy, you can return one day to swimming your favorite stroke of yesteryear.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 07:01:47 GMT

Jim, Your example is precisely why I'm including the other strokes in my routine. I read somewhere, either on this board, some book or another internet source that said we are only as good as our weakest muscles. When you are burning out, shortening your stroke, etc. in a long distance swim, you start to access different muscles to compensate. If these aren't in top shape, you suffer. I may try your suggestion to getting back into butterfly. I think I got impatient on previous attempts. I would try a 25 or 50 a few to,es and it would be okay. Then I'd push it too far on another set and then my neck goes. It's the pinched nerve thing anywhere from just above to just below the shoulder blades. Since the butterfly is the most aggressive stroke, this is the one that hurts me. Thanks for your advice.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 06:50:08 GMT

what thread? Anyway, I am a big believer in stroke sets, though I don't carry it to the extreme that Fritz does. But I will often do backstroke instead of freestyle for the longer stuff, and I do think it helps my times. Like Fritz, I don't care that much about freestyle, anyway. But one has to be careful. In backstroke I find that I can't quite lead my lane when others are doing freestyle, but the drag effect seems enhanced and I have to be careful about running up someone's backside. Also, backstroke is a wider stroke than freestyle, and you can't see people coming, and I sometimes poke people where they don't like it :o The stroke that I *really* think helps to swim a lot is butterfly. I started to do that my senior year in college, and my times started to drop (2 - 3 seconds in the 100.) But then it was all over. The trouble, of course, is that fly is a very wide stroke and it is not fair to the other swimmers to do it during sets of 200'ds. My team recently moved to a smaller, more cramped pool and my fly yardage has gone way down :mad: , just when my overall shape has gotten better.

RE: actually practicing other strokes

Former Member — Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:59:45 GMT

Originally posted by jim thornton 1) how many of you out there do distance sets of non freestyle? I do them in every workout. As far as I'm concerned, every set is a stroke set. I don't swim freestyle anymore. All freestyle sets are backstroke. 2) do any of you have any data on stroke specific training, i.e., is it just a coincidence or does it really help to better times in these events? If the logic that swimming lots of freestyle helps your freestyle then it seems like it should apply to all other strokes as well. My backstroke has gotten faster, at some distance, every year since I made the switch. I think it's also because I've been consistent with my training for several years and I think it takes several years of training and racing to really get back into good form. 3) assuming you're in pretty good freestyle shape, does shifting to training more backstroke or other non-freestyle stroke cause you to start deconditioning in freestyle? It has hurt my freestyle but since I do almost no free anymore I don't think I'm a good person to study. There's a happy medium somewhere. I can still race free but can't do much free in workout anymore. I've lost the feel for it.