actually practicing other strokes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 :(