Hi all,
I'm looking for advice on training for the butterfly. In the way of background I'm 40, male, and started swimming with a Masters swim group last summer and have been learning butterfly. I was only a fitness swimmer before last summer, and only off and on. I did a 50m fly in 35.97 last November but haven't gone below 36s since. I've swum the 100 fly four times and have done 1:31.5 +/- 0.5s each time. I would like to work up to the 200m fly but am not sure how to go about it, unlike the other strokes I can't go further simply by going slower! At this point 100m is pretty much my limit, and I only do 100m in meets not as part of workout sets. I found an article on the H2ouston site on training for 200m fly, which brings up another issue: short axis pulsing/body dolphining. First, I'm not very good at it, I spent an hour on the weekend swimming back and forth across the width of the pool (6 lanes, not sure the distance), and I can do a width of the pool underwater but I'm pretty slow. Second, I don't really understand the relationship between body dolphins with one kick per cycle and butterfly with two kicks per cycle. The H2ouston article said there would be a separate article explaining this but I couldn't find it. I've got the total immersion butterfly/*** stroke video, but so far my butterfly is nowhere near "virtually effortless" as they describe in the video. I think I have the timing of the two kicks down ok, but I'm missing the connection between the body dolphins and the full stroke, other than initiating the launch kick of the full stroke in my upper body rather than just using my legs. I also worry that body dolphins involve a larger undulation than is desirable in the full stroke. I've seen a video of me swimming fly and it looks like it is in slow motion! My impression is that I might need less undulation in order to increase turnover?
I am also unsure of what extent one has to swim fly to train for fly, we don't get a lot of fly, and really nothing over 50m of fly in our workouts, and if I tried to do 100m fly in the "choice" sets I would probably have a coronary! My current hypothesis is that technique is a greater obstacle to getting to the 200m fly than conditioning so all my freestyle training is going to have minimal impact. I just have to figure that those of you talking about doing 1650 of fly or 10 x 200m fly sets must be doing something different, I can't imagine that conditioning alone would allow me to keep up my stoke for 10 x 200m! But is there some particular aspect of technique one should adjust for longer distances?
Help!
Every saturday is my day to train for the 200 fly. Gives me a nice break from all the distance freestyle stuff.
1. You say you got the total immersion *** and fly video but you don't mention that you have actually practiced the drill progression they give. If I work through them at the beginning of the workout I can swim something that looks like fly, otherwise it is somethign resembling a dying animal. So try the drills in order and see what they are teaching. I often have to review them because I forget one of the keys to the drill.
But they all make sense.
2. Short axis pulse is fly undulation with one of the kicks taken out. Specifically the breakout kick, the kick that you take when you dive back into the water is the one that stays the same. Right now I am just working on one beat fly, I'll add the second beat when my form holds for more reasonable distances.
3. You mention swimming widths of body dolphin underwater. I had a breakthrough when i was able to get a breath while doing the body dolphin without breaking the undulations. It mostly involves keeping your head neutral and not looking forward to breathe. In fact, that was probably one of the biggest things. Doing lots of body dolphin with arms out and working on getting the breath as part of the rhythm.
4. All the drills have a good purpose. The body dolphins I mentioned, the stoneskipper helps nail the hand plant at the corners. Hip delay taches a clean recovery.
Good luck
Not to say that this is the only way to learn it, but I have had some success with it. I am swimming 200 fly repeats regularly (I know it's not the same as the 200 fly) and have been making good progress.
Former Member
Lindsay,
There are 2 articles at the H2Ouston Swim web site: "Slip Slid'n Away" (which I think you saw), and "Vive Le Papillon!" (which you might miss if you don't know the French word for butterfly). That has some ideas for mixing in more fly, in longer swims, but still only doing fly with good form, Emmett's so-called EZ Fly. I did a 500 that way just last Sunday. It works. The bottom line is Yes, you can slow down your fly to complete a 200, you just have to use that body dolphin to get your hips up, and SLOW DOWN!!
Some of us have chatted up the 200 fly before. Try this discussion thread (“improving butterfly”): forums.usms.org/showthread.php
And this thread (“200 Butterfly Strategy advice?”): forums.usms.org/showthread.php
Matt
Former Member
35 something in a 50 meter fly and you learn fly less than 6 months is fast. you faster than me and I swam as a kid. Granted I'm female and about 7 years older. Your right I can hold a decent fly at 25 yards and a fair one at 50 yards. For a 100 yard swim I can do 2 strokes mainly for the first lap and for the 200 I have to go to 1 stroke. I can swim 100 yard and 200 yard swims probably because I did this in childhood but I'm slow concerning my background. And you are right you don't have to do many 200's. Some 100's and once in a while 200 and 25 yard and 50 yards will help.
Former Member
Originally posted by LindsayNB
I don't really understand the relationship between body dolphins with one kick per cycle and butterfly with two kicks per cycle.
You've already received some good replies, but I don't see that anyone has covered this point.
You shouldn't take it as a given that you need two kicks per cycle in butterfly. Some expert butterfliers use two kicks, but others only use one.
I was at a high school swim meet a couple of months ago at which I tried to keep track of who was using two kicks per cycle and who was using one, and the results were pretty startling: The swimmers who took the top places all seemed to be using one kick per cycle; the ones who were using two kicks per cycle all finished at the bottom of the heap.
Now, it would be a mistake to conclude from this that one kick per cycle is automatically faster than two kicks. There are some elite swimmers who use two kicks per cycle and who do quite well. But there are others who only use one kick per cycle.
What I would suggest is that you use one kick per cycle while you are doing the Total Immersion drills. When you get to the point where your butterfly is feeling smooth and effortless, then decide whether you really need to add a second kick.
Former Member
Thanks for the responses!
I think I now understand why I got frustrated with the TI butterfly drills: I didn't realize they were teaching one-kick butterfly! I "knew" butterfly had two kicks so when I got to the part where you add in the arms things didn't fit naturally. Tonight I watched the video again and when I viewed the whole-stroke part in slow motion I was able to see that she was in fact only doing one kick. Contrary to Kevin's post though, it looked to me like the downstroke of the kick occurred in the pull/launch phase? The shoulders came up and then the hips and then the feet, with the shoulders coming up again as the feet began the downstroke. Have I got this wrong?
In Swimming Fastest a single kick per stroke is listed in the common stroke errors section...
In one of the earlier threads one poster said that a single kick was a sprint adaptation to allow a faster turnover which got me wondering if the races Bob mentioned were 50m races?
In the Tom Boettcher article he says he swims two kicks...
I guess the question for me is, I already swim a two-kick stroke, should I switch to a one-kick stroke, especially if I want to concentrate on the longer distances?
What about practicing the body dolphins to work on whole body swimming and both up-stroke and down-stroke aspects of kicking but use two-kick one arm fly instead of body dolphins when doing the Half-Fly sets? I did a few hundreds of that on the weekend and I can picture it working. I will try experimenting with slowing down but also keeping my hips high.
By the way Matt, are you doing one kick or two kick fly?
Former Member
Thanks for the advice Terry, I didn't expect a reply directly from the TI source!
I've come to the conclusion that I should start over with the TI drills and practice each one longer before moving on.
I'll also experiment more with fins and no fins, my guess is that I'm doing something wrong as in the past I have found that everything feels great with the fins on, but then when I take them off I'm actually worse! With the fins on I can swim with no overt kick, but when I take the fins off my legs sink as I pull. I don't have a problem with my legs sinking normally so I decided to not use fins anymore. I suspect the real problem is that I don't have the undulation down right. I am getting better at underwater body dolphins but things seem to get awkward when I do them on the surface without fins.
Another question, can someone elaborate on landing forward instead of down, how exactly does one do that? What are you doing different to cause you to land forward instead of down? All I can figure is that maybe my timing is off and the downbeat of the kick is ending too early?
Our last club time trial is on Thursday so after that I plan on spending the summer concentrating on improving my fly.
An aside to Terry: if you ever revise the video it would be a bonus to have more footage of the final full stroke, esp. some underwater footage. It would also be helpful to explicitly state that you are teaching the one kick style, and explain the advantages as you have here, so that people like me don't get confused by our preconceptions.
Former Member
Originally posted by LindsayNB
Another question, can someone elaborate on landing forward instead of down, how exactly does one do that? What are you doing different to cause you to land forward instead of down? All I can figure is that maybe my timing is off and the downbeat of the kick is ending too early?
What works for me is to focus on sweeping my arms forward during the recovery and then reaching as far forward as possible when I land.
Former Member
Originally posted by Bob McAdams
What works for me is to focus on sweeping my arms forward during the recovery and then reaching as far forward as possible when I land.
Thanks Bob, I'll give that a try.
Former Member
I found a video clip of Franck Esposito that shows one kick butterfly. It is a lot easier to see what is going on with the underwater footage.
Unfortunately it doesn't look at all like I expected! It looks like Kevin in MD had it right, the downbeat of the really visible kick occurs as the arms reenter the water. It doesn't look to me like this kick flows out of the undulation as discussed when talking about body dolphins. There is a chest down, hips down, legs down progression that looks like a proper undulation, but that occurs during the pull phase and has no knee bend at all making it look not very propulsive.
Is this what the one-kick fly we are talking about here is supposed to look like?
Former Member
It's probably a bad sign when one makes three posts in a row, but it's been a while so...
I've made some progress with my butterfly! I'm still doing a two-kick stroke, I just can't seem to break that habit. I think the big problem with my stroke was the timing of the kick, in particular I was kicking too early during the arm reentry phase. The result was that I was losing forward momentum as my arms reentered the water, necessitating quickly starting the next pull which required a lot of effort to get back up to speed. By delaying the kick until I am horizontal again, with face, chest, and arms in the water, the kick gives me that feel of surging down a wave as I press my chest downward. If I then concentrate on the feel of a downward wave/undulation moving down my body starting with the chest I get my breath easily and my arms seem to naturally move through the pull and recovery. It feels really awesome when I get the rhythm right, although strangely, while it doesn't feel like I'm working hard while I'm doing it I'm breathing fairly hard by the end of 25m. Anyway, it's progress and I'm encouraged.
Mostly to see how it works I've attached a picture of Michael Phelps showing how his torso is (almost) horizontal as his feet start their downsweep...
