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!
Parents
Former Member
Lindsay,
Thanks for an interesting thread. Have you looked at the "Fly Away" video by Monika Schloeder? She works with the Calgary swimmers. This has a very interesting approach. I have used quite a few of her drill progressions with my swimmers.
Some swimmers feel that the should dive down into the water when their hands enter. They are trying to force an undulation. But all that unecessary up and dowm movement wastes energy and creates more drag. Keep your body horizontal and relaxed and it will undulate as much as you need if the timing of your arms and legs is correct.
I tell my kids to "kick the hands into the water ( specifically from hand entry kick them into the catch ) and to kick the hands out of the water ( exit into recovery ). I see this as, feet push down as hands move into catch, feet raise up as hands meet under chest and feet kick down as hands move from under chest to their exit from the water. During the arm recovery the feet are moving upwards. I especially work on timing the 2nd downbeat to match the hand push back. We practice a drill where the hands are held under the chest, with feet raised and we kick the hands backwards and out of the water. This is to get the feel of arms and legs in unison.
On the "Fly Away' video, they are doing the more traditional fly, where the hands do push back all the way to the hips before exiting for the recovery.
Terry Laughlin is describing the "front end fly", which has some differences from the other form. The "stoneskipper" drill is used by Bill Sweetenham with UK swimming, but he calls it the "Biondi drill ". One progression is "stoneskipper" or "Biondi" drill with one kick between, then 2 kicks between, 3 and the 4 kicks between. This can be run in either direction, ascending or descending number of kicks inbetween.
When you look at Michael Phelps swim you can see that he has a wide entry. His arms are outside his shoulders and they pull almost straight back into his catch and arm pull. There seems to be a move by the best swimmers to avoid pushing sideways against the water, i.e using sweeps. Instead the hands move backwards in an almost straight path.
I am looking forward to seeing what techniques are used in the Olympics. Bob Bowman, Phelps's coach will be at the British coaches conference this year. I hope to ask him about Phelps' technique.
By the way it is great to hear from Matt S, Mark in MD, Cinc 310 etc. Where have you guys been ? The forums have been, in my opinion, a bit uninteresting recently, welcome back !:)
Lindsay,
Thanks for an interesting thread. Have you looked at the "Fly Away" video by Monika Schloeder? She works with the Calgary swimmers. This has a very interesting approach. I have used quite a few of her drill progressions with my swimmers.
Some swimmers feel that the should dive down into the water when their hands enter. They are trying to force an undulation. But all that unecessary up and dowm movement wastes energy and creates more drag. Keep your body horizontal and relaxed and it will undulate as much as you need if the timing of your arms and legs is correct.
I tell my kids to "kick the hands into the water ( specifically from hand entry kick them into the catch ) and to kick the hands out of the water ( exit into recovery ). I see this as, feet push down as hands move into catch, feet raise up as hands meet under chest and feet kick down as hands move from under chest to their exit from the water. During the arm recovery the feet are moving upwards. I especially work on timing the 2nd downbeat to match the hand push back. We practice a drill where the hands are held under the chest, with feet raised and we kick the hands backwards and out of the water. This is to get the feel of arms and legs in unison.
On the "Fly Away' video, they are doing the more traditional fly, where the hands do push back all the way to the hips before exiting for the recovery.
Terry Laughlin is describing the "front end fly", which has some differences from the other form. The "stoneskipper" drill is used by Bill Sweetenham with UK swimming, but he calls it the "Biondi drill ". One progression is "stoneskipper" or "Biondi" drill with one kick between, then 2 kicks between, 3 and the 4 kicks between. This can be run in either direction, ascending or descending number of kicks inbetween.
When you look at Michael Phelps swim you can see that he has a wide entry. His arms are outside his shoulders and they pull almost straight back into his catch and arm pull. There seems to be a move by the best swimmers to avoid pushing sideways against the water, i.e using sweeps. Instead the hands move backwards in an almost straight path.
I am looking forward to seeing what techniques are used in the Olympics. Bob Bowman, Phelps's coach will be at the British coaches conference this year. I hope to ask him about Phelps' technique.
By the way it is great to hear from Matt S, Mark in MD, Cinc 310 etc. Where have you guys been ? The forums have been, in my opinion, a bit uninteresting recently, welcome back !:)
