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
Hi Lindsay,
It is not just new swimmers that struggle with the issues that you bring up. I have a few top-ten times, but I have been and continue to fuss with my stroke, in *significant* ways. I have at least three different strokes that I now swim in competition. I am trying to settle on one, without much success.
As a youth I had a self-taught stroke that caused general amusement for anyone looking at it. My second kick (the first one is when the arms enter the water) was mistimed and strong, so that most of my upper half of my body came out of the water, with my head and chest facing forward as the arms swept past (I think this is the "all kinds of problems" that Gareth mentions.) It was fast enough to get by -- I even got to the PA state championships with it. It was not good enough for college and 200's, however, and I became relegated to swimming nothing but backstroke.
After my sophmore year I got tired of being laughed at and spent the summer totally reconstructing my stroke. I became what I felt was 'arm centered' rather than 'kick centered.' I let my arms pull my body through the water and the kick developed (almost) naturally. Despite being a philosophy totally different from what is coached then and now, coaches and swimmers thought it looked good with good 'body dolphin.' In my two remaining years I got to 52+ and 1:58+ and I was getting faster every meet.
The trouble was that I still could not breath and get a second kick in, so I always did one kick on breath strokes. I suspect that my stroke looks similar to Esposito's (without the large outsweep at the beginning of the pull.) Until very recently I thought that was a very serious stroke flaw. I am rethinking that now, but over the last couple of years I have again reconstructed my stroke in an attempt to get that second kick in. The motivation, besides esthetic, was a complete collapse during a couple of 200 flys. I felt that with age I could no longer afford to give up the extra propulsion.
So now I have a 'distance' fly where I recover into the water with my hands closer together, with an extended glide. With that glide I can place a breath and that second kick pretty much where I want them, something I find impossible in my normal arm/body motion. It is *not* fast, now at least, but I have used it for the beginning of a 200 (I can negative split that race now, if I want) or a 1650 fly (I did a 21:40 this year in that event.) Coaches say it looks good and smooth, even though I feel that I am spending most of my time gliding.
So now I have three different butterfly strokes -- a sprint, head down, no breath 2-kick fly, probably the same as what I swam in high school, used in 50's and the end of 100's, a 1 and 1/2 kick fly (two kicks head down, one kick on the alternate breath stroke) like I did in college and used in 100's and the end of 200's, and my gliding 2-kick stroke that I do as an old man.
So now I am torn between an attempt to make my glide stroke more peppy, and deciding I am a wus, go back to my college stroke (with concentration on keeping my hips high) and just accept that my body will collapse at the end of the 200.
So thanks for your thread. It has got me rethinking my stroke (again!) and allowed me to write this self-indulgent post.
Reply
Former Member
Hi Lindsay,
It is not just new swimmers that struggle with the issues that you bring up. I have a few top-ten times, but I have been and continue to fuss with my stroke, in *significant* ways. I have at least three different strokes that I now swim in competition. I am trying to settle on one, without much success.
As a youth I had a self-taught stroke that caused general amusement for anyone looking at it. My second kick (the first one is when the arms enter the water) was mistimed and strong, so that most of my upper half of my body came out of the water, with my head and chest facing forward as the arms swept past (I think this is the "all kinds of problems" that Gareth mentions.) It was fast enough to get by -- I even got to the PA state championships with it. It was not good enough for college and 200's, however, and I became relegated to swimming nothing but backstroke.
After my sophmore year I got tired of being laughed at and spent the summer totally reconstructing my stroke. I became what I felt was 'arm centered' rather than 'kick centered.' I let my arms pull my body through the water and the kick developed (almost) naturally. Despite being a philosophy totally different from what is coached then and now, coaches and swimmers thought it looked good with good 'body dolphin.' In my two remaining years I got to 52+ and 1:58+ and I was getting faster every meet.
The trouble was that I still could not breath and get a second kick in, so I always did one kick on breath strokes. I suspect that my stroke looks similar to Esposito's (without the large outsweep at the beginning of the pull.) Until very recently I thought that was a very serious stroke flaw. I am rethinking that now, but over the last couple of years I have again reconstructed my stroke in an attempt to get that second kick in. The motivation, besides esthetic, was a complete collapse during a couple of 200 flys. I felt that with age I could no longer afford to give up the extra propulsion.
So now I have a 'distance' fly where I recover into the water with my hands closer together, with an extended glide. With that glide I can place a breath and that second kick pretty much where I want them, something I find impossible in my normal arm/body motion. It is *not* fast, now at least, but I have used it for the beginning of a 200 (I can negative split that race now, if I want) or a 1650 fly (I did a 21:40 this year in that event.) Coaches say it looks good and smooth, even though I feel that I am spending most of my time gliding.
So now I have three different butterfly strokes -- a sprint, head down, no breath 2-kick fly, probably the same as what I swam in high school, used in 50's and the end of 100's, a 1 and 1/2 kick fly (two kicks head down, one kick on the alternate breath stroke) like I did in college and used in 100's and the end of 200's, and my gliding 2-kick stroke that I do as an old man.
So now I am torn between an attempt to make my glide stroke more peppy, and deciding I am a wus, go back to my college stroke (with concentration on keeping my hips high) and just accept that my body will collapse at the end of the 200.
So thanks for your thread. It has got me rethinking my stroke (again!) and allowed me to write this self-indulgent post.
