biggest time accomplishment

Originally posted by hooked-on-swimming I was always wondering how much time you can shave down in like, 1 year .It is very interesting to know some experiences you had, guys - i.e. what is the biggest time improvement you ever had in one year.Any stroke and distance are welcome :-))) The first year I trained as a competitor, I literally worked on nothing but 800m freestyle. I cut my time by about 8 minutes during that first year (which is in some degree a reflection on how lousy my time was to begin with!). My improvements were primarily in stamina. My time for my first lap dropped by less than 10% during that year, but I was able to maintain more of that speed over the 800m. In my experience, it's a lot easier to build stamina than it is to improve sprint speed. Building stamina just takes work. Improving sprint speed takes cleverness (sort of like solving a Rubik's cube).

Originally posted by hooked-on-swimming I was always wondering how much time you can shave down in like, 1 year .It is very interesting to know some experiences you had, guys - i.e. what is the biggest time improvement you ever had in one year.Any stroke and distance are welcome :-))) The first year I trained as a competitor, I literally worked on nothing but 800m freestyle. I cut my time by about 8 minutes during that first year (which is in some degree a reflection on how lousy my time was to begin with!). My improvements were primarily in stamina. My time for my first lap dropped by less than 10% during that year, but I was able to maintain more of that speed over the 800m. In my experience, it's a lot easier to build stamina than it is to improve sprint speed. Building stamina just takes work. Improving sprint speed takes cleverness (sort of like solving a Rubik's cube).