Hi, new to the board, back in the pool about 4 months.
Worked up to doing Mo Chambers workouts, but always substituting for fly in the IM's because I just never learned it.
I've always been a lousy kicker, but I bought a pair of Zoomers and quit using the board, which has helped a bunch. I do dolphins front and side and flutter on my back. I just started to dolphin kick off the flip (without the fins), which has really helped reduce stroke count (10 catchup; 13 -- 14 normally; 15 + is a failed lap). I'm 6'2" and dropped from 200+ when I started down to 190 - 195, which feels great.
Today I tried doing the fly legs in the IM's wearing the Zoomers, and I think there's some hope. Can a 44 year old lousy kicker learn to fly? Is it OK to learn with fins? Are there bad habits to watch out for when learning with or without the fins? Or should I forget about fly and just concentrate on the other three strokes?
I'm having a lot of fun swimming again, love the workouts and chat here, and am not afraid of looking like a complete dweeb.
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Former Member
Michael Heather
I like what you say basically. When I learned to fly, I found my kick interferred with my timming so I reduced my effort on the kick and thought more about my arm entry, the kick then came natural. Next was the breathing, I stopped breathing every stroke then the rythm started to kick in. I had never done the butterfly until the dolphin kick came into the stroke. My training was all crawl work out and no drills. With a few 25s, 50s and 75s, of butterfly thrown in. I never swam more than a 75 fly during training. It was Bill Yorzyk and Jack Nelson who showed me how to fly. My first fly race was a hundred after two weeks of learning the fly. I set a new Canadian record... slow by todays standards, 57 seconds for the 100 yards but fast for those days. I did get down to just under 1:00 for a LC 100 fly.
I like full stroke workouts forget the drills...
Michael Heather
I like what you say basically. When I learned to fly, I found my kick interferred with my timming so I reduced my effort on the kick and thought more about my arm entry, the kick then came natural. Next was the breathing, I stopped breathing every stroke then the rythm started to kick in. I had never done the butterfly until the dolphin kick came into the stroke. My training was all crawl work out and no drills. With a few 25s, 50s and 75s, of butterfly thrown in. I never swam more than a 75 fly during training. It was Bill Yorzyk and Jack Nelson who showed me how to fly. My first fly race was a hundred after two weeks of learning the fly. I set a new Canadian record... slow by todays standards, 57 seconds for the 100 yards but fast for those days. I did get down to just under 1:00 for a LC 100 fly.
I like full stroke workouts forget the drills...
