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.
Parents
Former Member
Cin,
Yes for a lot of people the 200 is conditioning, and it certainly helps. But if you want to discover the tao of the fly, learn from your elders. My first steps on the path to enlightenment (or what passes as such in my darkened corner of the jungle) was watching the swimmers in the 70-74 age group for the 200 fly at Nationals. Those dudes are decidely NOT powering through the race on pure conditioning. That was my first clue to breathing more often than every other stroke, since they generally breathed every stroke, but their hips magically stay up. Things that made me say "hmm."
Safety point: I have developed a habit I call break away arm stroke to avoid injury. It's very simple. If I feel my arm encounter anything as it recovers (especially another arm or body part of a swimmer going the opposite direction), I immediately let it go limp &/or flop it back to my side. Missing half of a stroke cycle is infinitely preferable to breaking or pulling something for either one of us.
I was pretty amused at your description of a whole middle school invading your pool. Been there. When I was a kid on a summer league team, we used to take over a chunk of a large municiple pool that was 25 yards wide. The lifeguards would simply run off the rec swimmers, and we'd take over that section for an hour or so. One practice our coach had us doing all out 25 sprint flys, from the dive off the side of the pool. That section looked pretty inviting to one swimmer (funny how immersion of the exterior of the body has such profound effects on the internal operation of people's cerebral cortext. Folks who would never think of coming within 10 feet of the out of bounds line on a land sport think nothing of sashaying right in front of a swimmer in full out sprint mode, usually with about one foot separation) 'cause he wandered into our area with precisely zero situational awareness. The first any of us became aware of his presence is when I speared the dude with the crown of my head directly impacting his torso at full speed. If it was the NFL, they would have flagged me for 15 yards and ejected me from the game. Lucky for us both I'm me, and not Ian Crocker, because neither of us was more than stunned. I'd be willing to bet though that dude was pretty careful about avoiding the swim team section of the pool in the future.
When that's all I have for the IT cracker barrel tonight.
Happy laps,
Matt
Cin,
Yes for a lot of people the 200 is conditioning, and it certainly helps. But if you want to discover the tao of the fly, learn from your elders. My first steps on the path to enlightenment (or what passes as such in my darkened corner of the jungle) was watching the swimmers in the 70-74 age group for the 200 fly at Nationals. Those dudes are decidely NOT powering through the race on pure conditioning. That was my first clue to breathing more often than every other stroke, since they generally breathed every stroke, but their hips magically stay up. Things that made me say "hmm."
Safety point: I have developed a habit I call break away arm stroke to avoid injury. It's very simple. If I feel my arm encounter anything as it recovers (especially another arm or body part of a swimmer going the opposite direction), I immediately let it go limp &/or flop it back to my side. Missing half of a stroke cycle is infinitely preferable to breaking or pulling something for either one of us.
I was pretty amused at your description of a whole middle school invading your pool. Been there. When I was a kid on a summer league team, we used to take over a chunk of a large municiple pool that was 25 yards wide. The lifeguards would simply run off the rec swimmers, and we'd take over that section for an hour or so. One practice our coach had us doing all out 25 sprint flys, from the dive off the side of the pool. That section looked pretty inviting to one swimmer (funny how immersion of the exterior of the body has such profound effects on the internal operation of people's cerebral cortext. Folks who would never think of coming within 10 feet of the out of bounds line on a land sport think nothing of sashaying right in front of a swimmer in full out sprint mode, usually with about one foot separation) 'cause he wandered into our area with precisely zero situational awareness. The first any of us became aware of his presence is when I speared the dude with the crown of my head directly impacting his torso at full speed. If it was the NFL, they would have flagged me for 15 yards and ejected me from the game. Lucky for us both I'm me, and not Ian Crocker, because neither of us was more than stunned. I'd be willing to bet though that dude was pretty careful about avoiding the swim team section of the pool in the future.
When that's all I have for the IT cracker barrel tonight.
Happy laps,
Matt
