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.
But due to asthma/allergies, my breathing ability has correspondingly degraded.
I can't imagine trying to learn fly with asthma or chronic congestion. I have yet to get to the point where I can finish any set of fly of almost any distance without serious oxygen debt.
Good luck to you, I hope you can figure out a way to make it work for you. I agree that fly is an incredible stroke for conditioning, particularly for the core. I think it's helping my breaststroke, too, although I have no empirical evidence at this point.
We did a set this morning that was kind of interesting: a 400 IM broken with the 100's as a 25 pull, 50 swim, 25 kick. I took the fly real easy, and cheated and kicked a little on the first 25, but found that I felt pretty good for most of the 50 and the kick. Somehow, the easy "pull" 25 got me going in a way that didn't sap all my energy and led me into the 50.
But due to asthma/allergies, my breathing ability has correspondingly degraded.
I can't imagine trying to learn fly with asthma or chronic congestion. I have yet to get to the point where I can finish any set of fly of almost any distance without serious oxygen debt.
Good luck to you, I hope you can figure out a way to make it work for you. I agree that fly is an incredible stroke for conditioning, particularly for the core. I think it's helping my breaststroke, too, although I have no empirical evidence at this point.
We did a set this morning that was kind of interesting: a 400 IM broken with the 100's as a 25 pull, 50 swim, 25 kick. I took the fly real easy, and cheated and kicked a little on the first 25, but found that I felt pretty good for most of the 50 and the kick. Somehow, the easy "pull" 25 got me going in a way that didn't sap all my energy and led me into the 50.
