Learning to fly

Originally posted by gjy I tried Claritin about fifteen years ago and it didn't do anything at all I admit, it doesn't do anything for me either. I use Allegra, but it's still prescription only. Another thing you might want to try is Nasalcrom, I believe it is over the counter, but you have to use it regularly for it to work (it's a nasal spray). It's also ragweed season in California right now, and my sinuses have gone crazy. What pool do you swim at?

Is it a problem to have a runny nose once u start swimming? I get runny noses but that's it. I blow it out and then it's solved and I dont' have other symptoms.

I agree with most of the things said here. I myself am still learning fly. To me timing is almost the single most important thing. I always try to kick my hands in and hands out. I actually disagree that you should not think about kicking from the knees at all. This may lead someone to think keeping the legs straight (as almost in freestyle). When I learned, for a short while, I was under that misconception. For me, the easier way is to think of your whole legs as a big tail with the lower part bend at some angle when propellig (45 degrees). As long as you are moving your upper legs and hips the lower legs shoudl come naturally. Again, I am still learning it and just my two cents. The trouble I have is more on the pull. Do you pull backward immeidately after your hands enter water, or is there an outsweep and insweep involved?

Pseudoephedrine isn't illegal, just restricted. In Oklahoma* you can only buy something like 90 tablets a month (and present an ID, sign a logbook, etc.), but taking more than that would probably be bad for your health anyhow. You want to be careful with this if you have high blood pressure or any sort of heart problem, but small doses would probably be OK. Chili pepper (capsaicin) is a natural decongestant, but it might be inadvisable to go out for Thai food just before a workout. I find a nice spicy soup works wonders sometimes when nothing else seems to get my head clear. Disclaimer: My problem is (severe) hayfever, not asthma. And my butterfly is simply hilarious. Tom AFAIK Oklahoma was the first state to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine (Sudaphed, etc.). The law has caused a dramatic drop in the number of methamphetamine labs, as well as in the associated fires and explosions.

Originally posted by gjy I forgot about the number of people (two here?) that don't like doing drills which is also me. I see there is an explanation of the one-arm fly drill here which I had been looking for. Not that I want to do it at this point - I wanted to know what was to be accomplished by it. Mostly I get here that it allows you to work on timing - other than that, the purposes seem kind of weak. I don't need to work on timing anymore - I've got it now - it's automatic. A couple weeks ago, I did finally give the one-arm drill a better try, for a full couple laps (but I erroneously, I guess, did not switch arms) and I couldn't even guess what its purpose was. I think there is a rule, isn't there, that you don't do a drill unless you know what you are trying to accomplish. On the Phelps/Bowman fly video Bowman refers to one arm fly when talking about energy management, i.e. you can do more one arm fly than you can two arm fly. One arm fly also allows you to slow the whole stroke down (as opposed to just adding a glide phase) which allows you to concentrate on various technique issues the same way many people advocate swimming at a slower pace in freestyle while you work on technique. Apparently Phelps swims a lot of one arm fly and feels it is important to maintaining and improving his technique.

The fly kick, the more you think about it the worse it gets, kick from the shoulders and how in the world are your kmees going to be rigid and straight there is a natural bend in the knees other wise you woud be like a stiff legged tin solder . We have to let things happen naturally.

Signed up for a pentathlon (one event of each stroke plus an IM) in March. I never did swim fly as a kid, so this is the first time in competition for me and the public debut of my new stroke. I would have liked to do 100's in the other strokes and the 200 IM, but wasn't comfortable leading off my day with a 100 fly, so I signed up for 50's and 100 IM. "What's the worst that can happen?" I thought rhetorically as I mailed in the entry. Please don't answer that question; I'm sure I'll find out on my own.:o I swim meters, and the meet is SCY, so I'm psyching myself up by reminding myself that the 50 is 10% shorter, plus the dive will eat up some serious pool (I'm planning on gliding for as long as I can or as adrenalin allows, whichever somes first.) Should be some fun.

50 yards is only half of the 100 that you intended to do in the first place. It will be a breeze.

Bill your pentathlon is going to be great - this was my first masters meet ten years ago and you are further along in your training than I was at that time. You are going to have a blast! Just don't miss your heat - they go very quickly. Actually if you want to step up your training I was thinking you would be a good partner in one of my LT sets. I am to a point where I am struggling to maintain the sendoff on the 100's on my own. Since you are faster I thought you could help pull me through the last third of the set. So what do you think, the week of March 13th, 1/2 hour of 100m free on 1:40? Would not be quite LT for you but would really help me! Ann

Thanks, MattS, for reminding me about those articles. I've read them a few times now, but I went back and read them again this morning. I find something new, or that something he says makes more sense, with each read. By the way, there are a lot of really good articles at the site, many of which are highly relevant to the apocalyptic TI debate which was recently raging yet again. Ann, do I need to know what LT means to make the set work? Sure, happy to help out, Wed. or Fri noonish work for me. And trust me, 30 minutes of 100 SCM's on a 1:40 sendoff will be plenty sporty for me, even if they are not quite whatever LT is.