In connection to the poll about which stroke you train the most at; I want to test my hypothesis that no one outside of a small group of masochistic freaks would swim more than 50% of a regular 3000-4000 yard workout butterfly.......So if I'm wrong let me know by voting and by commenting on how you swim all that butterfly in a single workout?
Newmastersswimmer
Former Member
originally posted by Keather
Jim would have to actually update his blog first ... What are we going on 2 months without an update?
Aah....Yaeh about that....It seems I've fallen a tad behind on that....I've scribbled down most of the workouts here and there but I've seem to have misplaced most of them....never was one for strong organizational skills....It's hard to remember everythin in a 7000 - 8000 meter practice....especially when your brain is ...well lets say ...a tad worn out. The coach is suppose to e-mail me a list of all of our workouts over the past couple of months (he says he keeps them in a coaching log)....So when he sends them to me I'll update the training blog....Sorry about falling behind on that.....I guess I'm not as reliable as the Raz about this kind of thing!......And yes, I will put a link to my training blog in my signature so that it will be easier to access it. Sorry Ande....I'm not trying to cheat anyone on our deal or anything....I'm just really really lame thats all!
Newmastersswimmer
How much fly in training? It all depends on how good you want to be. If you are a serious masters fly swimmer then you need to do it until it come out of your ears. If you can face doing three or four 500m fly swims during a training session or a set of, say, 20 x 100m then when it comes to doing a 200 in a race then it will be easy, and certainly you will be able to face the psychological aspect of racing over 200m.
Already I know what you (swimmers on the other side of the Atlantic) are going to say, but during the build-up to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics I saw the Irish swimmer, and triple gold medallist Michelle Smith in training. Whatever you may believe about her suspected drug-taking - and remember, she was never once tested positive in her run-up to, and during the Olympic Games, she worked harder than any other swimmer in history.
One morning I arrived at the pool at 5.30. She was making her way through a set of 60 x 200m fly. I sat in the seats with my cup of coffee and was amazed to see her taking only 10 seconds rest between swims. That particular day she had a rest period (in her room) between 9.00am an 12 noon. She was back in the pool again at 2.00pm Her afternoon session consisted of 80 x 100m fly. Her coach gave her the option of taking 5 secs rest between swims or going every1:20. She chose to go on 1:20 because she wanted to go for good times on every swim!
Those swimmers who recommend doing less than 10 per cent of their training on fly will never achieve on the stroke and will forever be envious of those who swim it well.
Unfortunately there's no easy answer if you want to be a flyer.
I think about 2 years ago I did a workout around 2,500 yards and it was 900 yards fly. That hurts at my age. A 20 year old can do a lot more yardage fly than a 50 year. Prove, there are thousands of women between the ages of 12 to 20 years old than can swim fly under 3:00 in the 200 meters. In masters swimming I think only 8 people from the ages of 45 to 59 in women can swim under 3:00 and only one of them is in the 55 to 59 year old age group.
