I am always amused at how often master's swimmers will take individual liberties in workout to suit their own needs. For example:
* Swimming free instead of breaststroke or the stroke prescribed by the coach.
* One handed turns on *** and fly.
* Cutting corners to stay up with the lane
* Using pull gear when it isn't a pull set
* Kicking your favorite kick and not the one given by the coach
* Leaving 2 seconds behind (more like 2 tenths behind)
* Pulling on the lane line
* Swimming when it's a kick set
* etc...
Maybe its all those years of swimming under "do it my way or the highway" type coaches, that I still have a hard time changing anything in the workout. I must admit however that it does feel good once and while to cheat a little.
As a coach, I've asked many swimmers as to why they change the set or cheat and I hear a million different excuses. I'm very interested in hearing from all of you, all the excuses you have or have heard from other swimmers.
Some of my favorite ones are:
* I don't want to get passed!!!
* I hate the other strokes? (from a former IM'r)
* My tri coach say's I shouldn't swim other strokes
At our work-outs, we have 3 lanes of abilities, and we self appoint, although sometimes the coach will move us around to challenge us a little. Everyone is really supportive, and not condescening at all, so we have no issue with anyone "cheating". We also NOW have a coach that supplies different levels of a work-out so everyone does a work-out and gets done with a set at the same time. When we had a coach that wrote one work-out, it was usually geared to the top swimmers, and the slower swimmers either did not complete it, or cut corners to complete it. The slower swimmers hated that because they never got a sense of accomplishment for finishing a work-out. It is much better to have different levels of the work-out. We have one gentleman that is far faster than any of us. Sometimes the send-offs in the fast lane are geared to him, and the rest if us struggle to make the intervals, and sometimes it is geared to the slower of the faster swimmers, and then he adds reps so he does not wait too long.
At our work-outs, we have 3 lanes of abilities, and we self appoint, although sometimes the coach will move us around to challenge us a little. Everyone is really supportive, and not condescening at all, so we have no issue with anyone "cheating". We also NOW have a coach that supplies different levels of a work-out so everyone does a work-out and gets done with a set at the same time. When we had a coach that wrote one work-out, it was usually geared to the top swimmers, and the slower swimmers either did not complete it, or cut corners to complete it. The slower swimmers hated that because they never got a sense of accomplishment for finishing a work-out. It is much better to have different levels of the work-out. We have one gentleman that is far faster than any of us. Sometimes the send-offs in the fast lane are geared to him, and the rest if us struggle to make the intervals, and sometimes it is geared to the slower of the faster swimmers, and then he adds reps so he does not wait too long.
