Hi. I'm a 15 year old boy working on swimming in the Provincial High School meet next year and will be participating in the 50m SC *** hopefully. I did horribly this year, with a 41.05. Anyways, the swimming season of my high school is now officially over =(. But I'm starting to train on my own. Does anyone have any good workout or sets they like to share? As well as tips? I'm working on getting my time to below 35s. Yeah, it's very difficult, but I'll try.
Naturally, I went to Wayne's site for ideas first. His workout article was superb, but it doesn't seem to focus on sprint breaststroke all that much.
So if anyone can share any good workouts I'll be able to do (I swim in a 30m pool normally), or any good sets, drills. etc to improve my 50m sprint ***, please post them here. Interval sets, etc.. Also, any dryland exercises are also welcome.
Thanks a lot!
Former Member
Hey Drac,
The best I've ever done from a dead stop was to get all of my shoulder out above the surface, myabe just to the middle of my upper arm. And my pullout was/is my strong part. Don't think anyone could see any speedo. :-) Oh, and in college, I preferred the 200 fly over the 200 breaststroke any day. For one, the choice of racing for 1:54 vs 2:05 was a factor. 11 seconds less pain. Secondly, the chicks really digged the fly. LOL.
With regard to your thumbs too close to your face, for one, I think your dropping your head too much. Are you looking directly at the bottom of the pool? Personally, I think one should always be looking slightly forward and not straight down. Try performing a full supernation of the hands. That is, turn your palms up towards the sky on your recovery. This will force your elbows together, and create a more streamline recovery. The very first time I did this in a race, my time for a 100yds went from a 1:01 to a :58. I since went back to the partial supernation (prayer hands), with understanding of how close to keep my elbows together in the recovery, and dropped my time by another second. Every once in a while, when I feel my elbows aren't getting close enough, I revert back to the full supernation as a reminder.
Squats and forearm strenghening exercises are great for breaststroke.
Your normal swim stroke count seems very good. But you shouldn't be jumping 4 strokes just from speed. Think 'tempo'. Start off at your normal speed, and slowly try to accelerate your speed by just picking up the tempo of your cycle, maintaining the same distance for each cycle.
BTW, I think it's great to watch the elite underwater tapes. I find them interesting and educational models. However, I wouldn't put too much into attempting to mimick exactly what you see. What works for one man (or woman) may or won't work for another since we all have different naturally occurring strenghts and weaknesses. There exists a 'core' model stroke for each stroke, but your exact stroke will and should vary according to your strengths.
