One topic of great interest to us all is
"What do you need to do to have a major swimming breakthrough?"
"What do you need to do to significantly improve your swimming times in the days and weeks left in THIS season?"
What I'm looking for are specific, nitty gritty type suggestions.
I think it's really easy to fall into a rut,
to just show up and go through the motions
rather than seizing the moment while we train.
Does anyone have any thoughts on
what we need to do to significantly improve?
I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss
Ande
Hi Ande, as always, a good way to share ideas. My thoughts for the upcoming short course seasons:
-- Work the legs.
More than ever I am convinced that the value of strong and fit legs is undervalued, particularly in the short course seasons, particularly for backstrokers and butterfliers. I am going to try to work the legs and core even harder in the weight room, and to do fast/hard kick sets of varying distances. I want my legs to be strong (or at least, not dead) when I push off the last wall of my 100 or 200 races
-- Work on endurance fly.
While I am by no means writing off the 100s, I've decided that the events I enjoy the most are the 200 back and 200 fly. For the latter, I think I need to have an easy/fast fly. Like probably most masters swimmers, I have a hard time "cruising" fly without getting too tired (unlike the case for the other strokes, ie back and free). So I'd like to get to the point of being able to do, say, 100s fly on a decent pace without getting very tired...at one point in my life doing butterfly was no more tiring than doing freestyle and, while I won't ever recapture those days, I'd like to at least get a glimpse of them. So I resolve to do some longer fly sets, with less rest, and not to fear them too much.
One possibility: on sets designed to be fairly low-rest freestyle, alternate repetitions of butterfly (good pace) and free (cruise, active rest), without too much time on the wall.
Of course, I'll still keep up the usual race-pace and lactate tolerance training for both 100 and 200 distances, in both back and fly.
-- Avoid breaststroke
I guess this really needs no explanation.:) The stroke long ago evolved into butterfly anyway...
Hi Ande, as always, a good way to share ideas. My thoughts for the upcoming short course seasons:
-- Work the legs.
More than ever I am convinced that the value of strong and fit legs is undervalued, particularly in the short course seasons, particularly for backstrokers and butterfliers. I am going to try to work the legs and core even harder in the weight room, and to do fast/hard kick sets of varying distances. I want my legs to be strong (or at least, not dead) when I push off the last wall of my 100 or 200 races
-- Work on endurance fly.
While I am by no means writing off the 100s, I've decided that the events I enjoy the most are the 200 back and 200 fly. For the latter, I think I need to have an easy/fast fly. Like probably most masters swimmers, I have a hard time "cruising" fly without getting too tired (unlike the case for the other strokes, ie back and free). So I'd like to get to the point of being able to do, say, 100s fly on a decent pace without getting very tired...at one point in my life doing butterfly was no more tiring than doing freestyle and, while I won't ever recapture those days, I'd like to at least get a glimpse of them. So I resolve to do some longer fly sets, with less rest, and not to fear them too much.
One possibility: on sets designed to be fairly low-rest freestyle, alternate repetitions of butterfly (good pace) and free (cruise, active rest), without too much time on the wall.
Of course, I'll still keep up the usual race-pace and lactate tolerance training for both 100 and 200 distances, in both back and fly.
-- Avoid breaststroke
I guess this really needs no explanation.:) The stroke long ago evolved into butterfly anyway...
