What do YOU need to do to have a major swimming breakthrough?

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...

hey Chris, you have an excellent plan there. You should be able to easily smash the 50, 100 & 200 bk WRs, the 57.1 100 SCM fly record is softer than the 56.4 LCM record, dennis baker's 2:06 200 FL is pretty challenging but way softer than his 2:04 LCM record, I also think the 8:49 800 SCM fr record is pretty soft. Jim Mc's 4:14 400 fr is doable for you, plus you'll have a suit advantage compared to what he had in 1999. I agree about legs, if your legs go out in a race, you're done, even if your race isn't. It's critical so have something left at the end of races for hard push offs & SDK. It's important to have leg speed, power, and endurance. I plan to do more leg presses, leg extensions, & leg curls, along with more fast kicking: flutter, back, SDK, fly on my side for longer kicks, & breastroke. Need to do a better job 6 beat kicking in free. I plan to do some extra breastroke training, it's a critical part of the IM, here's how I split last year's 200 IM 29.10 34.93 38.82 31.31 2:14.16 I need to get out a bit faster on the FL & BK this year then go faster on the BR & FR. in my 2008 race I let up a little in on my FR kick I've got to blast my legs the whole way on my 200 IM LCM I came home in 31.2 so I'm pretty sure I can come home in 30 point something SCM We'll see. Ande

-- 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. Another possibility for fly endurance is to swim free at a moderately hard pace to get tired, and then switch to fly and work to keep tempo up. An example would be: 10 x 100 1:30 75 moderately hard free/25 fly These help you to practice swimming fly when tired, but not so tired that your tempo or stroke suffers. I find them most helpful in the early season. You can also do 200's, last 50 fly, and as you get stronger swim more fly.

Another possibility for fly endurance is to swim free at a moderately hard pace to get tired, and then switch to fly and work to keep tempo up. An example would be: 10 x 100 1:30 75 moderately hard free/25 fly It sounds like a good idea but I have always had a really hard time switching from free to fly within an individual swim, I don't know why. Two other fly-related things I plan to work on -- forgot to mention these: -- explore how breathing every stroke works on my 200 fly -- changing speeds in fly, eg 100s fly alternating easy/fast/easy/fast by 25s, or 200s fly doing the same by 50s. hey Chris, you have an excellent plan there. You should be able to easily smash the 50, 100 & 200 bk WRs, the 57.1 100 SCM fly record is softer than the 56.4 LCM record, dennis baker's 2:06 200 FL is pretty challenging but way softer than his 2:04 LCM record, I also think the 8:49 800 SCM fr record is pretty soft. Jim Mc's 4:14 400 fr is doable for you, plus you'll have a suit advantage compared to what he had in 1999. I won't have a suit advantage, I'm plannig on jammers unless maybe if FINA reverses itself (always a possibility). I think a certain Gator will smash the 400 record if he swims it, and Jeff Erwin -- who also aged up -- will claim the distance frees without a problem. I would really like to swim the 400 free for time -- I have never done one rested in SCM and went 4:17 unrested two years ago -- but I will put more priority on the back and fly events. I am a little disenchanted with freestyle right now, but it all depends on the event order in whatever meet I swim when I rest. The 200 fly may be "soft" compared to LCM, but it still looks plenty hard to me! Since I went 2:10.9 last year, I would be immensely happy with something in the 2:08 range this year.

Intermediate swimmer, plan to attend meets in 2010. SCM Off the wall push. Timed by a watch (~) SCM.SCY.LCM 25 ~0:16 (sep 2) ~0:16 (sep 10) 50 ~0:37 (sep 2) ~0:35 (sep 10) ~0:34 (sep 30) 100 ~1:33 (sep 2) ~1:25 (sep 21) ~1:19 (Oct 2) 200 ~3:27 (sep 2) 500 ~9:20 (sep 2) ~8:50 (sep 30) ~8:34 (Oct 12) Goal by Jan: (25M 0:14) (50M 0:30) (100M 1:10) (200M 2:59) (500M 8:10) Note: I will convert this to a blog once I have access next season

I am going to have a breakthrough season. My USAS team starts training again in a week after a month off (lord knows why) and my Masters club has finished their little one-week of vacation (pool maintenance, actually). Plus, I'm going to Colorado for several days end of next week, and I'm going to swim there, get a little altitude training. Things are going to be off to a great start. With so many things coinciding around the beginning of this month, how can it not be providence? :)

Focus event for this SCM season is the 200 IM. I've only swum it twice in my life. Here are the results: (date, 5/18/08) 3:06.86 36.74 1:26.46 (49.72) 2:24.03 (57.57) 3:06.86 (42.83) (date, 11/23/08) 3:00.65 35.03 1:24.63(49.60) 2:20.41(55.78) 3:00.65(40.24) I hope to go 2:50. I've been working on *** and it is improving big time. Fly is improving in the sense I don't want to split it much faster, but I should get through it more relaxed and fresher. Thanks for this post Ande, it motivates me to read other peoples goals. Does anyone have ideas on where I should focus and how I should train based on these splits? FYI I haven't been in a tech suit since March and I wore an old fastkin today (pool lost heat, so it helped for warmth). I felt a pronounced speed improvement during practice. I can only imagine a jaked!

Focus event for this SCM season is the 200 IM. I've only swum it twice in my life. Here are the results: (date, 5/18/08) 3:06.86 36.74 1:26.46 (49.72) 2:24.03 (57.57) 3:06.86 (42.83) (date, 11/23/08) 3:00.65 35.03 1:24.63(49.60) 2:20.41(55.78) 3:00.65(40.24) I hope to go 2:50. I've been working on *** and it is improving big time. Fly is improving in the sense I don't want to split it much faster, but I should get through it more relaxed and fresher. Thanks for this post Ande, it motivates me to read other peoples goals. Does anyone have ideas on where I should focus and how I should train based on these splits? FYI I haven't been in a tech suit since March and I wore an old fastkin today (pool lost heat, so it helped for warmth). I felt a pronounced speed improvement during practice. I can only imagine a jaked! Probably work more on your backstroke since that 50 saw the least improvement. Work on 50s of back where you aren't kicking that much for the first 12.5 meters or yards and you step it up in the last 37.5 meter/yards. Taken from Elizabeth Beisel's IM philosophy, the fly and free splits should be even or more even. Of course, I still haven't mastered this on the 400 IM yet but I keep that in mind when I do the IM. It seems that the NYC regions is the SCM mecca of some sorts.

I think at 63 my break out days are past, but that will not stop me from trying new ideas!

Thanks Tom, I will work on backstroke. My breastroke seems real good at times when I'm fresh, but it never feels right during an IM. Plus for me, it takes at least 3-4 strokes to get it going after pull out. I think that hurts me too. Need to get the middle two closer and the fly/fr closer as well.