I've been reading a great book about swim training. It devotes a chapter to each of the four strokes and one to IM. It was suggesting that IM should be tought of as an entirely different event. That IM swimmers shouldn't train actual IMs until 5 weeks before their meet. The should train the strokes, swimming 800-1000 meters/yards EVERY practice (either swim, drill, kick, pull, ect).
It has an entire plan laid out for what the focus of every practice is. Basically, that each practice should be devoted to a different stroke.
I've always assumed that IMmers should swim IM all the time.
THOUGHTS?
Originally posted by Paul Smith
Not sure why avoiding IM swims till 5 weeks out would make any sense?
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is, by training IM, you naturally work the strokes you're already good in and tend to "blow-off" your weak strokes. By specifically training just one stroke you can't do this--well you could, but that would basically mean blowing off an entire set.
So if that's what the author is thinking I can kind of see it. I don't agree with not training IM at all until the last part of the season, but it's probably a good idea to work in some specific stroke sets in addition to IM sets.
Originally posted by Paul Smith
Not sure why avoiding IM swims till 5 weeks out would make any sense?
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is, by training IM, you naturally work the strokes you're already good in and tend to "blow-off" your weak strokes. By specifically training just one stroke you can't do this--well you could, but that would basically mean blowing off an entire set.
So if that's what the author is thinking I can kind of see it. I don't agree with not training IM at all until the last part of the season, but it's probably a good idea to work in some specific stroke sets in addition to IM sets.
