How much endurance training?

Rich: Are you looking in the mirror at yourself? Those are mirrored goggles, dude, for swimming outside. No Dude...if the competition can't see my eyes...they can't know what I have in mind...and hey maybe I wanna "look around" during my pullout practice. I told you about T-back Girl.... ISo Rich, what's your take on proper ratio of technique to endurance training. Have you grasped an opinion from the thread or from your own training? Forkless, are you trying to imply I am not a serious swimmer, and that my jests really indicate a lack of mindfulness? I'd say 50/50 s a good starting point. Say 800YDs of each. Then after a decent standard is achieved, working toward a meet maybe60/40 towards endurance/techinique (all aspects of the race) 1200/800 (don't reduce the "base" amount). Post season /meet go back to 50/50 1000Y of each or something. You can do this on a per session basis or alternating days. The key practice your technique and look to add the speed to good technique. Intensity in your endurance work, not yards. Now GURUS off all persuasions, can anyone tell me what part of excuting proper technique is not connected to building endurance? I can swim a mile of breaststroke really badly and slowly. I can swim a beautiful 50/100/200 nice and slow too. Sprint wise I have got my 25 under my belt with speed and grace...after that it begins to slow or get real sloppy. I see all this as yin and yang (or whatever) one without the other is only half. Any how: Big dramatic thread today Kaizen vs All-comers, 15 3 minutes rounds, of gruelling, muscle wrenching, mindful, grasping, Speedo straining wrestling! I love to have a bit of humour... Peace out..Rich "One Love" "Can't we all get along?" "Shut-up!Just shut-up! You had me at hello!" "Nobody puts baby in the corner!" "I just can't quit you" etc etc etc

Ballet Dancer on the Fly: I think "you had me at hello." And no, I think you're a right serious swimmer who is gonna give me a good whipping soon in the elegant stroke you love and I suck at. And I stick up for my family. Your jests reflect a clever mind, however unmindful they appear. :joker: By "Forkless" are you indicating that my parries have no point? :laugh2: I do believe, however, that there are some technique drills you could do that have nothing whatsoever to do with building endurance. (Endurance doesn't happen just by swimming up and down the pool anyway.) Try the caterpillar drill. That'll take you a half an a hour or so per 50 if done properly. The point of many drills is to do them slowly, not quickly. Anything done real slowly is not real likely to result in mega-endorphins and sore muscles and expanded lungs. Having just purveyed relevant information, I will now Peace out, Forkless I think I mean that swimming hard on endurance too is a technique. In ballet you do everything in slow motion and quarter distances until you build up the strength, flexibility and skill to perform the real deal. I would reccomend it to anyone here as a crosstrain. Balance, coordination, timing, strength and awareness of what your body is doing are found in both activities. Furthermore, and Terry will like this, to me if there was ever a sport that is close to ballet it is swimming at it's most elegant and powerful.

A revolutionary can simply be a bomb-thrower. If I can seem humor-deprived, guilty as charged I suppose. I'm thought to have a decent sense of humor in "real life." So stop throwing bombs. This forum is real-life too, so you can have a sense of humor. What is the latest, faddy thinking on kicking for long distance free? Is it a 2 or 6 beat kick?

Congratulations on having achieved the perfect stroke. I don't expect to ever get there. Even Tiger Woods hasn't gotten there. Indeed Matt Biondi after several world records and 7 Olympic medals said he'd only learned about 10% of what there was to learn. Thanks Terry I did not realize that you have seen me swim lately, I have not quite attained perfect yet but stll trying. I have seen some of your recent videos and must say I am amazed at your progress. However it did take you 40 years... To me you have not attained perfect yet but I can see the gradual improvement. Will you please let me know when your butterfrog DVD is ready, I am getting anxious. I suggest however not to memorize any bad habits I think it would be better for you to try and get the perfect stroke before grinding into memory any mistakes.

I think the great swimmers have an inherent feel for what makes them swim fast. Hydrodynamic proprioception if you will. They adapt their strokes to what makes them swim fast. The rest of us then try to emulate them because they are swimming so fast. Problem is it doesn't work quite as well for us because we just can't feel what's making us fast the way they can. We don't have that constant feedback while swimming. VERY well said/written ... Forums are a funny/tricky thing. It's hard to know the tone that people are using and sometimes posts come across as far more rude than they are intended to be. Warren, look at Ande's blog Jagermiester explained eating in the am before a workout. You most definitely have fuel from the night before. Terry, I am not at all saying that you can't swim fast fly breathing every stroke. I am aware that Thompson did this and then broke the record. But think about the process Richard Quick (who knows far more about the sport than probably any masters coach) reconstructed her stroke making the breathing every stroke work for her. The mechanics of her stroke were changed so that breathing every stroke became most efficient for her. Remember for every rule there is an exception, or a few. And even Phelps will take two strokes when breathing from time to time. What about Crocker? The fastest flyer ever doesn't breathe every stroke. My point was simply following what the best of the best do isn't going to work. Trying to take what they do and tweak it for your body type, physical ability, fitness level, etc does make sense. My own personal little story for this I have a slightly wider recovery. I had one coach tell me I need to get a higher elbow, )because isn't that so engrained in all of us?) another coach said that because I'm short that a slightly wider recovery will work better for me. Another example, underwater SDK. For some an advantage, others who struggle with it are better off doing a couple kick or flutter kicking and just getting to the surface, Jason Lezak comes to mind. Others gain their advantage by underwater kicking - Coughlin, Peirsol, Phelps, Crocker ...

You're quite the loyalist, FlyQueen. Very admirable. Semantics and rationalizations often dominate forums. I guess it provides fun and wordplay/swordplay for everyone. I can make no comment on the evolution of breaststroke. I detest the stroke just like your odd avatar. Having said that, it seems like the breaststrokers are the nicest, most civil bunch on this forum. Flyers are very loud, boistersous, and sandpaper-y, but I will :drink: with them. Thanks for the compliments - loud, boisterious, sandpapery ... haha ... that's fine with me, it's who I am. I usually defend people that I A- think are fabulous and B - think are just being misunderstood.

Terry I am happy for you and your times. I also have a love for teaching. I taught so much that I did not really swim for 25 years. But the one thing I did do was keep up with the technology. When I started back it was very easy to make a few changes in my stroke because when I was not swimming with purpose - I incorporated the stroke changes during my lessons. I am an easy learn and only have to do it once to make a change. I am not a perfect swimmer I do not swim over 1000m a day I don't want to. I think my long swims are over and If I race again it will be 50 or 100 fly and free.

Oh my, our power goes out here for half a day, and this thread turns another corner--into deeper water.:eek: Terry, I know the definition of rationalize, I did not understand your usage of it as it pertained to swimming. Quibble, that's not what I was doing, but any time I question any thing you write, and I do do that a lot because both of my having been swimming for over 50 years and having been through the best of the best coaching, much of what you write seems 1) either not new to swimming and you write as if it is something brand new you yourself invented or studied through reports, or 2) I think your advice--SOMETIMES--is not sound. And I'd better clarify that last statement: it is I and only I that think that, and I have a right to believe what I choose, just like you. I ask questions after you write something because you have confused me or not better explained your words. Thus, my question about rationalizing, so instead of explaining in 20 words or less, you copy the spelling and definition and post it, I guess to teach me or embarrass me, but it does neither. I will really go out on a limb here and say that I have found my perfect freestyle stroke---for me at this age----it is as perfect as it will get; it will get no better. This is not bragging, this is telling people that I have reached the peak of my own mountain technique wise. I know my limits. Endurance? That has more long-range possibilities with mega-yardage which some don't believe in doing, but with my "perfect stroke", I should have little downtime. And I will very much need endurance, big time, since I will be swimming over an 18 mile swim. Endurance has to be first and foremost for something of this magnitude. And now comes the big question (oh, dear, should I?).....how much mega-yardage and at what intensity? This takes the "endurance" part of this thread to another level, but I know I will not be doing recovery 500s to obtain endurance; that to me will only give me a very small amount of overall general conditioning, and general conditioning will not be enough for the kind of swim I have planned. And, I do believe I have contributed some things to this forum with sound examples based on swimmers' performances years ago and within the last 10 years, and the difference between you and I is I do it as general information to be shared with my peers and they are my peers. I want to also give people some things to think about, but to me it is only a sharing of information; I am not trying to teach them. I think that there are many swimmers who do not have to think about their stroke and technique all of the time. No one really knows when this happens automatically, but granted, it happens with more pool time. I think a swimmer should be more focused on pace than thinking about technqiue once it starts to become a natural component. And it does happen. I hope you find your best technical stroke, too. It will come. But I don't want to go through my 60s, 70s, 80s, still trying to find it. I have decided I now have it and will swim with it the rest of my life. And the reason I know I have it is this: I swim relatively quickly, I swim with a very low stroke rate, and I use very little energy. Donna

Donna You may find something that you would like to incorprate into your swimming and I am sure you will add it if you feel it is right for you. Never say never - but again this is your right to do it your way and not be criticqued on anything. It could be rolling more to make it easier to breathe in rough water or something else, that is your decision. Good luck in your upcoming swim.

rationalize Pronunciation: 'rash-n&-"lIz, 'ra-sh&-n&-"lIz transitive verb 1 : to bring into accord with reason;; to substitute a natural for a supernatural explanation of; to attribute (one's actions) to rational and creditable motives 2 : to free from irrational parts 3 : to apply the principles of scientific management to (as an industry or its operations) for a desired result (as increased efficiency) These are the first three -- meaning most frequently used or widely accepted -- definitions for rationalize. Which of them do you deem negative? Yesterday in a post I wrote "Some swimmers tend to think they can condition their way to better performance. My thinking aligns with Jonty's." I'd originally written "Most swimmmers..." but thought better of it, knowing it would provoke a protest by Donna that would only serve to muddle and divert the point intended -- even though it's patently true. So I edited myself before posting. No matter she still felt compelled to quibble. Such responses to my word choices are precisely what I meant by "peevish dissection" of my posts -- which inevitably drew peevish ("querulous in temperament or mood; perversely obstinate") responses from the usual suspects. In the last two days I've written hundreds of words here, the preponderance of which -- on subjects like warmup and how to do a breastroke drill, etc -- constituted advice intended to help people swim better, to enjoy it more, even to rationalize their approach to it. What are you contributing by diverting discussion from the stuff that actually informs swimmers and their thinking? INCLUDE HUMOR IN THE REVOLUTION Geez. You and Dave are on a roll on this thread. Even my "Laws" joke didn't make you laugh... This is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. You can be just as peevish as those bad guy "usual suspects" when people disagree with you. Your response to Allen was defensive and picked on a single word from a single sentence in his otherwise informative post. Same with your response to the Caped One, who appeared to just be reminding you that you yourself use the word "revolutionary." Dave's response to my mere referencing of GoodSmith's thread was similarly peevish and seemingly written in attack-mode. And you pulled one word from one of my posts and ranted about it. In fact, it seems like you are often defensive if anyone dares to quibble with you or your vision. I have my Websters open and the third definition for "rationalize" is "to devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for one's behavior." I also don't believe rationalizing swimming will eliminate "fads" and "dead ends." You'd have to change human nature to accomplish that feat. As to quibbling, that is just forum talk. As a trad swimmer, Donna is allowed to quibble with you. You quibble with and diss others too, even the more unconventional sorts doing lots of TI-type stuff like me. In fact, I believe the first sentence of a recent post of yours contained the word "quibble" before imparting information. Sometimes people just fixate on certain words like "vessel" or "engine" or "mindful" or, most recently, "neural." That word has been in all your posts recently. I actually wouldn't mind hearing a little more about how the neural muscle memory thing works better than generic endurance sets, so a better explanation of that would help inform my swimming. And please lighten up and don't take everything so seriously. :joker: I believe Tall Paul recently reminded us that it's only MASTERS swimming. Even Dave can joke around. George just admitted to being "silly." Like FlyQueen, some of us folks are perfectly OK with being "loud, boisterous and sandpaper-y." Not everyone is contemplative, mindful and examined when providing hundreds of words of information -- and I think the "usual suspects" provide plenty of information too. If you only want high art and decorum and no humor or swordplay, you should probably stick with the TI forum where you can dictate the rules of discussion. :thhbbb: