I have a swim partner right now, a young girl from Scotland who is training for our triathlon here; she pushes me big time even tho I could be her mother (she is always on my feet, I can't get rid of her!!)
I was a natural backstroker for 40 plus years, turned distance freestyle and no more backstroke.
Here's our personal challenge and wanted to see if any of you would be interested. I have never been a butterflyer except when I was young and didn't know any better and did the 400 IM, and I never butterfrogged; only dolphin kick.
On March 19th to build a different kind of strength, we are going to add to our training with distance fly (yes, I must have dementia).
From shore to a buoy, it is 350 yards and our goal is to do the entire thing fly. When I come up with challenges for myself, I always say Why Not?
So, my friend Jo and I are going to start training for the 350 fly and we don't have any turns, it is straight, non-stop to the buoy. I remember trying this same challenge for myself several years ago, and only got to about 150 yards and DIED. But it is always good to challenge ourselves in something we don't normally swim.
So, for you flyers out there and non-flyers, I ask my standard question: Why Not? Are you game? And if not fly, why not another stroke that gives you grief? All that can happen is you may not succeed at a particular distance, but you are giving your body a rest from its norm and moving into areas of different training.
I hope to report more than enough hilarious stories along the way toward this goal.
Donna
Parents
Former Member
Donna,
I learned a trick for swimming distance fly and it works very well for me. The trick is to add in one or more extra kicks to each arm stroke. Personally, I use a three-beat kick for my distance swims. If you aren't really interested in swimming against Mary T, then the time doesn't matter so much as preserving your energy. What the three-beat kick does for me is to allow me to slow down my rep rate significantly so that I don't go into oxygen debt BUT it keeps the rear end near the surface of the water so that I am not sliding backwards and downwards into the water when I breathe (every stroke). I don't have a very powerful kick, so there is no real loss of oxygen there, but just enough to keep the body nearly horizontal in the water.
At last year's state meet in Colorado, I swam the 1000 fly, as a joke. I had no problem breaking 19 minutes and it was a pretty easy swim for me. The biggest kick I had was the astonished look on the face of my lap counter who told me that he 'didn't approve of 1000 yard butterfly swims...' I hadn't warned him in advance.
Have fun with it.
-- mel
Donna,
I learned a trick for swimming distance fly and it works very well for me. The trick is to add in one or more extra kicks to each arm stroke. Personally, I use a three-beat kick for my distance swims. If you aren't really interested in swimming against Mary T, then the time doesn't matter so much as preserving your energy. What the three-beat kick does for me is to allow me to slow down my rep rate significantly so that I don't go into oxygen debt BUT it keeps the rear end near the surface of the water so that I am not sliding backwards and downwards into the water when I breathe (every stroke). I don't have a very powerful kick, so there is no real loss of oxygen there, but just enough to keep the body nearly horizontal in the water.
At last year's state meet in Colorado, I swam the 1000 fly, as a joke. I had no problem breaking 19 minutes and it was a pretty easy swim for me. The biggest kick I had was the astonished look on the face of my lap counter who told me that he 'didn't approve of 1000 yard butterfly swims...' I hadn't warned him in advance.
Have fun with it.
-- mel
