Distance Backstroke

Hi Tom, If the goal is to swim a better 200...then interval training may help over the distance work. Personally I found that swimming longer distances will teach you to swim with energy conservation in mind rather than speed. True your stamina will improve...but working 200 repeats at a hard pace may outweigh the distance training. Just my 2 cents. Depending on your workout speed...set the work interval to get about 15 seconds rest on the 200's...and ten seconds on the 100's. A good yardage total should add up to around 2,000 on any given interval set. ie...10 x 200 ...or 20 x 100

I am one to spend a lot of time on my back. Literally and figuratively that is. When I am training for a specific competition, which has been a while, I will do repeats of 100s or 200s to get 200 Back stamina. I like to do sets descending times and/or intervals. I feel if I can finish strong, then I am going to have a good swim. The only way I get the confidence to finish strong, is to continue to do descend/negative split swims. And no, negative split does not mean loaf the first half and sprint the second. I try to do a 3 second drop at most per 100 of distance. A good set that I like to do is: 18 X 100 3 on 1:30 3 on 1:20 3 on 1:30 3 on 1:15 3 on 1:30 3 on 1:10 (Descend each set of 3) This is short course, I adjust by 10% for long course, you can adjust for level, course type. I feel if I can descend the last 3 on 1:10 interval I am in good shape for a 200 Backstroke. One other thing, the way I like to swim a 200 Backstroke is the following: 1. Use the start and turn to make a VERY STRONG first 50 2. SPRINT (and I mean SPRINT) the middle 100 3. Rely on my confidence of training to finish the last 50 as best as I can. This may sound odd, but the more you practice this, the more sense it will make.

Tom, my team did a test set every other wednesday in the three months leading up to SCY Nationals. We started at 12x75 on 1:05, and dropped two repeats off and added 5 seconds to the interval each week. Mollie (SwimmieAvsFan) did hers all backstroke to train for her fave event, the 200 back. I can't recall what times she was holding for those, but her nationals 200 back was I believe a USMS best, and lifetime #2. I'll be sure to encourage her to weigh in on this topic - though most of her training partners (ie me) train for mid-distance free, she will tend to tinker with things slighty to fit in her backstroke. For my part, I do enjoy the occasional 200s fly & back, and for practicing, tend to do really focus on working hard on my IM and IM-order sets, especially the fly and backstroke parts. My thought process in the Fly's in the last couple years is to not do much more than 25s and 50s in practice, and finishing up many a workout with a 50 fast fly from the blocks (kind of a cheap way of adding ~150y to a workout). Whatever I am doing seems to work - my Nationals 50fly and both 50 back relay splits were lifetime bests; and in the 200 fly, had an 8 second timedrop in my PB over two swims.

Thanks for posting that workout Sam. I'm going to try it this week. The 1:10's may be touch and go. That's an excellent 200 race strategy by the way. A typical set of 100's that I do once a week... 1 on 1:30 1 on 1:20 1 on 1:15 repeated 8 times. For 200 training... 1 x 200 on 2:40 2 x 100 on 1:20 4 x 50 on :40 repeated 4 times

These are some great ideas. If you saw my question for Ande, you probably saw his response: doing 800 back just 'cause his lanemates were doing 800 free. He's an animal.

These are some great ideas. If you saw my question for Ande, you probably saw his response: doing 800 back just 'cause his lanemates were doing 800 free. He's an animal. Not to brag, but I do the same thing. I just get bored doing freestyle and I seem to work myself harder when I am not bored...

"Super fast" is relative. The last meet I swam in, which was in 2003, I went a 1:57 for my 200 and :55 for my 100. Indeed. I would be happy to go under 1:20 for a 100... :frustrated: Hence my focus on postal swims... :) Skip Montanaro

Tom, my team did a test set every other wednesday in the three months leading up to SCY Nationals. We started at 12x75 on 1:05, and dropped two repeats off and added 5 seconds to the interval each week. Mollie (SwimmieAvsFan) did hers all backstroke to train for her fave event, the 200 back. I can't recall what times she was holding for those, but her nationals 200 back was I believe a USMS best, and lifetime #2. I'll be sure to encourage her to weigh in on this topic - though most of her training partners (ie me) train for mid-distance free, she will tend to tinker with things slighty to fit in her backstroke... figured i'd weigh in, since i am a distance backstroker and all ;) so, the test set muppet refered to, this is how i swam it: 12x75- held :51s/:52s 10x75- held :50s/:51s 8x75- held :50s/:49s 6x75- held :49s/:48s 4x75- held :48s i was holding low 2:17s for the season, and tapered down to a high 2:11 at nationals (i was a low 2:11 as an age grouper). so i really feel like this set helped, a lot. mostly, it got me comfortable with being uncomfortable (cause trust me, even with 10-15 seconds rest on the first 2 times through, it was a painful set). and it also gave me and my coach plenty of time to figure out a smart race strategy (i tended to go out too easy and with too much speed from the legs, this set showed me to set my tempo with my arms and to get out after the race from the start instead of waiting for the 100 to get moving). other times, if the guys are doing a longer freestyle set (like ladders starting or ending on 400 or 500 free), i'll do the shorter stuff free and the long stuff i'll chop off a 50 or 100 and do it back. so if the given set is: 100 200 300 400 500 all on a 1:15 base, i'll do the 100 and 200 free, then do a 250, 350, and 400 back, still on the 1:15 base. i could make the full 300, 400, 500 on 1:15, but my stroke would start to fall apart, so i thought it was more important to cut off a little of the repeat and keep my stroke together. i started doing this not so much to train for the 200 back, but because i have occasionally cranky shoulders, and doing backstroke makes them much happier :) it ended up having the side benefit of really helping my 200 back, so i continue to do it. not all the time, but frequently.

We started at 12x75 on 1:05, and dropped two repeats off and added 5 seconds to the interval each week. Muppet, I don't understand this. Is there a typo? If I read this correctly: Week 1 12x75 @ 1:05 Week 2 10x75 @ 1:10 Week 3 8x75 @ 1:15 ... What was that testing? Thx, Skip Montanaro

Skip, you are reading that correctly. We were testing our ability to sprint - in the beginning, over a long period of time; and at the end, over a short distance. It also gave us a feel for how well we were progressing throughout the spring. Ideally, come taper time, we were to be going slightly faster than this for 100s, and for the super ideal, holding this same speed for 200s. For Mollie, this worked out great, as her 2:11 (31,33,33,33 splits) work out to about the :49 range she was holding in this set. I finished up right about :42 (free) - which is a 1:52; and I was at 1:53 in the 200 free at nationals.