What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

funkyfish — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:54:23 GMT

My goal is to get swim faster than my times in High School. Ditto. Plan: Get my lazy butt out of bed in the morning first thing next year and start swimming with the local age group team 3 days a week. Also, eat bananas: :banana: Beat dead horsies: :dedhorse: Start cross-training with some fencing: :duel: And maybe cuss some in between sucking wind: :censor:

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:28:11 GMT

Short Term: Enter and participate in my USS's team's "Animal Meet" on the 29th injury free and ready to swim the three events: 1000 FR, 200 Fly, and 400 IM. Hence, the "Animal Meet" name. Not make a fool of myself. Not get DQd. Earn my "Animal" Tee Shirt. Enjoy swimming with the kiddies and use it to help me get back into shape post my injury. Just starting to feel good again. . .

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

rtodd — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:17:33 GMT

Today I did this set. 3X(6x100)+100 easy on 1:30 descend (Short course meters) First six, average 1:12 FREESTYLE Second six, average 1:08 Third six, average 1:05 EXTRA MINUTE REST BEFORE LAST ONE 57.5 That's stout. Enter and participate in my USS's team's "Animal Meet" on the 29th injury free and ready to swim the three events: 1000 FR, 200 Fly, and 400 IM. Hence, the "Animal Meet" name. .....stouter. (is that a word?) How's the neck?

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:47:09 GMT

Just like swimming, one article at a time. With any luck, earn the respect of influential media members and become part of a group that improves the swimming brand in the eyes of the general public... My ultimate goal is to become the Don Cherry of water sports. (only healthier) Is anyone connected to the media? My swimming goal is to be 59.99 or better, SCM for 100 Back when I'm 55+ The plan, keep swimming... Today I did this set. 3X(6x100)+100 easy on 1:30 descend (Short course meters) First six, average 1:12 FREESTYLE Second six, average 1:08 Third six, average 1:05 EXTRA MINUTE REST BEFORE LAST ONE 57.5 forums.usms.org/showpost.php

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:06:22 GMT

Getting a ***-stroke qualifying time for the May Nationals in Austin, at a meet in March. That gives me 3 months to go from 35.xx to a 32.xx in the 50 or from a 115.xx to a 110.xx in the 100. I'm hoping to add another practice time per week (up to 4), get more sprinting into my workouts, work on pacing and even-splitting, add some personal coach training on technique, be more regular in the weight room (2 x week), and a pinch of luck!

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:06:19 GMT

Goal for the year: Have Fun Motivation: Swim with the high school team Action Plan: Arrive 15 minutes early for extra warm up. Make all of the HS intervals. Stay 30 minutes extra to practice long perfect freestyle at different distances. Results: Swim 3500 in the 1 hour postal swim with out dying. Swim Hilton Head meet in April to record personal best in 100 IM. Reality: ? I don't know but 2008 will be better than 2007 with no major injuries.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:39:01 GMT

My goal is to get swim faster than my times in High School. If that doesnt happen I just want to stay in shape and have fun swimming again.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

ande — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:59:20 GMT

Guess I should answer my own questions What's Your Goal? My near term goal is to see how close I can come to my times from the 1988 USMS Short Course Yards National Championships at the 2008 USMS Short Course Yards National Championships 88: 50 fr 21.20, 100 fr 47.12, 50 fl 23.01, 100 fl 50.97 I'm also going to swim the 100 IM & 100 bk What's Your Plan? 1) Get fast from speed training 4 - 6 x / week 2) Get strong from weight training 2 - 3 x / week 3) Get Lean from waist management

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:20:39 GMT

My goal for this month is to get my 1650 time under 20 minutes. my last clock was 20:58 about a month ago. doing 40k this week, research be damned!

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

knelson — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:49:13 GMT

My ultimate goal is to become the Don Cherry of water sports. So does this mean you consider Stefan Nystrand to be a "chicken Swede?" :)

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Chris Stevenson — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:17:25 GMT

Hello everyone, Usually I stay in lurk mode but I think setting goals, as specific as possible, is a great way to stay motivated. They don't necessarily have to be time-based, either, but they ought to be something that you can translate into a training strategy. Examples: swimming a 200 fly or 400 IM or 1650 in a meet for the first time (or the first time in recent memory!) is very laudable. As an aside, I usually take my inspiration not as much from the elite swimmers -- as impressive as they can be -- but from the 70+ year old swimmers who tackle difficult events like these. I just swam a meet where a 70 year old swam a 200 fly in something like 5:30. Imagine swimming fly straight for that long a time...at 70 years of age. Pretty amazing. If you set a time-based goal, make sure you break it down into the (realistic) splits necessary to do it and then base your training goals accordingly. If you want to break 1:00 in the 100 free but can't break 30 yet...well, you need to build the speed/power first before translating it to "easy speed." (In my experience, many masters swimmers have plenty of endurance but don't work enough on race-pace swimming in practice...much as Ande has been preaching.) When setting goals, adjusting for age can, of course, be difficult; it may be different for others, but I can't come anywhere near my high school or college times. I have been tinkering with a rating system that can help with this; I freely admit to borrowing and refining the idea from a NEM home page (Great Bay Masters, I think). It is at www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi I plan on doing more work on it when I can spare the time over the next year, so any feedback would be appreciated. It is, of course, completely free for general use. I intended it exactly for this purpose -- goal setting -- but it can certainly be used for trash talking across genders and age groups...! Happy swimming, Chris

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

The Fortress — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:49:56 GMT

Beginning in January, I'm going to re-focus on kicking and SDK work. Lately, I've been completely ignoring kicking and my flutter kick is awful. I think Paul Smith is right about this, and I'm going to do much more of it for 4 weeks. I'm also considering spinning once a week. But then will depend on class times and whether it is too cold to run. I'm going to start doing ankle flexibility exercises more often too. Still mulling over times. No SCY meet until April (zones).

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:43:30 GMT

... to suffer (in training) enough to reach my goals for the 2008 LCM Nationals...

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:14:51 GMT

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:50:23 GMT

My goal is always the same. To swim faster than the previous year and to be under 2 in the 200 fly.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

art_z — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 01:34:26 GMT

2:20 in the 200 SCM back/2:05 in the 200 SCY back to acheive it I need to drop .50 per 50, while at the same time taking my 100 out 1 second slower. Didn't hit it this weekend at zones, but being sick during the last few days of taper didnt help. I need to work more broken 200s, more over distance (225s/250s/300s). Any set of 200s from now on 2:40 I am swimming backstroke rather than freestyle. I am going to hit the weights finally, first time ever on a consistent basis. Am going to drop 15 pounds by SCY zones in April.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

smontanaro — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 01:25:51 GMT

What's Your Plan? ... 3) Get Lean from waist management Got any specific tips, maybe a "get skinnier faster" website? ;) Skip Montanaro

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:33:26 GMT

Great thread, Ande. My goal is a fast 50 free. My plan is heavy lifting and fast swimming. I'm doing something a bit different than last year's 1x50 plan. I want more sprinting time to consider my technique. Right now I swim every weekday morning. A lot of my workouts now look like this: 10x25 free sprint, no breathing @ 3:00 I also sometimes work on 50s and sprint kicking. It's all subject to change. I don't know what kind of workouts I'll be doing as Austin approaches. I lift six nights a week, generally alternating upper body day and lower body day, focusing on just one or two lifts each day. Here's my current schedule: Thursday: Box squats Friday: Barbell bench press, weighted chin-ups Saturday: Sumo deadlifts Sunday: Weighted dips, bent-over barbell rows Monay: Unilateral leg work Tuesday: Dumbbell bench press, lat pull-downs Just like the swimming, it's subject to change.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:25:57 GMT

Well...apparently I'm gonna be swimming distance from now on (in college) so...coming from a sprint background (past 14 years of 50-100-and a few 200 freestyles) I have a goal of becoming a pretty solid 500 swimmer currently at a 5:30.03 (untapered, unshaved, first time in 3 years, on the 3rd day of a trials/finals meet) I would like to go a 5:15...I think thats obtainable if I change the way I've been practicing all these years, and think more endurance and pace rather than balls the the walls and your done..like I have been doing for nearly 2 decades. I'm not really sure what I should be doing in order to meet my goal other than working 100 repeat sets on tighter intervals.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:01:18 GMT

-0.01

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:39:46 GMT

...

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 12:58:00 GMT

under 1.17 on 100 breaststroke

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 12:19:18 GMT

This won't seem very impressive compared to some of the other goals that have been posted, but I'd like to do 2500m in less than an hour. Both in the pool, for a charity fundraising swim that I do every April, and in the one and only open water swim race that is ever held in our province, in July.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:05:29 GMT

One more question for you, do you pay any attention to agonist vs antagonist (I think those are the terms) muscle groups used in swimming while weight training? I've seen some references that it's good to concentrate on muscle groups opposite those that are heavily worked in swimming (I don't think they mean to the complete exclusion though) Yeah, definitely. And you're right, it's not to exclusion. Antagonists provide stability. Developing them along with the agonists of swimming is important. Some examples for swimming are the muscles that retract the scapula and externally rotate the humerus. Bent-over rows with a wide grip and deadlifts are great for these muscles. Of course, building up the agonists for swimming is just as important. Weighted dips are an awesome exercise for this purpose. Pulling movements like chin-ups and rows are great for swimming because they build both primary movers and stabilizing muscles. If you're serious about weight training for swimming, send me a private message and I'll be glad to help you figure out the details.

RE: What's Your Swimming Goal? What's Your Plan?

Former Member — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:02:14 GMT

Swim 100 free SCM under 1:00. Situation: I'm back in pool after nearly 24 years off, I'm swimming with others guys and a coach, but for now he's of little help, 2 x 45min at Week. I'm going at the gym 3-4 x week working on the core body, stretching, legs. At the end of workouts, I've just the time for a "fast" 25 meters... At this time my kick is null and "disconnected" from the rest of body when I go for all out, I'm focused only on the pull. it's 21-22 secs push off the wall, At the end with only 15 hours of swimming so far, it's not that bad I think The Plan: Reading this forum looking for advices, hints, experiences, and so on. Add 1 more workout 75-90mins long, working alone, starting from January. Add 1 more workout, working alone starting from April. Going for 5 x week alone, in july and go for It at the end of month. Working on vastly improve my stoke all around (kicking timining, elbow, catch, and so on) Working hard on kicking set. The Key : Getting my kicking times in 19-20ish from a push consistently, I stand a chance to get it.