The Jazz Hands training log, an alternative swimming experience
Former Member
Whenever I mention something about how I train, somebody flips out and asks for clarification. "Jazz Hands," they say, "do you really bathe in ox blood before workouts?" Or, "Jazz Hands, how many grams of testosterone do you inject weekly?" I hope to answer these questions and many more in my training log. I'll be covering water workouts and weight workouts, and I'll answer questions about both, as well as questions about my nutrition and supplementation.
I hope my alternative swimming experience will give other swimmers ideas for their own training, and expand everyone's idea of just what kind of preparation a swimmer needs to go fast.
I typically list weights this way: weight x reps. I list swimming sets this way: reps x distance. They are kind of the reverse of one another, but each one is the standard for each particular activity.
I'll start with some recent workouts.
Evening weights
Saturday December 8, 2007
School mostly finished for me on Friday, so I decided to celebrate with some sumo deadlifts.
Warmed up with 135, 205, 275, 345.
Attempted 415, felt good and fast but something went wrong. I lost control of the bar and it swung and hit me in the right shin, leaving a big red rectangle.
Finished up deadlifts with a bunch of singles at 345, and a few more at 365.
Did a set of alternating negatives on the calf machine with 140.
Evening weights
Sunday December 9, 2007
Started with 90x4 on dips. I try to do dips as deep as possible.
Did several sets of 185 on bent-over barbell rows. Didn't count reps. I mostly focused on form: back flat and parallel to the ground, no jerking and swaying. My form improved with each set.
Finished with 90x5 on dips, a new personal best. My brother watched and said I went really deep on all of the reps.
Morning swim
Monday December 10, 2007
Started with 4x25 sprint flutter kick on my back, with several minutes rest. Went 19, 18, 16, 16.
Did a couple 25s sprint free, my mind was wandering though. I was thinking about how Paul Smith says I can't do a good 100. Why not start it today? Back in the day, I used to do a 100 fly from a push every week or so just to see if I could keep up my endurance while I was swimming mostly 25s. If I remember correctly, I did about a 57 at my best. Pretty cool considering my best time in competition (high school) was a 58.
So, 100 fly! I breathed every stroke, and finished in 59. The first 50 felt really good, but I died just about as bad as I ever had on the last 25. It felt like I was actually going backwards. My friend in the other lane watched me and said I split 26 at halfway. Twenty-six to 33 is not good, and I felt like I was going to throw up for the next half hour. I hope to improve on that a lot in the coming weeks.
Parents
Former Member
There a few questions I haven't answered, I'll get to them later today.
Morning swim
Tuesday December 11, 20007
I decided to do butterfly today. Generally, I have to warm up more and do more easy swimming between sprints for fly compared to free. There's been a lot more interest in my "garbage yardage" than I expected, so I'll try to detail it more from now on.
Warmed up with 9x25, all of them were fly scull except #6 and #8 which were surface dolphin kick on my back, and #9 which was easy free. This was mostly to get my flexibility together for fly sprinting. I wanted to a feel a good stretch in my shoulders, chest and abs during the sculling. The kicking was to loosen up my hips and ankles.
Then I did 4x25 sprint fly, with easy 75 free after the first two and easy 125 free after the third one. I focused on strong underwaters and distance per stroke. I breathed every stroke except the first one on each 25. The first three were all 13 seconds in 8 strokes. The last one was 12 seconds in 9 strokes, although I did see a little peek of the number 11 on the digital pace clock. I've actually never done that before in fly, breathing or not. Of course, I never leave the wall at exactly the same time, and I never look up at the clock in exactly the same way, so it's difficult to compare 25 times between workouts.
After that I did a bunch of easy floating and sculling type stuff. Kind of hard to describe. I was basically just trying to stay warm while resting. It probably totaled 200 yards or so over maybe ten minutes.
The last thing was an all-out fly sprint for distance. The idea was to go as fast as I could while breathing every stroke, until my stroke fell apart. I made it two strokes into the fourth length, at which point I had probably gone about 8 yards and the clock was reading 45. I counted 10 strokes on each of my first two lengths, but didn't count the third length. This felt a little bit better than yesterday's 100, but I still had to stop my workout because of nausea. I was disappointed in my stroke count; I think I was too jittery. This swim didn't feel nearly as smooth as my 25s earlier in the workout.
I think that increasing my speed in the 75 fly will be a good intermediate step for me. I haven't decided exactly whether I want to race the 100 fly, 100 free, or both. For now I'm going to train fly, just because it's something different from what I've been doing lately.
There a few questions I haven't answered, I'll get to them later today.
Morning swim
Tuesday December 11, 20007
I decided to do butterfly today. Generally, I have to warm up more and do more easy swimming between sprints for fly compared to free. There's been a lot more interest in my "garbage yardage" than I expected, so I'll try to detail it more from now on.
Warmed up with 9x25, all of them were fly scull except #6 and #8 which were surface dolphin kick on my back, and #9 which was easy free. This was mostly to get my flexibility together for fly sprinting. I wanted to a feel a good stretch in my shoulders, chest and abs during the sculling. The kicking was to loosen up my hips and ankles.
Then I did 4x25 sprint fly, with easy 75 free after the first two and easy 125 free after the third one. I focused on strong underwaters and distance per stroke. I breathed every stroke except the first one on each 25. The first three were all 13 seconds in 8 strokes. The last one was 12 seconds in 9 strokes, although I did see a little peek of the number 11 on the digital pace clock. I've actually never done that before in fly, breathing or not. Of course, I never leave the wall at exactly the same time, and I never look up at the clock in exactly the same way, so it's difficult to compare 25 times between workouts.
After that I did a bunch of easy floating and sculling type stuff. Kind of hard to describe. I was basically just trying to stay warm while resting. It probably totaled 200 yards or so over maybe ten minutes.
The last thing was an all-out fly sprint for distance. The idea was to go as fast as I could while breathing every stroke, until my stroke fell apart. I made it two strokes into the fourth length, at which point I had probably gone about 8 yards and the clock was reading 45. I counted 10 strokes on each of my first two lengths, but didn't count the third length. This felt a little bit better than yesterday's 100, but I still had to stop my workout because of nausea. I was disappointed in my stroke count; I think I was too jittery. This swim didn't feel nearly as smooth as my 25s earlier in the workout.
I think that increasing my speed in the 75 fly will be a good intermediate step for me. I haven't decided exactly whether I want to race the 100 fly, 100 free, or both. For now I'm going to train fly, just because it's something different from what I've been doing lately.
