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.
Good idea, and maybe there is a way to calculate the age differential, possibly using a graph based on WR swims...
Yes. Go to
www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi
to do exactly that.
Chris
Good idea, and maybe there is a way to calculate the age differential, possibly using a graph based on WR swims...
Why would you need to use an age differential? Do it straight up.
Former Member
I believe using fins has value for water feel, as JH states. However, I would suggest this also has a downside in that you kick much differently with fins, stroke much differently and certainly hold your body in a different position.
I can go roughly the same time in a 50 with fins from a push as I can with a meet 50 and it is a totally different experience. Of course, comparing a practice time to a meet time is relatively pointless and dissimilar.
I also had to give up fins about 7 years ago due to an addiction.
They have 12 step programs for everything these days, don't they?
Former Member
Monday, January 7, 2008 Swimming
My 100 speed is way ahead of schedule. There must have been some good carryover from my 200 workout on Friday.
Brian,
I'm looking forward to racing you in a 100M event, one day.
Why not have a virtual race? Pick an event and meets where you both will be swimming that event in. It's the basis for forum grudge races.
Paul
Yeah Pony up!
Former Member
Why not have a virtual race? Pick an event and meets where you both will be swimming that event in. It's the basis for forum grudge races.
Paul
Good idea, and maybe there is a way to calculate the age differential, possibly using a graph based on WR swims...
Former Member
Good idea, and maybe there is a way to calculate the age differential, possibly using a graph based on WR swims...
Or take your best times at an equal age and handicap yourselves the difference to date...then go swim...