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.
Bench press, pretty heavy. Many months of painful rehab ahead. He was probably the best conditioned swimmer on the team too. Definitely the fastest.
What injured mine was the lat pull down behind the head. Avoid it, it is much gentler in front, or work the lats with pull-overs(with good form).
I can't stand those long monotonous workouts I used to do. I can't stand doing thousands of yards without having time to focus on technical aspects of racing. This is much more sustainable for me.
Either can I
JH....I consider myself far more progressive than the vast majority of swimmers I know in both masters and USS...and probably a lot of colleges as well.
I've tried most of the things you are doing...and more going back exactly 30 years ago this fall when I entered college...I've had the good fortune to swim and lift and do cross training such as spinning and yoga with some of the top coaches and athletes in the world....and I would be the first to tell you after all of this that I don't think I know much about anything other than I continue to strive and learn and get better.
What I think your missing here is how your posts come across for many of us who are old enough to be your grandparents...there is a tone of arrogance that your way is the correct way that simply isn't true to many people who have been there and done that and you might actually learn from....if you asked.
As for the possibility of failing next year and people from here telling you "I told you so"...you are mistaken. I would be the first in line to slap you on the back and say good effort get back to work after we go have a beer...its a tough crowd here...but if you get a chance to meet any of us (including Sir Geek) you would probably be surprised to find our bark is worse than our bite.
Bench press, pretty heavy. Many months of painful rehab ahead. He was probably the best conditioned swimmer on the team too. Definitely the fastest.
I've never been keen on the bench press, and I'm pretty sensitive to what my shoulders are doing during the movement. I usually do d-bell incline press, haven't had any problems yet but perhaps I'm pushing my luck.
Stopped doing pulldowns behind the neck about 10 yrs ago. Don't see any real benefit and could definitely sense it wasn't doing anything beneficial for my shoulders.
I have made it a point to exercise my rotators, I treat it like other bodyparts like arms, back, chest, etc.
What I think your missing here is how your posts come across for many of us who are old enough to be your grandparents...
Speak for yourself, oh elderly one!
This thread is making me feel old. it's probably a good idea to have a 20 something blog to balance out our elderly blogs.
Jazz: I have never heard anyone say anything disparaging at a masters meet. Trying something new is to be commended. (I went on my monofin binge solo and on a whim.) But us crotchety elderlies like to test theories and poke holes in them.
Plus, when there hasn't been a contentious thread in awhile, people get all excited about something controversial.
Thanks, Kirk. A little chop busting would be constructive, but a lot of the criticism so far seems to be coming out of nowhere. Yes, I get the message that everyone thinks I need more aerobic training. But what is the reasoning behind that, and what would it entail? I'm trying to lay out my reasoning for what I do, but not everyone is responding to it constructively.
I believe in practicing specific skills to get better at them. I have an idea that if I work on the specific skills involved in swimming a fast 100, I can swim a fast 100. Now, I do have a knowledge of the different energy pathways, and I'm aware that the aerobic pathway must be well trained for a good 100. But I think that people overestimate the training volume necessary for that kind of effect.
I recently read an interesting study on this topic. Subjects sprinted on stationary bikes for 30 seconds at a time with several minutes of rest, three times a week for seven weeks. This training resulted in aerobic adaptations, including increased levels of certain enzymes, and increased V02 max. According to the authors, "Changes of this magnitude are usually associated with training programs involving several hours per week at submaximal exercise intensity." This is a volume of training equivalent to about 1500 meters per week of swimming. That's about what I do.
I also have some past experience training for a 500 with very low volume and getting a personal best time, although a personal best for me is not a particularly great 500 by real distance swimmer standards.
All of this evidence together gives me a hunch that I'm not so far off what I need to swim a fast 100 yards.
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.
but I still had to stop my workout because of nausea.
So around 725 yards it sounds like, and a grand finale that leads to nausea. This is good stuff. :wine:
I have not read all the threads on this, not sure I understand this. Your last post was an actual workout?
I assume you never taper also, dont know how you can with that few yards per workout. However, if your looking for someone to race in the fly,Im always looking to race.
Good luck with that strange workout routine, I hope it works for you because I know it certainly would not work for me.
Greg
So around 725 yards it sounds like, and a grand finale that leads to nausea. This is good stuff. :wine:
I count 900. Anyway, I find it a lot more useful to look at sprint yardage. This workout had 175.
