I'm seeking advice on training for the 100 fly. Decided to start swimming it last year. Swam it 7x on the three courses. I can only remember 3x times where I didn't suffer from complete paralysis the last 15 meters or so and worry about a DQ. Gah. So how can I fix this?
I've read that you don't need to train fly in practice. I'm not sure I buy this. The muscular fatigue from fly seems unique. And I don't want to substitute freestyle training for it.
What are some good sets? How many SDKs per length should I take to prevent oxygen debt? If too much fly hurts the shoulders, is kicking a decent training substitute?
I also seem to swim better 100 flys on a week rest. The paralysis seems to be associated with a 2 week taper. Does aerobic fitness drop off that quickly? Is this an age thing? Or is it that I just don't train enough yards for a 2 week taper?
My favorite 100 fly sets are either working 75s (because honestly, in a race, the first 25 is pretty easy with the dive and the adrenalin) or 5 x 100 done:
100 free moderate
25 fly fast / 75 free moderate
50 fly fast / 50 free moderate
75 fly fast / 25 free moderate
100 fly fast
on an interval that is giving me ~15s rest. That set usually makes the end of the 100 about as painful as a race if I put in an honest effort.
To some degree, though, it seems like dying at the end is inevitable.
I'm seeking advice on training for the 100 fly. Decided to start swimming it last year. Swam it 7x on the three courses. I can only remember 3x times where I didn't suffer from complete paralysis the last 15 meters or so and worry about a DQ. Gah. So how can I fix this?
I've read that you don't need to train fly in practice. I'm not sure I buy this. The muscular fatigue from fly seems unique. And I don't want to substitute freestyle training for it.
What are some good sets? How many SDKs per length should I take to prevent oxygen debt? If too much fly hurts the shoulders, is kicking a decent training substitute?
I also seem to swim better 100 flys on a week rest. The paralysis seems to be associated with a 2 week taper. Does aerobic fitness drop off that quickly? Is this an age thing? Or is it that I just don't train enough yards for a 2 week taper?
Lots of good answers here and YMMV. A few random thoughts, take them or leave them:
-- It has also been my experience that you have to train fly to race fly.
-- Fly is both the most tiring stroke to swim and the one where efficiency suffers the most when you are very tired. A tough combo!
-- The number of SDKs depends on both your ability to do them without getting too tired, and hitting the wall properly. (For example, in SCY when I use 6 SDKs I always have to glide or jam the stroke.) Initially, at least, I'd opt for fewer SDKs, save your legs and energy. If you were too conservative and you're feeling good you can always through in a Phelps-like last turn!
-- kicking helps butterfly very much. Legs are used a lot in fly.
That becomes apparent to me when I swim fly with a parachute, there is a "dead spot" in the stroke where most of the propulsion comes from legs & hips.
-- legs conditioning is important too: if your legs die in the middle of a 100 fly, you're done.
-- when you do intense/fast kick sets don't just do 25s and 50s, do fast 75s and 100s with some significant rest.
For example, at the end of practice today I did 8 x 75 kick on 1:30 (pretty much rest for me) for best average. It hurt, a lot. But it is a good way to condition your legs for the end of races. It also helps a lot on SDKs late in backstroke races.
-- weight lifting helps butterfly a lot too. You need both power (few reps, high load) and serious muscular endurance (more reps, lighter).
-- I like some_girl's set a lot, but then again I do a lot of 100s fly in practice. Partly that's because I'm also training for the 200 fly. Still, you might want to try it at first with 30 sec rest, and/or going the freestyle easy instead of moderate. Decrease the rest until the bulk of your recovery is active.
-- Regardless of the sets you do, you need to reproduce that feeling you get at the end of the race, in practice. I don't think 25s and 50s alone get that done, you need 75s at least.
Good luck!
As a former flyer, I feel your pain, literally. In Age Group and HS, I would be a champ at the 90M mark...then come back to Earth (HARD!) over the last ten painful meters.
Shoulder injury in college forced me to change to breaststroke (ah, silver linings...) but I still enjoyed fly.
My warped view is do 400 IM sets where you have to swim fly, then go on to other strokes. You learn to pace yourself during the first 100M because you race (life?) depends on it. Cruise the 100 fly leg, then go into back, etc., etc. and you get a better idea of how to pace yourself.
I am toying with the idea of adding the 100 Fly back into my bag of tricks so I will talk to my coaches about this as well and see what they have to say.
20 x 50's on 1:30
odds easy
evens fast desc 2, 4, 6, 8, & 10, take at least 6 SDKs off each wall
All 20 fly? I did this today, but did 20 x 50 on the 1:00, alternating easy free and fast fly.
Thanks! I had missed that on the ask ande thread.
-- kicking helps butterfly very much. Legs are used a lot in fly.
That becomes apparent to me when I swim fly with a parachute, there is a "dead spot" in the stroke where most of the propulsion comes from legs & hips.
-- legs conditioning is important too: if your legs die in the middle of a 100 fly, you're done.
-- when you do intense/fast kick sets don't just do 25s and 50s, do fast 75s and 100s with some significant rest.
For example, at the end of practice today I did 8 x 75 kick on 1:30 (pretty much rest for me) for best average. It hurt, a lot. But it is a good way to condition your legs for the end of races. It also helps a lot on SDKs late in backstroke races.
Kicking saves my ass! I kick a lot, and not just short stuff. I did 6 x 150 and 9 x 100 on descending intervals the last couple days. My legs never die in a 100 fly; it is always the arms. I may try more high rep weights to help with this as well as doing more fly in practice.
Jim, I hadn't swum the 100 fly since I was 19 either. 27 year hiatus! I scratched it a couple times as a master ... had a mental block about swimming it. I overcame this by signing myself up for the 100 fly at a USA-S meet where my kid was swimming. Couldn't possibly scratch it then! At least not without scorn and derision.
400 IM sets?!
Lots of good answers here and YMMV. A few random thoughts, take them or leave them:
-- weight lifting helps butterfly a lot too. You need both power (few reps, high load) and serious muscular endurance (more reps, lighter).
To hijack for a sec, what weight exercises do you feel help you most with fly? I feel like I could use some weight work, but I must admit i don't have either the time or inclination to do lots.
-- I like some_girl's set a lot, but then again I do a lot of 100s fly in practice. Partly that's because I'm also training for the 200 fly. Still, you might want to try it at first with 30 sec rest, and/or going the freestyle easy instead of moderate. Decrease the rest until the bulk of your recovery is active.
Yeah, I also swim the 200 sometimes (though I can't say I like it much), and when we do sets of 100s, I think of that as more 200 training. The set above, the 75s, and sets where we do 50s on 1:00 or 1:10 (1 fast, 1 easy free), I think of as 100 sets.
To hijack for a sec, what weight exercises do you feel help you most with fly? I feel like I could use some weight work, but I must admit i don't have either the time or inclination to do lots.
I don't know if any of my exercises are really fly-specific since pretty much the same muscle groups are used in the other strokes. Lat pulldowns, tricep pushes and lateral raises maybe come to mind.
I think it will benefit you but if you really don't want to try weights, at least do something that will increase in-water resistance, such as a drag parachute (most are adjustable) or stretch cords. Painful to use, but afterward you'll feel like you are really flying across the water.
Out of curiosity, as you die at the end, do you find it is pulling or recovering that you have trouble with, or both? It seems like the muscles used in the pull should be similar to crawl, but the recovery might work a set of muscles not used as much in free?
There's a race club video with Cavic with his chest on a ball using stretch cords to resist the fly recovery motion.
Definitely the recovery.
While at a meet sitting next to your coach and an attractive person of the opposite gender, let the coach praise your recent practices and convince you to deck enter the 400 IM. Let the resulting adrenaline and hormones replace rational thought and agree to deck enter. Get on the blocks, have the aforementioned attractive person wave & smile, and go out in a fly split that is not only your PB but also qualifies you for the state meet. Ignore the gorilla that is about tap dance on top of that piano that your realize is going to drop during the free.
In college, I was either # 4 or # 5 in *** stroke (depending on how my roommate swam). The coach offered to move me to fly where we did not have as much depth. Having been DQed for years as an age grouper I was less than enthusiastic.
Later in my first round of masters, I got my 100 fly below my 100 free. Lots of kicking drills, lots of lat pulls, especially at the end of the pull. Shock Cords until fatigue and beyond.
Working on SDK w fins now, but mot ready to haul beer mountain through a 100 fly now.
Leslie,
I anxiously await responses to this. If I was to have written this message though I would have shortened the distance, to perhaps "25 fly". I'm fine as long as I don't have to breathe and don't whack my hand on the lane line thus causing a wonderful pain in my right shoulder...
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