Hey, I'm a 16 year old junior in high school, and well, I'd appreciate it if I could get some help with my swimming. I started swimming last year and can do every single stroke legally (minus breaststroke...oddly enough...) but my favorite stroke is freestyle. I have swam a 100 free starting off the wall in 1:00 and I'm also wondering what the most efficient way to swim it is, because when I made that time (my personal best, sadly) I sprinted the whole time. In addition, because this start was off the wall, I did not get to start off the block, I am 5'8" and weigh 122 and I'd just like any tips you can throw my way! Thanks in advance, and I also swim the 500 free on occasion so I would also appreciate any help on this. (Last year I swam the 200 and 500 free, this year I am hoping to swim the 100 free and 500 free)
You are definitely correct about the complexities involved. And this is only one reason why it is so hard to break down training into a do this, not that prescription for sprinters vs. distance swimmers. It's almost like a body ecology wherein alterations to X precipitate alterations to Y which, in turn, effect other feedback loops and cascading reactions, etc.
Add in that a lot of this stuff is, at best, only crudely understood. Case in point: in the first version of his classic swimming science text, Maglischo seemed pretty convinced that a lot of the power in the freestyle pull comes from subtle sculling hand movements that (if memory serves me, and it may not) harness the Bernouli effect.
In his later edition, and armed with new research from simulations in the water equivalent of wind tunnels, he realized this was not the case at all, and came to reject his own earlier theory.
I think the bottom line for us today is to train most in the areas where we want to excel, but to not dismiss or give overly short shrift to the areas we are less constitutionally suited to. I continue to maintain that distance swimmers should do some sprinting work and vice versa, as much as both groups appear to hate the forms of swimming they don't consider themselves "good" at.
You are definitely correct about the complexities involved. And this is only one reason why it is so hard to break down training into a do this, not that prescription for sprinters vs. distance swimmers. It's almost like a body ecology wherein alterations to X precipitate alterations to Y which, in turn, effect other feedback loops and cascading reactions, etc.
Add in that a lot of this stuff is, at best, only crudely understood. Case in point: in the first version of his classic swimming science text, Maglischo seemed pretty convinced that a lot of the power in the freestyle pull comes from subtle sculling hand movements that (if memory serves me, and it may not) harness the Bernouli effect.
In his later edition, and armed with new research from simulations in the water equivalent of wind tunnels, he realized this was not the case at all, and came to reject his own earlier theory.
I think the bottom line for us today is to train most in the areas where we want to excel, but to not dismiss or give overly short shrift to the areas we are less constitutionally suited to. I continue to maintain that distance swimmers should do some sprinting work and vice versa, as much as both groups appear to hate the forms of swimming they don't consider themselves "good" at.
