I've always tried to breathe every other stroke in fly, but watching the elites at Worlds breathe every stroke made me want to try it out. So recently I experimented with breathing every stroke in fly. Findings after a couple workouts where I averaged about 600 total yards of full-stroke fly:
Breathing every stroke has a negative impact on my body position
I can help that by kicking harder
The additional oxygen that I get from all the extra breathing helps fuel the harder kicking, but it seems like I'm working harder overall (higher perceived pulse rate at the end of each swim, but I didn't actually measure it)
Stroke counts and times are about the same
So I think I've found a useful drill to make me kick harder, but I doubt I'll be trying this in a race anytime soon. Has anyone else (who hasn't always swum fly this way) messed around with breathing every stroke in fly? What were your findings?
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Most 200 specialists tend to go soft on second kick. Now I understand thanks!
In case of Phelps though, it's more a fitness thing than a technical. IOW, it's not all to be able to go hard on both kick, you have to be able to finish the race this way.
For what it's worth, looking at Phelps butterfly, the thing that stroked me the most is how deep he goes after entry. I have been struggling to stay very shallow on entry. I do this by using a *scull* to not dive. I am now seriously questioning this strategy.
He goes deep but if you look very closely, you don't see a lot of (visible) turbulence around the body when he dives/surfaces. This is what I am aiming for in performing my base mileage. Cutting drag. Finding this tiny little passage that gets me forward with as less drag possible. Really tough I find. I feel a lot of drag, but some of it is just inherent to this stroke.
His arm entries are just amazing. Virtually no drag at all. He enters then takes the catch. Arms follow a downward path immediately upon entry. Slight scull to catch then hands almost touch underneath the body. This too, I can't do even if I know I should be doing it. I'll address this after my hunt for cutting drag. 1 thing at the time.
Most 200 specialists tend to go soft on second kick. Now I understand thanks!
In case of Phelps though, it's more a fitness thing than a technical. IOW, it's not all to be able to go hard on both kick, you have to be able to finish the race this way.
For what it's worth, looking at Phelps butterfly, the thing that stroked me the most is how deep he goes after entry. I have been struggling to stay very shallow on entry. I do this by using a *scull* to not dive. I am now seriously questioning this strategy.
He goes deep but if you look very closely, you don't see a lot of (visible) turbulence around the body when he dives/surfaces. This is what I am aiming for in performing my base mileage. Cutting drag. Finding this tiny little passage that gets me forward with as less drag possible. Really tough I find. I feel a lot of drag, but some of it is just inherent to this stroke.
His arm entries are just amazing. Virtually no drag at all. He enters then takes the catch. Arms follow a downward path immediately upon entry. Slight scull to catch then hands almost touch underneath the body. This too, I can't do even if I know I should be doing it. I'll address this after my hunt for cutting drag. 1 thing at the time.
