On frequent occasions, I feel my form fall apart on tougher sets, but I finish regardless of my form. I feel it is more important to force my body to undergo the physiological adaptation resulting from these "near death" sets than to worry about maintaining form.
As long as I imprint the correct form in less strenuous sets I feel it is OK to gut tougher sets out when my form is falling apart. Many times I finish my workout with some shorter repeats to finish and leave the pool with the correct form imprinted in my mind.
This post is as a result of one of today's sets where I simply did not want to "give up" and switch from fly to free. I felt it was important to finish it the way I intended to give me a metal boost that I can do it as well as force the body to adapt. Is this mentality towards training wrong?
I respectfully disagree. I suggest to increase your stroke count and decrease your DPS.
Kind of like changing gears on a bike when you go uphill.
With a shorter stroke you can focus on the money spot of the pull and maintain form.
Mr. Ninny raises an excellent point. My friend Glenn Battle is a veteranarian whose own father was also a vet--for Churchill Downs in Louisville.
After watching me die a horrible death at the end of the 100 LCM freestyle, Glenn told me that the same sort of thing happens with race horses at the end of the Kentucky Derby. What the good jockeys do is to get their steeds to subtly change their gaits, thus recruiting some new muscle fibers that aren't yet thoroughly spent.
I suspect that changing your swim stroke slightly at the point of "dying" might serve the same purpose. I think that increasing your stroke count might be one way to counteract swim death. You can also increase your kick effort (assuming this, too, has not died yet); and one thing I've found useful is to concentrate a wee bit more on the final part of the stroke underwater--the push phase.
Still, no matter how you slice or dice it, you can't be 100 percent comfortable and do your best times. If anything, the opposite is the case.
I respectfully disagree. I suggest to increase your stroke count and decrease your DPS.
Kind of like changing gears on a bike when you go uphill.
With a shorter stroke you can focus on the money spot of the pull and maintain form.
Mr. Ninny raises an excellent point. My friend Glenn Battle is a veteranarian whose own father was also a vet--for Churchill Downs in Louisville.
After watching me die a horrible death at the end of the 100 LCM freestyle, Glenn told me that the same sort of thing happens with race horses at the end of the Kentucky Derby. What the good jockeys do is to get their steeds to subtly change their gaits, thus recruiting some new muscle fibers that aren't yet thoroughly spent.
I suspect that changing your swim stroke slightly at the point of "dying" might serve the same purpose. I think that increasing your stroke count might be one way to counteract swim death. You can also increase your kick effort (assuming this, too, has not died yet); and one thing I've found useful is to concentrate a wee bit more on the final part of the stroke underwater--the push phase.
Still, no matter how you slice or dice it, you can't be 100 percent comfortable and do your best times. If anything, the opposite is the case.
