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?
Former Member
I know that on days when I'm feeling sluggish I change my DPS, always to quicken my tempo. It seems to ease the sluggish feeling.
I always plan on changing my tempo on the last part of a race, and it's not to increace my DPS.
Changing gears can be effective. I wish I had more gears to choose from.
I wonder if the "pros" stroke count changes over a 200 free? I know mine does, but I am an amateur.
I haven't seen footage of pros falling apart at the end of their race. They're in control
Must take alot of work to get like that
Watch Michael Phelps 200 Fly from the last Duel in the Pool. He started to get Alligator arms a bit on the last 50. While not a total loss of control you can feel his pain as you watch it.:D
I haven't seen footage of pros falling apart at the end of their race. They're in control
Must take alot of work to get like that A tough training set is more difficult than a tough swim event.
Their form falls apart too. Euh well. Note that if I could get their worst form I'd be happy with it ;-)
The longest butterfly event you could see Phelps committing to would be the 200 right? Just at varsity level, I've often seen 200 specialists being thrown in 1500 butterfly time trial. Phelps would probably do under 18min on this sort of test, but trust me, his stroke at the end would not look like that of the beginning of the set.
And besides, all events found on youtube involving those pros are done with a full taper.
I don't believe this business of "ingraining bad form" into muscle memory unless you spend most of your practice time swimming with poor form.
My sentiments exactly. RTodd mentioned:
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 think it depends a lot on how ingrained a good stroke is. If you have a good stroke gutting out a hard set probably won't hurt. I, however, have a horrible butterfly. It would do me no good to try and "hold it together". I'd either reinforce bad habits or hurt myself.
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Re: my increase in DPS comment,I sometimes forget that freestylers may not be like breaststrokers.In a race as I get tired I try to increase my stroke rate to compensate,but in a workout I try to focus on DPs as a way to focus on form.Also if I do this in workout, when I do race I don't tend to slip water as much.If this doesn't work for free,my apologies.
I say form should almost always take precedence.When you are gutting out the end of a race you need to have trained to keep your form then.That said I think there can be a mental benefit from pushing yourself to the ragged edge.I think the key is just how ragged the edge is.I'd say as your fatigue increases try to increase your DPS or in some other way focus on something to hold it together.
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.
We learn at WCM to keep good form (as long as possible), and to try to keep the stroke counts within 2 of your optimum number.
Example: If your stroke count is 14 per lap (free) and you're doing a sprint set, it should ideally stay at 14, but 16 is the highest number it should probably be. Our sets are designed, by Kerry, to practice this. He constantly hammers DPS and technique.
We will often do load sets. We'll load up our legs, or our whole bodies, in a really hard set, and THEN we'll do stroke stuff. That way our stroke isn't horrible near the end- we're tired, but the stroke remains intact even though we're fatigued.
Works for us :agree:
