Lately I've not been making friends.
I am hitting people during fly. Sometimes it is from another lane since I recover my right arm over the lane line, and sometimes it is a lane mate. I have a 76" reach so I am roughly as wide as a lane.
I try to look and f I see someone I can sometimes do an alligator arm recovery, but this does not always work. People come up fast and you can't always get out of the way.
Is there a trick to this, or is hitting part of the deal?
Sometimes I'll lead so I can at least do a 25 without an issue, but anything over a 25 and I am now paranoid.
Former Member
If you hit the people in the next lane, wouldn't you also hit the lane line yourself? In any case care should be taken. The other day a woman told me her toe was broken by another swimmer. It was not even fly (breaststroke if I remember correctly).
I use extra kicks with arms in streamline when needed - usually a long SDK will let 2 to 3 folks pass. Also, if you have 2 lanes the same speed, you can do a fly-snake - go down in lane 1, under the laneline and into lane 2 to swim back. If you can pull everyone out of the pool, you can snake through 8 lanes for a 200 fly with no collisions - you swim down the middle of the lane. Fastest swimmers go first - our age group team will do 5 x 200 fly snake at least a couple of times a month. You can have them drill some, swim some, extra. It's a great way to do fly without risking collisions.
--mj
+ wait for your lane to be clear & swim a fast 25
+ pass them while you're SDKing
+ just as someone is approaching you break stroke and do a 1 arm pull or dive SDK & surface once you are past them
OR
just barrell down the lane full blast, make a FIST & SMACK them HARD, thus teaching them not to swim in your lane or beside your lane when you're swimming fly
Lately I've not been making friends.
I am hitting people during fly. Sometimes it is from another lane since I recover my right arm over the lane line, and sometimes it is a lane mate. I have a 76" reach so I am roughly as wide as a lane.
I try to look and f I see someone I can sometimes do an alligator arm recovery, but this does not always work. People come up fast and you can't always get out of the way.
Is there a trick to this, or is hitting part of the deal?
Sometimes I'll lead so I can at least do a 25 without an issue, but anything over a 25 and I am now paranoid.
* Maintain lane awareness of who else is in the lane, what stroke they are doing, where they are.
* I usually just plan ahead and take a few extra kicks underwater when another swimmer passes by going the other direction.
* I cheat towards the middle of the lane to avoid hitting the lane ropes. My arm recovery is too close to the water surface to swim fly very close to the ropes.
* Pass other swimmers doing a fly set at the wall, not mid-pool. Space swimmers out a little more if people vary too much in speed during the set.
* Don't slow a set even more by apologizing when it happens. Save that for between repeats.
I always feel awful about this. For me? It's more a bunch of mixed feeling, ranging from pure aggression to feeling terribly sorry.
Like in the case of this young lady, I smacked her on the wrist, I could feel it. I stop and say I'm sorry. Then get back on the set. Felt sorry for a while then I almost hit the boyfriend in the face. He was waiting for me at the wall making sure I could turn. I said what the hell are you doing there dude (huge rush of testosterone/adrenalin)? He said you injured my girlfriend and you didn't do anything about it. I said well I stopped and said I was sorry? That's all I could do.
He said you're disrespectful of others etc blablabla. Then trust me I was no longer feeling sorry. I said get your ass out of my way other wise next time I'm going to smack YOU! (made me loose my interval big time, I was in fast lane after all). Her girlfriend was swimming in the other lane for God's sake :confused:
Then the lifeguard stopped me. He said with a smile, let's pretend that I'm telling you not to do this anymore. I know you didn't do anything wrong, but I'm just trying to act as a buffer here and I don't want this hysteric young girl to make up story that's bigger than life.
Ever since this happened, now I try to make it clear with myself. I smack someone from another lane, I stop and say I'm sorry but that's all. And I make some efforts NOT to feel bad about it.
Never ever swim fly when anyone else is going the other way. Just don't. Coaches are extremely dumb about designing workouts around this principle.
Even better. Don't swim fly at all.
Swimming aggressively is rude and potentially causes injury.
Avoiding fly when anyone else is in your lane is just looking for an excuse not to swim fly. We're masters: if you don't want to swim fly, don't.
The key, as others have stated, is looking ahead and anticipating. With even a little experience there should be very few surprises. An extra kick to avoid a hit shouldn't mess up your timing (if it does, think of it as a drill to help improve your timing).
Do one-arm fly when necessary, but it shouldn't be too often because it is easier than two-arm fly. I disagree with the poster who said it is a hard habit to break in a race, I've never had the slightest bit of trouble with this. (One-handed turns, on the other hand...!)
I do a one-arm stroke all the time to avoid hitting lane mates. I know this is something that would have elicited a bark from the coach in my younger days. Maybe that's why I enjoy doing it so much now! And I agree with Chris, I don't find myself wanting to take a one arm stroke in a race.
