my 200fly video

very nice butterfly! :)

yep,my bad. forgot to say what lane I was in. I was one in full body suit. Im 43, 5'11 175. A month ago I changed USS and Masters teams and now getting a lot more practices in. I swim Monday thru Friday 5-630am then will do a 2 hr practice with team on either sat/sun. Practices have been intense and painfull, but would not want it any other way. My best time as a master in 2fly was when i was i think 38 where i did a 1:58.0 when i was tapered. I really think i can get a 1:55 if i have a good taper. At this meet past weekend, my 100fly was a 53.2, so i really think my 2fly should go out in a 55 high or 56 low. Maybe my one excuse is my 100 fly was first event then had about 25 minutes before i did the 200 fly. I just stayed in warm down pool until I was up for the 2fly.

One thing I noticed is that off my turns I tend to pop up when I breath. I like to take a breath off turn in fly to set me up for the rest of the lap. My kicking, not sure why I dont kick harder. I dont think I have really gone after this event yet. When I finished this race it kinda felt like I was just swimming a 200 in practice. Maybe thats because I was relaxed. My stroke count I would like to lower on the second 100. I took 8 strokes each lap in first 100 and 9 strokes each lap on last hundred. Im not a fan of breathing to the side, might work on staying lower. I like the pattern I have for breathing of 2 down and 1 up. Not sure why I breathed back to back on lap a few laps, maybe I felt I needed a little more air. In this meet I did the 100 fly also in a 53.2 which shows me that taking my 2fly out in a 58.7 is way to slow. I think the kicking is the key. I know my legs are strong from running and stair master and there is no reason why I should not be kicking more! I think when fully tapered in May I should be around at least 1:55, thats my target time anyways :)

Not sure why I breathed back to back on lap a few laps, maybe I felt I needed a little more air. You should definitely experiment other breathing patterns (like every stroke). It would be sad to build your goals on a breathing pattern that restricts your ability to reach your full vVo2Max during the event. Very sad. So the decision of a breathing pattern should be based on test results. If you breathe more, you endup compromising the speed due to stroke mechanics. If you breathe less (than you should), you end up compromising the speed due to accumulated o2 deficit. One way or the other, it's really a matter of compromise. The more I analyze the 200m butterfly, the more I think you can't get the two: Longish and powerful SDK at every length (which increases the o2 deficit) and breathing every 2 or every 3. If you can confirm that you can do all this, I'd be glad to know. (report back later this season). I thought that this 200 was little too conservative too. But on the other hand, I studied most of Phelps' splits over the distance recently, he's going even split most of the time over 200. There's probably a reason for this... Here's just one of those races, you know... Not Phelps, just prelims, but that's ideal for studying breathing strategies (or lack of). To me, any of these swimmers that started their 200 breathing every 2 and that needs to revise the strategy mid race to switch every 1 may have committed a mistake (I say MAY, since it's impossible to tell without comparing different strategies for the same swimmer) YouTube- 200 Butterfly Prelim 2007 American Short Course Championship The winner for this start is in Lane 3. He's an every stroke breather (except for some rare occurrences). He managed an even split over the distance (almost perfectly even: 52.some / 52.some). I think the kicking is the key. I know my legs are strong from running and stair master and there is no reason why I should not be kicking more! Funny because I am in a similar situation. I perform at least 2 hours of threshold work on the stair per week (split in 30-45min workouts at max power for the duration). And yes, I confirm. Other than for some ankle flexibility issues, which doesn't seem to be your case, there's no reason why you should kick much harder than most of your opponents.

I know my legs are strong from running and stair master and there is no reason why I should not be kicking more! I got a question for you Born2Fly. What's your typical lower body endurance schedule (running/stair master)? How do you combine swimming with running and stepping?

Solar, Basically Monday thru Friday I swim in the morning 5-630am. I will do cross training in evening. I do something every night. Treadmill I will do 5 miles and also on same night will do upper body with my total gym and then about 30 minutes of core work. Next night would be the stair master for 30 minutes. I will go 2 minutes at a fat burning pace then a minute all out on the performance until 30 minutes are up. On night of stair master is night I also do the dumb bells. Every night I also jump rope for 15-20 minutes. I think the rope jumping has helped a lot.

Solar, Basically Monday thru Friday I swim in the morning 5-630am. I will do cross training in evening. I do something every night. Treadmill I will do 5 miles and also on same night will do upper body with my total gym and then about 30 minutes of core work. Next night would be the stair master for 30 minutes. I will go 2 minutes at a fat burning pace then a minute all out on the performance until 30 minutes are up. On night of stair master is night I also do the dumb bells. Every night I also jump rope for 15-20 minutes. I think the rope jumping has helped a lot. You seem to have an outstanding ability to recover. keep the pace mate!! Which model of Stair Master do you use? Is it the LifeFitness 9500R?