Swim Slow to BE Fast

Few coaches will deny that the key to fast swimming is training fast but unless you have an effective swimming technique the only thing you'll reach by training faster is mediocrity. The beginner or poor swimmer should use a majority of their training time on improving their technique and when they get more proficient add more yardage and more sprinting This is exactly where I am at. I can keep plowing through the water and focusing on sprint speed but I've finally realized there are fundamental flaws in my stroke that I need to correct. I've got less than two months left in the season and I have come to the realization that I probably won't reach the goal times I had set for myself. :frustrated: I don't know how quickly I can incorporate drastic changes and see a real benefit in time because it does seem like I need to swim slow to learn it because otherwise I would naturally revert to my bad habits.

sprinting without a warm up is dumb. Yes it is. I would definately break body parts. I'm sure if the ruskie was called to the blocks for a random sprint he would loosen up a little prior to starting, but it was designed for mental toughness and to be ready to do a race pace any time. www.usaswimming.org/.../ViewMiscArticle.aspx

I think you got to swim both slow and fast to be FAST. I read that Popov spent much of his time swimming slow (by his standards), but his coach would have him do race pace sprints, off the blocks randomly with no preparation. Didn't matter if it was at the end of practice or in the middle of breakfast, he had to be on the blocks ready to sprint even without warmup.

sprinting without a warm up is dumb.

To be honest, I never tried it swimming. I can tell you from experience that you can't run a sprint from the blocks without getting hurt. It is a 100% certainty that something will tear, hopefully a muscle, not a tendon. This is/was my perspective when I read your commnet regarding Popov. Perhaps in swimming you can't generate the stratospheric loads on the tendons and muscles that track sprinting can.

You can swim fast with a slower turnover. By time standards now my 100M was very slow 6 or 7 seconds slower then the fastest sprinters are swimming now. I was faster for a 100 when I was 38 years old then I was in 1955 and 1956 at 22-23 years of age. I always had a slow turnover when I sprinted. I think the idea behind Swim Slow to be Fast is get the technique down pat and you will be faster in the longrun. To thrash away, and splash away is really not the way to go. Just imagine how fast you could be with a combination of technique and swimming fast. It takes proper body position, a proper kick, and a good technial arm stroke to be fast. It must be a combination of all.

sprinting without a warm up is dumb. Dumb enough to help him to double olympic golds in the 50/100 free and oldest man to ever win the 100 meter free at the world championships in 2003. I think popov and his coach know a little bit more about how to prepare to swim fast than we do.

This is exactly where I am at. I can keep plowing through the water and focusing on sprint speed but I've finally realized there are fundamental flaws in my stroke that I need to correct. I've got less than two months left in the season and I have come to the realization that I probably won't reach the goal times I had set for myself. :frustrated: I don't know how quickly I can incorporate drastic changes and see a real benefit in time because it does seem like I need to swim slow to learn it because otherwise I would naturally revert to my bad habits. If you can find a coach who can look at your stroke and then give you a stroke patter improvement, I'd think I'd start from there. Change is often tedious and more often than not your times will get worse but if you're confident in the change, you should go for it. Again before you make a change, have a coach watch you swim in a race or at race pace then give you some things you can change. When you get the suggestions put them into a priority order and attack them accordingly. Good luck! Coach T.

To be honest, I never tried it swimming. I can tell you from experience that you can't run a sprint from the blocks without getting hurt. It is a 100% certainty that something will tear, hopefully a muscle, not a tendon. This is/was my perspective when I read your commnet regarding Popov. Perhaps in swimming you can't generate the stratospheric loads on the tendons and muscles that track sprinting can. I have a feeling that popov and his coach wouldn't do anything to cause harm to his tendons. They probably did some sort of dryland movements to get the blood circulating and muscles warmed-up so that he wouldn't injury himself.