The IM Lane

And emotionally drained after one of our favorite swimmers suffered a massive heart attack in my early morning workout yesterday. Still critical. Whoa, for some reason I completely missed this part of the post earlier. Since no one yelled at me, I will now yell at myself. :bitching: TG, no one cares about your crap while there is a swimmer in the ICU! :bitching: Get well soon.

Headed to Mission Viejo for Regionals today. Really mixed bag of training going into the meet. And emotionally drained after one of our favorite swimmers suffered a massive heart attack in my early morning workout yesterday. Still critical. But here comes that 400IM on day one of the meet. What event provides a full workout in itself like the 4IM? My swimmer, Tom, thinks its bad ass that I swim it and I agree. I sure don't feel bad ass today. But then, the 4IM is nothing like the battle he is facing right now. So here goes...

good luck ahelee, Easy speed, breathe & save your legs on FL & Bk stay relaxed be smooth work the *** & free

When I do IM sets, it's usually one of the following: 400-300-200-100 on 6:00-4:30-3:00-1:30 5x200 on 3:00 10x100 on 1:30 I haven't done an IM set in a while. So tomorrow I'm going to do the 4-3-2-1 set. Followed by a fly set. Gotta keep the universe in balance.

When I do IM sets, it's usually one of the following: 400-300-200-100 on 6:00-4:30-3:00-1:30 5x200 on 3:00 10x100 on 1:30 I haven't done an IM set in a while. So tomorrow I'm going to do the 4-3-2-1 set. Followed by a fly set. Gotta keep the universe in balance. About halfway to the gym I remembered that I signed myself up for this set. I went after the 400 a bit too aggressively, so I felt wasted the rest of the workout, but it came out okay. 5:11-3:54-2:36-1:16. I still did the fly set afterward, and then weights, and then abdominals, and then biked to work. So I'm tired but in a good way. I like Ahelee's suggestion of designating one day per week for an IM main set.

First thing's first: Ahelee, is Tom doing better? Fridays are becoming IM Day. This week I did my least favorite of the three IM sets that I posted earlier in the thread: 5x200 IM on 3:00. This set just hurts, and it takes great concentration not to lose technique. I went 2:35, 2:36, 2:35, 2:36, 2:34. Not my fastest work but I held on and finished well. A funny thing happened during this set: turning from fly to back on the 4th 200, I saw that the Pink Thong Exhibitionist was on the pool deck. Then the woman that I was splitting a lane with hopped out. Aw crap. (To complement his repulsive costume, the PTE swims wretched breaststroke exclusively, always with large hand paddles. Dangerous.) Sure enough, as I finished the 4th 200, I could see that the PTE was making his way toward my lane. I started the 5th 200 and sure enough, there he was in the water as I finished the fly. (I was still splitting the lane, not swimming down the center.) Then on my second length of backstroke, I saw that he moved over one to split a lane with my friend Kyle instead of splitting with me. BAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA the PTE is afraid of me!!!! :bliss:

I do the bucket turn alot because I need the air. I'm a breaststroker who is training in IM for my first pentathlon. I hire a coach (very part-time) to help me with my strokes, starts and turns. During our last session, he coached me on IM transitions; particularly the back-to-*** transition. He is teaching me open turns for everything, because I have Meniere's and get too dizzy if I do any more than a few flip turns in a short period of time. (I figured that out when I made myself "seasick" practicing flip turns. I didn't have Meniere's when I used to compete in high school swimming...) Learning open turns and IM transitions isn't too difficult, if you already have a solid breaststroke turn. I've been working hard on it, so it has really helped my other open turns.

I AM REVIVING THIS THREAD Why? Because today I taught myself the backstroke to breaststroke flip turn. I've never been able to do it with any consistency before, but now I've got it. Here's what I did. The pool was nearly empty so I moved to the center of the pool and did 10 x 25 back-to-***, starting and finishing in the middle. The first two sucked because I was trying to do something like this YouTube- ‪Eric Shanteau Back - *** Transition Turn‬‎ or this YouTube- ‪Adam Mania's Back to *** turn‬‎ and I just can't seem to get that right. So then for #3 I decided to try this instead (I've seen this technique but I had never tried it before): YouTube- ‪Tay Back To Brerast‬‎ I cheated a little bit and looked at my hand before it touched the wall, but I completely nailed the turn. There's no rotating or twisting, just touch the wall and flip straight over. Then I nailed the turn 7 more times, at different speeds and off either hand. For the rest of the workout I started working these turns into my warmdown swims (e.g. alternating backstroke and freestyle each 25, doing this flip turn on each back-to-free transition) and eventually got to where I didn't need to look at the wall prior to flipping. That is important since by putting my head underwater prior to touching the wall, I'd be risking a DQ for submerging past 15 meters. If an idiot like me can learn this, then anyone can! WOO HOO!!! THERE'S A HALF SECOND I'M NOT GIVING UP ANYMORE!!! :bliss: I do the bucket turn alot because I need the air. But, I would like to master Shanteau's transition. When I watch Nationals or Grand Prix events, I am stunned how many swimmers do the open turns. I sometimes do the open turns but that is when I am so zapped after the backstroke portion of the 400 IM. Shanteau's version is probably the one to shot for.

I do the bucket turn alot because I need the air. But, I would like to master Shanteau's transition. When I watch Nationals or Grand Prix events, I am stunned how many swimmers do the open turns. I sometimes do the open turns but that is when I am so zapped after the backstroke portion of the 400 IM. Shanteau's version is probably the one to shot for. Shanteau's turn is great but I'm going to stick with the turn that I can actually perform. :) But I do need to recalibrate how long I can hold my breaststroke pullouts, especially in the 400. My IM sets in the coming weeks should be interesting. More importantly: will they be faster? Edit: Hey I found another one: YouTube- ‪turn backstroke-breaststroke / virata dorso-rana‬‎

I AM REVIVING THIS THREAD Why? Because today I taught myself the backstroke to breaststroke flip turn. I've never been able to do it with any consistency before, but now I've got it. Here's what I did. The pool was nearly empty so I moved to the center of the pool and did 10 x 25 back-to-***, starting and finishing in the middle. The first two sucked because I was trying to do something like this YouTube- ‪Eric Shanteau Back - *** Transition Turn‬‎ or this YouTube- ‪Adam Mania's Back to *** turn‬‎ and I just can't seem to get that right. So then for #3 I decided to try this instead (I've seen this technique but I had never tried it before): YouTube- ‪Tay Back To Brerast‬‎ I cheated a little bit and looked at my hand before it touched the wall, but I completely nailed the turn. There's no rotating or twisting, just touch the wall and flip straight over. Then I nailed the turn 7 more times, at different speeds and off either hand. For the rest of the workout I started working these turns into my warmdown swims (e.g. alternating backstroke and freestyle each 25, doing this flip turn on each back-to-free transition) and eventually got to where I didn't need to look at the wall prior to flipping. That is important since by putting my head underwater prior to touching the wall, I'd be risking a DQ for submerging past 15 meters. If an idiot like me can learn this, then anyone can! WOO HOO!!! THERE'S A HALF SECOND I'M NOT GIVING UP ANYMORE!!! :bliss: Congrats and great vids - I've been trying to do the same thing on the BK/BR transition, but all the shots I've seen are like Shanteau's and I can never get the sequence right. Its like trying to do something while looking in a mirror, I always end up twisting the wrong way and head off into the lines. The sort of modified flip has been easier to do but I end up going too deep on the pull out and run out of air or it takes a long time to do so I lose time (it seems that way). Looks like perserverance wins again.