IMers, We're Jacks & Jills of all trades
Fly back *** free
We gotta have speed but we gotta last to finish fast.
It takes strategy & conditioning.
We train equal amounts of all 4 or have a fatal flaw.
We try to make our worst stroke not so bad.
It's worked well for Ryan Michael Eric, Ariana Kirsty & Stephony
What did you do in practice today?
the breastroke lane
The Middle Distance Lane
The Backstroke Lane
The Butterfly Lane
The SDK Lane
The Taper Lane
The Distance Lane
The IM Lane
The Sprint Free Lane
The Pool Deck
Former Member
Hey 'Fly, just curious... What's your 50yd. breaststroke time keeping it at 8 strokes? I'm trying to get my stroke count down, but my time is slower when I do. Riding the glide and keeping as streamline as possible has been something I've been working on, but it has been a battle to lower my time with my lower stroke count. :bitching:
Give me three weeks and I'll let you know!
I swam a 50 in the summer 39.63, but have no idea of stroke count. And the last 100 IM I swam got 9 strokes in :afraid:, but it wasn't a great swim.
I have no idea what state I'll be in when I do this 50 br though as its part of the "mega-sprint decathlon with tech suits". I'll be trying to keep the stroke-count down though - and unlike you, Elaine I'm hardly training any *** (or back for that matter) as I'm working towards my 500 free in the serious meet the day before!
I find br so hard to get the balance right between getting a good catch and pull back or slowing down too much on the glide - guess that's why I'm not a breaststroker :bolt:
Set #1: (my coach Laura Winslow built this), intervals here in SCY: 8 x "400": 2 rounds of
1 x 400: free on 5:20
4 x 100: on 1:30
Rd #1 traveling 50 fly
Rd #2 build a 100 fly (e.g., 25 fly/75 free, 50 fly / 50 free, etc.)
1 x 400: IM on 6:00, 2nd rd faster
4 x 100: on 1:05, free
what is a traveling 50 fly? I am guessing
1 - 50 fly/50 free
2 - 25 free/50fly/25 free
3 - 50 free/50 fly
4 - ?
Looking to train for the 400 IM and looking for more workout ideas. Only seen a couple posted in the thread so far. Also training for 200 fly as well but my thoughts are that training IM and not just mainly fly will still help me accomplish the 200 fly correct?I'll shamelessly plug my blog as I'm focused on training for those two events plus the 400/500 free: forums.usms.org/blog.php. If you ignore my experiment with sprinting (Fall '10, part of spring '11), I think you'll find a fair number of good workouts. Here are a few recent set ideas:
Set #1: (my coach Laura Winslow built this), intervals here in SCY: 8 x "400": 2 rounds of
1 x 400: free on 5:20
4 x 100: on 1:30
Rd #1 traveling 50 fly
Rd #2 build a 100 fly (e.g., 25 fly/75 free, 50 fly / 50 free, etc.)
1 x 400: IM on 6:00, 2nd rd faster
4 x 100: on 1:05, free
Set #2: Props to Chris Stevenson's coach Mark Kutz for this painful gem ... intervals shown here were doing this in SCM
3 x 500: on 7:00, descend free
3 x 50: on 1:20, easy
3 x 400: on 6:0, IM descend
had no clue what I'd go
HURT like hell going 5:46, 5:38, 5:29
3 x 50: on 1:00 easy
Set #3: I built this one specifically for the 200 fly and 400 free focus, again intervals from SCM: 4 rounds of
4 x 100: free, aiming to hold aerobic pace from 3 x 300 test set (e.g., 1:10 for me)
Rd 1 on 1:25
Rd 2 on 1:20
Rd 3 on 1:15
Rd 4 on 1:10
7 x 50:
#1 easy on 1:00
#2 to #6: fly
aiming to hold target pace for last 150 of 200 fly (about 34)
on 0:55, 0:50, 0:45, 0:40, 0:35 for 1st two rounds
on 1:00, 0:55, 0:50, 0:45, 0:40 for last two rounds
#7 easy on about 1:15 (whatever got me to a reasonable clock starting point for next round of frees)
I'd also recommend Chris Stevenson's blog (forums.usms.org/blog.php, but caution you that you'll need to do significant modifications as his workouts are generally animal hard & FAST!
Looking to train for the 400 IM and looking for more workout ideas. Only seen a couple posted in the thread so far. Also training for 200 fly as well but my thoughts are that training IM and not just mainly fly will still help me accomplish the 200 fly correct?
My two favorite main sets for 4im are these:
All IM:
4 x 100 on 1:30
3 x 200 on 2:25
2 x 300 on 3:20
1 x 400 on 5:00
1 x 300 on 3:20
1 x 200 on 2:25
1 x 100 on 1:30
Change the intervals so they start out easy and get to the point where they are rough for the 300's (no more than 5-10 sec rest), but then you get sufficient rest on the 400.
and the other:
2000 straight:
400 free cruise
400 im hard
300 fr 50 easy / 250 cruise
300 im hard
200 fr 50 easy / 150 cruise
200 im hard
100 fr 50 easy / 50 cruise
100 im hard
100 easy on 3:00
10 x 100 on 1:10 im (pick an interval you can hold but only get 2-5 sec rest)
Looking to train for the 400 IM and looking for more workout ideas. Only seen a couple posted in the thread so far. Also training for 200 fly as well but my thoughts are that training IM and not just mainly fly will still help me accomplish the 200 fly correct?
I've a question for the experienced 400 IMers.
In prearing for the 200 bk (and and very recently also the 200 br) I have found that swimming sets of 4x50 with about 8-10s between the 50s is a valuable training tool. It allows me to practice at or near race pace, yet the rest is sufficiently brief that it "feels like" a full 200, as opposed to swimming shorter distances on longer intervals. I also find that the add-up time for a strong effort on (4x50 with 8-10s rest) is a pretty good indicator of what I can expect for a full 200 in a race.
I'm looking for a similar training tool for the 400 IM. For 4x100 IMO with N seconds rest between 100s, what value of N gives an add-up close to race time? Is this even a reasonable approach? It removes all of the change-stroke turns. Would it would be better to break at 50, 150 and 350? That seems cumbersome.
