The Butterfly Lane

This is an excellent post. People shouldn't be discouraged by descriptions of long fly sets in this thread; they aren't the norm in masters. About the only part where swimmj and I disagree is the last point. It is true that you have more room by yourself...but I often lack the self-discipline to do hard fly sets when training alone. If I announce to my lane-mates or coach that I am doing a set fly, I feel some pressure to complete the task even as the pain comes. When I am by myself, it is too easy to rationalize cutting the set short or decreasing the amount of fly ("my HR sure is pretty high, I think I've already done a lot today, I think this should be more of a recovery workout, etc"). But others may be less wimpy than I. I agree, great post swimmj! I do train alone and I seem to do more fly than most people. Motivation is why I measure how much fly I do. I have weekly, monthly, and yearly targets, and knowing how much I need to do each day to hit those goals keeps me from slacking. Case in point: this morning. I felt tired and sluggish in the pool and I had noodlers wandering around in my lane (they started doing this around 25 minutes before their class time... I've decided that this is called "pre-noodling"), but I knew that I set a goal to do at least 4000 fly this week, and already I took Sunday off. So I grinded out the main set and got in a total of 725 fly for the workout. My times were slow but my form did not break down. An explanation of scale: 4000 yards of fly per week is heavy but sustainable volume; I'm done with SCY season and I'm loading up for LCM. 3000 is more reasonable mid-season volume when meets are coming up. 2000 is more like an early taper amount (or maybe a mini-taper). 1000 is what I might do in the last week of a full taper. I've found that at least for my shoulders, 5000+ is serious peak fly volume and is not sustainable for more than 1-2 weeks without detrimental effect. I went nuts last September and did something like 23000 fly for the month (a training PR... yes I keep track of stuff like that :blush:) but honestly I think it did more harm than good.

This is an excellent post. People shouldn't be discouraged by descriptions of long fly sets in this thread; they aren't the norm in masters. About the only part where swimmj and I disagree is the last point. It is true that you have more room by yourself...but I often lack the self-discipline to do hard fly sets when training alone. If I announce to my lane-mates or coach that I am doing a set fly, I feel some pressure to complete the task even as the pain comes. When I am by myself, it is too easy to rationalize cutting the set short or decreasing the amount of fly ("my HR sure is pretty high, I think I've already done a lot today, I think this should be more of a recovery workout, etc"). But others may be less wimpy than I. I agree, great post swimmj! I do train alone and I seem to do more fly than most people. Motivation is why I measure how much fly I do. I have weekly, monthly, and yearly targets, and knowing how much I need to do each day to hit those goals keeps me from slacking. Case in point: this morning. I felt tired and sluggish in the pool and I had noodlers wandering around in my lane (they started doing this around 25 minutes before their class time... I've decided that this is called "pre-noodling"), but I knew that I set a goal to do at least 4000 fly this week, and already I took Sunday off. So I grinded out the main set and got in a total of 725 fly for the workout. My times were slow but my form did not break down. An explanation of scale: 4000 yards of fly per week is heavy but sustainable volume; I'm done with SCY season and I'm loading up for LCM. 3000 is more reasonable mid-season volume when meets are coming up. 2000 is more like an early taper amount (or maybe a mini-taper). 1000 is what I might do in the last week of a full taper. I've found that at least for my shoulders, 5000+ is serious peak fly volume and is not sustainable for more than 1-2 weeks without detrimental effect. I went nuts last September and did something like 23000 fly for the month (a training PR... yes I keep track of stuff like that :blush:) but honestly I think it did more harm than good.