The Butterfly Lane

I'm not having much luck successfully completing that 4x50 fly set on 1:05 and holding my times. The first two 50's were fine, but I needed an additional 5 seconds for the next two (1:10). Even then, my times increased to :58 and :59. :whiteflag: Now I'm mad (which is good!)! :censor: I am determined to accomplish this goal of successfully completing your suggested set! Very good, you got pretty close and now you have a benchmark to work from. If I understand your post properly, you did this: 50 fly@:55/1:05, 50 fly@:55/1:05, 50 fly@:58/1:10, 50 fly@:59/OMG I am glad I don't have to do another one! One approach is to try to back off just a bit on the first two. Can you eliminate 1 SPL and still go :57? If you can decrease 1SPL, that's a savings of 2 strokes per 50 (You are doing this SCY aren't you?), which should allow you to hold up a little longer before the piano falls. (You only had a 4s fade on the last one though, so that was a pretty small piano.) Another approach is to change the interval to 1:10 for all 4. Once you can make that, try to decrease the interval. 1:10 and 1:05 make the clock easier to read, but there is no reason that you can't use 1:08 or 1:06 or whatever. For complicated intervals, I will sometimes write the start times down on a piece of paper, slip it into a zip-lock bag and set it on the deck propped up by a pullbouy so I can see it during my set. For example, on the 1:07 interval, your pushoffs would be: 00, 07, :14 and :21. My note would look like this: # pushoff target finish 1 00 55 2 07 02 3 14 09 4 21 16 In this example, ideally, you would be getting :12 rest between 50s. IMO, such sets are a very good way to train for 200s. I aim for 8-12s rest between 50s and typically do 200 easy recovery between each 4x50 effort. I might do 5 rounds of (4x50 + 200), but never more than 3 of a given stroke. 3 rounds of fly would be brutal. I would suggest maybe 4 rounds total, alternating between fly and something else. I'd be interested to hear how this goes for you. What's the fastest interval that you can use and hold your pace? (I'm guessing that :55 is a good target pace.) Another fun way to practice fly is to swim a 200 "fly" where you swim N strokes of fly on the Nth length. So for a SCY 200: On length 1; pushoff, do as many SDKs as you would usually do then take 1 stroke of fly and finish the length free. On length 2; pushoff, do as many SDKs as you would usually do then take 2 strokes of fly and finish the length free. On length 3; pushoff, do as many SDKs as you would usually do then take 3 strokes of fly and finish the length free. Continue in the same pattern for 8 lengths. Try to complete the 8th length with just the 8 strokes of fly, no free. A set I like that incorporates this is: 3x(200 "fly" + 200 kick). I don't know if this set is a useful way to train for the 200 fly, but it is a lot of fun! A possibly useful modification would be to do the free part as free with fly kick.

I'm not having much luck successfully completing that 4x50 fly set on 1:05 and holding my times. The first two 50's were fine, but I needed an additional 5 seconds for the next two (1:10). Even then, my times increased to :58 and :59. :whiteflag: Now I'm mad (which is good!)! :censor: I am determined to accomplish this goal of successfully completing your suggested set! Very good, you got pretty close and now you have a benchmark to work from. If I understand your post properly, you did this: 50 fly@:55/1:05, 50 fly@:55/1:05, 50 fly@:58/1:10, 50 fly@:59/OMG I am glad I don't have to do another one! One approach is to try to back off just a bit on the first two. Can you eliminate 1 SPL and still go :57? If you can decrease 1SPL, that's a savings of 2 strokes per 50 (You are doing this SCY aren't you?), which should allow you to hold up a little longer before the piano falls. (You only had a 4s fade on the last one though, so that was a pretty small piano.) Another approach is to change the interval to 1:10 for all 4. Once you can make that, try to decrease the interval. 1:10 and 1:05 make the clock easier to read, but there is no reason that you can't use 1:08 or 1:06 or whatever. For complicated intervals, I will sometimes write the start times down on a piece of paper, slip it into a zip-lock bag and set it on the deck propped up by a pullbouy so I can see it during my set. For example, on the 1:07 interval, your pushoffs would be: 00, 07, :14 and :21. My note would look like this: # pushoff target finish 1 00 55 2 07 02 3 14 09 4 21 16 In this example, ideally, you would be getting :12 rest between 50s. IMO, such sets are a very good way to train for 200s. I aim for 8-12s rest between 50s and typically do 200 easy recovery between each 4x50 effort. I might do 5 rounds of (4x50 + 200), but never more than 3 of a given stroke. 3 rounds of fly would be brutal. I would suggest maybe 4 rounds total, alternating between fly and something else. I'd be interested to hear how this goes for you. What's the fastest interval that you can use and hold your pace? (I'm guessing that :55 is a good target pace.) Another fun way to practice fly is to swim a 200 "fly" where you swim N strokes of fly on the Nth length. So for a SCY 200: On length 1; pushoff, do as many SDKs as you would usually do then take 1 stroke of fly and finish the length free. On length 2; pushoff, do as many SDKs as you would usually do then take 2 strokes of fly and finish the length free. On length 3; pushoff, do as many SDKs as you would usually do then take 3 strokes of fly and finish the length free. Continue in the same pattern for 8 lengths. Try to complete the 8th length with just the 8 strokes of fly, no free. A set I like that incorporates this is: 3x(200 "fly" + 200 kick). I don't know if this set is a useful way to train for the 200 fly, but it is a lot of fun! A possibly useful modification would be to do the free part as free with fly kick.