The Butterfly Lane

RE: The Butterfly Lane

orca1946 — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 11:57:54 GMT

104 is a good time from the 108. did you like your form?

RE: The Butterfly Lane

habu987 — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 01:38:56 GMT

104 is a good time from the 108. did you like your form? For the most part, I did. It broke down on the last ~10 yards when I stupidly did a 4 stroke no-breather finish, but it felt great up until then. I don't have any video of the race to crosscheck, but it felt like I was keeping my upper body low in the water and my hips up, and kept a good rhythm throughout. I'm doing the 100 fly again at a much faster pool the week after Thanksgiving, so I'm hoping for a 1:02 or so, which would be a normal March/April time for me. I'll see if I can get someone to record that race so I can see if the reality matches how it feels.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

habu987 — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 04:12:53 GMT

Update: I had my first meet of the season a couple of weeks ago and one of my events was the 100 fly. I went a 1:04.18, which isn't all that great of a time in the grand scheme of things, but I'm quite happy with it for a few reasons: 1) My only faster October time was a 1:03.91 from 2 years ago, I have had plenty mid-season times slower than what I went at this meet, and was in fact a 1:04.54 at this same meet last year with meet jammers. 2) I swam it wearing only a drag suit, since I inadvertently put the wrong suit in my bag and didn't have meet jammers to wear, and the baggy drag suit was the only thing I had to wear. 3) I felt fantastic for about 90ish yards, then stupidly did a 4 stroke no-breather into the finish instead of the normal 2 stroke no-breather that I actually train for...that was a poooor decision... All in all, I'm very pleased with how my fly training is going! The 2-1 breathing pattern is really helping me get my hips up and keep from going vertical in the water as my shoulders start to shut down, so when I start adding in the 200 fly to my race repertoire in January, I'm hoping I'll put up great in-season times. I just started playing around with a 1-1 breathing pattern this week, not sure if I'll continue to play with it or just stick with 2-1 for now, but if I stick with it I'll likely end up going with 1-1 for the 100 and 2-1 for the 200. I probably won't get any race video till late January, but I hope by then my technique (and times) will be substantially better than in the previous videos I posted. I'm pumped so far!

RE: The Butterfly Lane

orca1946 — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 11:53:31 GMT

I breathe on every stroke. This gives me what I need to finish the 200 fly.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

dinicti — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 09:40:59 GMT

Update--with goal of doing well in 100 SCY and for next summer finish 100 LCM fly. For fly work I have been working on my own I find that doing more than 500 fly is just too tough and stroke breaks down. So, I have been mostly doing 400-500 fly/workout and building endurance (will focus on speed later). Half are broken or straight 100's and the other half is a set of 50s, say 4x50s with the 2nd ~5 secs of rest, 3rd and 4th having nearly a min of rest (actively working on getting that rest period shorter). I do try to incorporate some fly component in our Masters Group practices (2-3x/wk, we rarely do stroke work) to add extra fly in my workout, but it isn't easy. Still, I find fly is the most fun stroke, and haven't felt any sense of being burnt out training.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Elaine Krugman — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:32:24 GMT

we also train stroke 2-3 days a week as well and another good set is 3 x100 free (interval of 5-8 seconds rest) followed by 6 x 50 Flys' on say 45/50 interval.. we do this for every stroke. This is simulating the last 50 of a 200 as you are tired from the free set and go right into a stoke set How much rest does that give you for each interval? Since I can't make that interval, I would need to adjust it to my snail-paced fly. Thanks for the great set ideas!

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Mark Usher — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 12:08:44 GMT

My 'go to' fly set is normally 8x25 on 0:40, giving me enough rest to maintain my form. That's when I really try to focus on technique For building endurance for racing 100's, I've been doing sets of 200's where you start out with one stroke of fly and then finish the 25 with freestyle, adding one more stroke of fly every 25. By the time you get to the last 50 it's usually all fly. I like it because you're not digging a hole that you can't get out of and can finish holding good form. I get kidded a lot because I usually do some EZ butterfly for my warm down everyday at the end of practice. Just try to keep it easy & in rhythm.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Allen Stark — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 11:18:51 GMT

Saying what works for me for BR, which has similar energy demands to fly. I do some USRPT days, but for me, they don't give enough lactic acid tolerance. Therefore, other days I do half distance(50s for 100 or 100s for 200) with my planned 2nd half split as the goal tome. I give myself enough rest to make the time,shortening the rest when I make the time, lengthening it when I don't. This means I am constantly adjusting the rest, which helps keep my brain working.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

orca1946 — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 11:12:58 GMT

I would go the route of more distance .

RE: The Butterfly Lane

67King — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 10:34:19 GMT

So let me get some opinions from you folks, here. I'm trying to improve my stamina. Been following the same workouts for abotu 2.5 years, now. The prior ones posted for the Basic Training (I'm a solo swimmer). Typical main set for a 100 Fly is 4 times through a 6X25 set with 20 seconds rest between each rep. Extra 1-2 minutes between rounds. I can do that pretty well on a :35 interval, which would correspond to a 1:00 100. Hit the 25's in :14 for most of it, fall back to :15's for almost all of the rest. May have 2-3 that take me :16 seconds. Trying the USRPT, setting up my goal time as a 1:04, which is basically NQT for my age group, I hit 11 reps before a miss, hit another 7-8, then 3, so I'm done. So being able to hit those times would somewhat correlate with a 1:04 100 time, right? Well......when I do a test set, I just die. Cannot keep that pace after 75. I can sprint a 50 in :28, I can "pace" a 50 in :30-31. So to build my stamina, I figure I can go one of two routes - shorten the interval, or increase the distance. Have not rolled around to a fly workout since I started messing with things, but for the workouts taht aren't really conducive to longer distances (e.g. working on breakouts/hypoxic reps), I have found that I can drop the interval and do fine. On things that are conducive to longer intervals, I have had mixed success. On a 200 IM set last week, rather than doing 25's of each stroke, I was doing 50's. And I really struggled to keep my stroke together towards the end. Was giving myself :30 seconds rest, which became :35. THis morning, however, on a 400IM set, I was able to do 100's, rather than 50's, on :30 seconds rest, and I actually felt really, really good. I've honestly not been tweaking the workouts long enough to know how effective it will be. But I'm curious to know what y'all think. If I were to have a goal of an NQT in the 100 Fly (that's assuming I actually do a meet), would I be better off increasing the distance (and subsequent rest amount between reps), or shortening the rest interval, but continuing to do 25's? If I double the distance of each rep (and halve the number of reps), should I double the rest interval? Keep it same? 1.5 times? 2.5 times? WHat do y'all think? I will likely tweak it to make it work for me, but what do y'all think should be my starting point? If y'all think I should keep doing the same distance with a shorter rest interval, I'll drop by 5 seconds and see how that goes.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Swimspire — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 01:45:47 GMT

Hi habu, thanks for posting the video! You have a good stroke overall, but there are a few issues I see that you can work on to improve even further. First of all it looks like you are lifting your chest a bit too high in the water when you breathe. Keeping a lower profile will reduce resistance created by the water and help you move forward at a faster rate. You can also work on making sure you finish your stroke completely, - currently, your finish is too early, which is causing you to sacrifice some of the power of the pull, especially in longer distance butterfly. The timing and power of your kick needs some attention and I think that will be key to future improvement - you can see that there is no clear finish of the second kick, and the timing of the kick also isn't quite right. The fact that your hips are not popping up out of the water demonstrates that you are not finishing the kick as much as you should be. Finally, as yourself mentioned, try to build up overall conditioning to help get you through a distance like the 200 without the technique breaking down too much. Best of luck in your continued training!

RE: The Butterfly Lane

habu987 — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 12:37:59 GMT

Not that I am an expert...but I do have a great coach that has made me into a pretty good flyer. Our coach at Longhorn (TXLA) has us train several different ways and we pretty much train for middle distance races. We do a lot short rest freestyle sets, 100's, 200's on a tight interval. For example last week we did 3 sets of 8 X 100''s free on a tough of interval as you can make. You want to make the set but only get 3-5 seconds rest between each 100. This training will get you endurance which you need to finish a 200 Fly we also train stroke 2-3 days a week as well and another good set is 3 x100 free (interval of 5-8 seconds rest) followed by 6 x 50 Flys' on say 45/50 interval.. we do this for every stroke. This is simulating the last 50 of a 200 as you are tired from the free set and go right into a stoke set Finally my favorite set to train Fly is Drop outs /Drop Down 50's starting at 1:00 and drop a second each 50 till you miss the interval. I usually start Backstroke for the first 8 50's and then with to fly and try to make it down to around 37-36 before I drop out. Again this is simulating swimming Fly tired and that last 50 in a race. Sets like these have helped me a reasonable 200 Fly without dying too much! good luck on your training and racing! Thanks! My training has been up and down for fly--up until a year and a half ago, I primarily swam on my own, since I would coach my USAS group, have a 1.5 hour break, then coach my USMS group. I swam on my own in that gap 3-4 nights a week and ended up doing a lot of "quality" training...which would devolve into me doing sets like 10 x 50 FL on 1:10 aiming for a 1:1 swim/rest ratio, then dropping that down to 8 x 50, then taking a lot of rest between sets, and so on. There'd be plenty of nights when I'd struggle to hit 2000 yards! In the spring of 2018 I started training with the USAS senior prep group that practices after my younger USAS group and before my masters group. Much better overall conditioning, but I don't have a ton of opportunities to do true FL sets. This season, in addition to the evening practices I swim with the senior prep group, I'm swimming one morning a week with the senior distance group--the coach is an old school high yardage coach, so while my shoulders are complaining about it now just a couple of weeks into the season, I think that'll really kick my butt into great aerobic shape over the season. Even if I don't do a ton of fly-specific training this season, I think I'll have a much better aerobic base and back end for the 200 fly by the spring.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

jimsauer — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 03:38:48 GMT

Here's my 200 fly from spring nats this year (I'm the bald guy with tats in the red suit): www.youtube.com/watch Notably, for the 18-19 season, I didn't train for the 200 fly--I trained for 200s in general (I swam all five 200s and the 100 free at nats), but not the 200 fly specifically, so I more or less swam this race for the heck of it to see what I could do without having done specific 200 fly training. I was pretty happy with this race, all things considered. I'd been outside all day in the 95+ degree heat and this was the 3rd event of the day for me, and I flat out ran out of gas around the 165 mark--it wasn't that I locked up and crashed and burned, I just ran out of energy. Minor differentiation, but it was a big change for me, since I'm generally a king of the piano and locking up on the last 50. Besides that, this was a surprisingly good race and was just .5 seconds off my masters PR from several years ago, when I was training pretty much solely for the 200 fly. Here's my masters PR 200 fly from 2017 (I'm in the middle lane): www.youtube.com/watch Here's my 200 fly from the first time I did it at spring nats back in 2015: www.youtube.com/watch I've made a lot of progress since the 13-14 season when I started training for the 200 fly, but my key technique focus areas moving forward will be the breathing pattern as I mentioned in my earlier post, keeping a steady kick, and as a backup plan, figuring out how to seamlessly switch to survival fly while maintaining decent speed if all turns to crap and I turn into Mr. Steinway on the last 50. Any feedback is welcome! Not that I am an expert...but I do have a great coach that has made me into a pretty good flyer. Our coach at Longhorn (TXLA) has us train several different ways and we pretty much train for middle distance races. We do a lot short rest freestyle sets, 100's, 200's on a tight interval. For example last week we did 3 sets of 8 X 100''s free on a tough of interval as you can make. You want to make the set but only get 3-5 seconds rest between each 100. This training will get you endurance which you need to finish a 200 Fly we also train stroke 2-3 days a week as well and another good set is 3 x100 free (interval of 5-8 seconds rest) followed by 6 x 50 Flys' on say 45/50 interval.. we do this for every stroke. This is simulating the last 50 of a 200 as you are tired from the free set and go right into a stoke set Finally my favorite set to train Fly is Drop outs /Drop Down 50's starting at 1:00 and drop a second each 50 till you miss the interval. I usually start Backstroke for the first 8 50's and then with to fly and try to make it down to around 37-36 before I drop out. Again this is simulating swimming Fly tired and that last 50 in a race. Sets like these have helped me a reasonable 200 Fly without dying too much! good luck on your training and racing!

RE: The Butterfly Lane

habu987 — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 02:30:47 GMT

RE: The Butterfly Lane

habu987 — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 07:06:57 GMT

I've got a long history with the SCY 200 fly, mostly a love-hate relationship, but it's an event I love to swim, piano and all. For the past 5 years or so, I've breathed every stroke except for the first stroke of the start, but for this season I'm experimenting with a 2 up/1 down breathing pattern for it, including not breathing off the walls. I'm a sucker for oxygen, though, so it's going to be a rough transition. 🤣 I've played around in the water doing some moderately paced 100s alternating between breathing every stroke and trying out the 2/1 BP. I swam them all well off race pace, but have been consistently 1-3 seconds faster with the 2/1 BP and haven't tightened up as bad at the end of each 100. I'm cautiously optimistic that, given what I've seen in the past few weeks of playing around in the water, I will finally break through the 2:20 plateau this year! I'll be chronicling my 200 fly trials and tribulations here as I #1 get back in racing shape from a laid back summer #2 start racing the 200 fly (likely not till October/November) I'll post a follow-up with some race videos from the past couple of seasons later today.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

dinicti — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 06:07:10 GMT

Thanks, good to know, but hopefully will not need it for the 100 fly races. 200, well--no plans for me anytime soon--good of you to have done it (even rarely). I do admire Master swimmers doing the 200 fly or 400 IM, kudos to them. Meanwhile, I remain working on my fly 100 races. Take care

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Windrath — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 06:40:15 GMT

Dinicti, 100 Fly LCM can be a bit intimidating - especially that first breath off the wall and looking 50 meters down the pool. When I used to swim the 200 FLY (which was rare), I could never make the entire distance, so I would kick the 3rd 50. Yes, just kick. Keep your hands together, so you don't scull and lift your head to breathe. It is NOT fast, but it allows you to complete the distance legally. Completing the distance is really important in Masters because splits only count if the entire race is completed. An example of when it worked for a fellow swimmer back in 2017 at LC Nationals. This swimmer was trying to break the world record in the 50 fly by doing it during the 100 Fly. He did indeed break the WR in the 50 (27.85), took a couple of seconds at the wall to catch his breath, and then proceeded to kick 20-25 meters before returning to full stroke fly. While this got looks from the officials, it is perfectly legal. BTW - his final time was 2:03.23. You might keep this in the back of your head when you need a few moments to "rest" without your arms. :) Paul

RE: The Butterfly Lane

dinicti — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 03:57:25 GMT

Well, I did not finish my 100 LCM fly. I did fine until around 75 m mark when I felt a tiny bit of fatigue and switched to breathing every stroke and in process took in some water and could not maintain my fly. So was d/q'd. A bit sad, but I learned from it. Was pleased with my 400 free time of 5:35 as I was expecting b/w 5:45 and 5:50. What I learned from this meet: 1) With fly you have to do the race distance in practice. Similar issue with me on 100 fly SCY. This March I conquered 100 SCY fly after being d/q'd March 2018. Good news is that I have motivation for completing 100 LCM next yr. 2) Race time in fly, at least for me, is similar time-wise to practice and is not true for my other three strokes (faster in race). 3) Re: 400 free, I was doing various pace based training with 5 to 10 sec rest, and that worked well for me (5 to 10x 100 LCM free on 1:35 secs, usually went b/w 1:25 to 1:30). Again my race time was better than expected. So, a little sad that I didn't finish my 100 LCM fly, but retain motivation for next yr. My goal is to more fly, trying to average 2k/week or ~400-500/practice (improving on 1.5k/wk and ~300-400/practice). I feel more fit compared to a yr ago, but I know there is significant room for improvement.

RE: The Butterfly Lane

dinicti — Sat, 27 Jul 2019 04:38:21 GMT

So, after being awol from the forum for over a yr--I return. My journey back to swimming came as I was dx. with pre-diabetes and a hiatus of >25 yrs from high school swimming. I joined Masters fall of 2017 and swam my first competitive event 3/2018. I added to the butterfly lane prior to this competition. I did fine in the 50 fly 28.84, but I did not finish in the 100 as I said I would. I was dying at the last 25 and I stopped--sad, I know. It took this time and tried different things (mainly breathing with every stroke vs every other) and this March (2019) I FINISHED 100 fly, but at a time that was okay--1:11.87. I say this as I did 1:11 in practice three days prior to the meet-from a push start. Regardless, I am pleased that I made progress and these past few months I have continued to work on my fly to the point that I signed up to do 100 LCM race next Sat. The issue now is that I am concerned that like a yr. before I may not finish the race. I have switched back to breathing every other as I am faster doing this. When I practice in scy I am okay doing it for 100. When I do it in LCM I am out of breath in the middle of second 50 (I am also overall beaten up and entering taper mode). I am trying to stay calm. My plan is to do every other breathing for 1st 50 and switch to every breath in the 2nd 50. As being a wk out I do not have time to build more endurance. Any thoughts besides the sage advice to take it slow for 1st 50 and glide as you can? Thank you

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Elaine Krugman — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 05:34:38 GMT

That was beautiful! I am currently teaching myself the fly and can barely do a 25! I am fine until I breathe then my hips sink. I am still working on the rythm Are you referring to my fly in the video? If so, you are an :angel:. If not, then :blush:. Good luck with your fly! What really helped for me was this video: www.totalimmersion.net/.../betterfly-for-every-body.html Another big help was strengthening my back and shoulder muscles. Fly is a strength stroke! That is one of the main reasons why only 19 women across all age groups (of 480 women) competed in the 200 fly at the National Senior Games. (I didn't post my 200 fly video, because it would have put everybody to sleep!). You mentioned that your hips sink when you breathe. It could be that you are lifting your head up too high. When you breathe, lift your head only as high as necessary to get a breath, and try to push forward with your jaw rather than up. Watch a video of Michael Phelps, and visualize his breathing when you swim fly. Another reason your hips might be sinking is that you are recovering your arms too high out of the water. Again, watch Michael's stroke, and you can see he keeps his very low over the water. The key to being able to swim longer distances in fly is staying relaxed. The more I tense up, the more tired I get! If you post a video of your fly here on this thread, we can help you out by giving you some tips. Good luck! :cheerleader:

RE: The Butterfly Lane

srupe — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 05:12:32 GMT

That was beautiful! I am currently teaching myself the fly and can barely do a 25! I am fine until I breathe then my hips sink. I am still working on the rythm

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Elaine Krugman — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 04:25:43 GMT

Kept that stroke together really nicely considering you were worried about the altitude! To be honest, I think you just need more "oomph," especially from your mid/lower body. The stroke pattern looks good, the timing looks good, you're doing underwaters, you're just not driving much with your legs - that includes off the start and turns too. Perhaps the answer is to work on your strength a bit. I would say, two things from a purely technique standpoint, first off, I think you need a bit more bend in your legs on the second kick to keep your feet from coming so far out of the water; secondly, gotta keep that front arm in the water on your turns - the mnemonic I was taught was "elbow your brother, call your mother" for the leading/trailing arms on open turns. Should be more of a vertical rotation - like a reverse flip turn - than a horizontal one. Yeah, my first turn was more like my typical turn; however, when I got desperate for air, I allowed my arm to come out so I could catch more of a breath on those two other turns. :blush: Guilty as charged! I was much better at elbowing my brother and calling my mother in my breaststroke races! (He deserved it after all those childhood years of him beating up on me! :bitching:) As for bending my knees more on the second kick, I have improved over this past year, but not enough. My legs used to come out of the water at the top of my calves! I previously had much more of an up and down movement in my fly. Our forum moderator probably remembers that. :afraid: Strength. Yoga, Theraband, pushups, and planks have made parts of me stronger; however, you are right. I need more strength in my legs, especially quads and hamstrings. I will add that to my routine, because you're right; I'm lacking oomph! :weightlifter: I'm 57; however, I have seen plenty of gals older than me who are a lot stronger. Penny Noyes is 65 and a stud-ette! Thanks for the feedback JP; I especially appreciate the way you softened the blow with, "Kept that stroke together really nicely..." :wiggle:

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Jeff Enge — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 02:06:29 GMT

RE: The Butterfly Lane

Elaine Krugman — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 01:16:53 GMT

Although I swam my fastest 100 fly in three years at the National Senior Games, "fast" is relative. I am still as slow as a turtle. Speed isn't as important to me as technique, though, so it's stroke technique feedback I am after. What can I still improve? Thanks, Forumites, for any constructive criticism you provide! www.youtube.com/watch

RE: The Butterfly Lane

67King — Sun, 19 Aug 2018 12:01:04 GMT

Ok, I like that! I'll give it a try. Thanks! :) May take a look at this sequence of videos on the drills mentioned. On edit - dang it, this shows the 1 arm only, and is embedded. If you copy and paste, it'll go through the one arm, then take you to the 1-2-1 that Dan suggested. www.youtube.com/watch