The Butterfly Lane

Swam 1,000 yards of fly last week. Nothing special. But it feels good to be ready early for the swim season. Maybe I will get closer to the times of you others. I think I am around 30 minutes for now. Thanks for your inspiration last year, especially Elaine and That Guy. :applaud: :applaud: :applaud: Awesome! You are a true Butternut now! :banana:

Swam 1,000 yards of fly last week. Nothing special. But it feels good to be ready early for the swim season. Maybe I will get closer to the times of you others. I think I am around 30 minutes for now. Thanks for your inspiration last year, especially Elaine and That Guy.

I have the same problem, swimcat. I'd rather keep doing fly than have that backstroke leg in there! I'll trade you my backstroke for your fly; not that my backstroke would help you all that much... just that my fly needs HELP!

Swam 1,000 yards of fly last week. Nothing special. Those two sentences make no sense together. Well done Yosemite! :chug:

Thinking that I need to do some weights in order to help my arms and shoulders for my fly. Any suggestions? I am relatively new to lifting. Dips and wide grip pullups are two of the best upper body exercises for fly and all strokes. Adding pendlay rows to my workout also dropped 0.5 seconds from my 50 fly time (stronglifts.com/.../). If you think you need stronger shoulders you can also do add the military press.

Thinking that I need to do some weights in order to help my arms and shoulders for my fly. Any suggestions? I am relatively new to lifting. Develop a strong dolphin kick.

Thinking that I need to do some weights in order to help my arms and shoulders for my fly. Any suggestions? I am relatively new to lifting. I suggest that it depends on what shoulder muscles need help. If bringing the arms forward is fatiguing, then you might want to do an exercise that mimicks that such as raising a dumbell (or an elastice cord) in each arm from your waist out to your sides up to your shoulder level or slightly higher. Some trainers caution against going too high above your shoulders so that you don't pinch the top of the shoulders too much. If you want to increase your force on the bottom of your arm stroke, then mimick that with straight arm (elbows slightly bent) cable pulldowns. OR you can lie on your back and pull on elastic cords to mimick your arm stroke towards your waist. You can do this one at home. I suggest you take it easy the first week on two with any new shoulder exercise. I agree with That Guy that a strong kick is important. Then you can also help yourself with front and back core strengthening. Let us know how it goes for you! I have resorted at times to doing situps and leg extensions at the same time to mimick the core and leg requirements. That's a pretty tough exercise but it works wonders for butterfly.

Thinking that I need to do some weights in order to help my arms and shoulders for my fly. Any suggestions? I am relatively new to lifting.

Dips and wide grip pullups are two of the best upper body exercises for fly and all strokes. Adding pendlay rows to my workout also dropped 0.5 seconds from my 50 fly time (stronglifts.com/.../). If you think you need stronger shoulders you can also do add the military press. Good info!

I have aquestion regarding stroke recovery. I used to (until like a week and a half ago!) really throw my arms forward quickly, trying to land my hands softly. It occurred to me (while swimming fly with fins) that maybe I was wasting energy doing this. Since then, I have been recovering my arms more slowly, and it seems like I have a little more endurance and a little more power in my pull. I am also about 1/2 second faster on my 25s since doing this. (This might just be a coincidence and a result of training.) So the question(s) is: How aggressively do you thrust arms forward in recovery? Is softer better? At cruising speed I try to recover my arms as effortlessly as possible. At sprinting speed I fire all my lasers and go all out. There's not much in between.