50+ workout

Originally posted by Bert Petersen I swim fly, and one of my problems is to get up the intestinal fortitude to sprint a whole 100...... What I have been doing is not new, but is new to me and seems to be very helpful. I call it "add-a-stroke". You swim until your stroke disintegrates, as follows: Length one, one stroke fly, the rest free-length two, two strokes fly, then free-3 for 3, etc. Bert ~~~^o^~~~ I did a similar drill, and IT WORKS! Emmett wrote about this method in Swim a few years ago. It almost seemed too simple to be effective, but I decided to give it a go anyway, and I have been delighted with the results. Like most of us, I was practicing my mistakes in fly - doing one or two strokes of quality (for me anyway) fly per lap, followed by fly that was just good enough to keep the life guard from deciding that I needed help. You can imagine that this was especially bad if the pool was long course - I got to practice a lot of messy fly then. I remember that I started Emmett's drill by doing two strokes of fly per length, and it was a few weeks before I moved up to three strokes of fly. I am proud to say that I have since done the 200 fly. I remember that my goal was to not fall apart, and I achieved that. It was a great feeling, and I credit these results to Emmett's simple but-it-makes-a-lot-of sense drill! Good luck with it. And also, thanks for the kind words.

I did part of this workout on Monday, and it's nice in that it has some variety,especially if you like breaststroke or the IM. The reason I didn't finish it is that something was amiss with the apparatus that dumps chlorine into the pool, and it had dumped a LOT of Cl in the pool. It was to the point where I could taste it, smell it, and my eyes hurt even with goggles on. There are times when it is best to just call it a day. Anyway, here it is. I got it from my computer hard drive, and I don't remember where I got it from before that. 600 easy 2 X (50 Fly R:15" 100 Backstroke R:15" 150 Breaststroke R:15" 200 Freestyle R:15" 150 Backstroke R:15" 100 Breaststroke R:15" 50 Butterfly R:1') 200 easy 2400 yards

Lots of good ideas on these pages. Thanks, Jean, for starting it. I swim fly, and one of my problems is to get up the intestinal fortitude to sprint a whole 100...... What I have been doing is not new, but is new to me and seems to be very helpful. I call it "add-a-stroke". You swim until your stroke disintegrates, as follows: Length one, one stroke fly, the rest free-length two, two strokes fly, then free-3 for 3, etc. It is surprising how you can build endurance that way and you forget how tired you are.... It can be done arms-only as well. The other thing I have been doing is after practice, as everyone is getting out, I swim a hard 75 fly by going mostly arms for the first 50 and then hammering the last length with a hard kick. I figure if I can do a good 75 tired, I won't have trouble with a 100. We will find out this weekend up in Canada........ Bert ~~~^o^~~~

I did this today, and it felt good. I think one of the heaters in the pool is broken, so the water temperature was 78F. Happiness is a broken heater in a YMCA pool. 1. 400 easy 2. 30 X 75: 70-80% of max - R15" - 6 X IM without Freestyle - 6 X main stroke (breaststroke for me) - 6 X free - 6 X kick - 6 X pull ALL 75'S ARE : 50@70%+25@80% 3. 200 easy TOT: 2850

500 easy 8 X 100 on 2 minutes 8 X 50 on 1 minute 8 X 25 on 30 seconds These were done as a single set. The coach wanted us (those in the slow or old lanes) to do the 100s on 1:55, but said 2 minutes were acceptable. I am not much of a freestyle swimmer and found that before long (especially in the 25s) my rest consisted of doing a slow open turn. The coach said that this was what he had in mind. So, you should adjust the interval times with this in mind. :-) 400 easy 2300 yards

Here's another from 1949 Saturday's workout: Swim 50 lengths (20 yard pool) Kick 50 lengths Pull 50 lengths Do this everyday until next Saturday

Here is the workout I did at early morning practice yesterday. 400 easy 4 X (100 + 75 + 50 + 25) with 15 sec rest. The 100 and the 50 were freestyle, and the 75 and the 25 were stroke (breaststroke in my case). The freestyles were easy and the strokes were hard. 12 X 50 on 1 minute (descend times every three). The time interval should be challenging. He wanted me to do them on :55, but even on a minute my rest time was often not much longer than a leisurely open turn. So, you might want to adjust the time interval to make in challenging (or possible) for you. 400 easy. Total: 2200 yards.

This is an actual workout from 1954......... 1. Swim a mile. 2. Do it again........... ;) Bert

Originally posted by Bert Petersen This is an actual workout from 1954......... 1. Swim a mile. 2. Do it again........... ;) Bert I can remember workouts(?) like that. We would just swim and then we would have relays at the end of practice. One good thing was that there was some emphasis on technique as the coach would stop an individual swimmer and offer suggestions for better form. Swimming a mile was a pretty big deal back then. Of course workouts were limited due to the lack of goggles. I remember that I bought a pair of goggles in a sporting good stores. Everybody thought I was nuts, but I had high hopes that it would help. Alas, the water absolutely poured in. I can picture them in my mind - they were big and clunky. I guess they were OK if you just wanted to lie on top of the water, but for swimming they were pretty much useless. I think that swimming intervals and sets makes swimming more interesting and challenging than just swimming laps did.

500 easy 6 X 100 with 20 sec rest as follows: 25 hard, 25 easy, 25 build, 25 easy 10 X 100 on 2:05 4 X 200 on 4:15 300 easy total: 3200 yards