This is a response to Matt Shirley's post in the thread 'A sad backstroke story':
After reading this post, I have three thoughts:
1) I'd dearly love to hear you expound on swimming distance fly. I have just worked myself up (or learned how to gear myself down) to do a 200 fly without dying at the end. The idea of learning fly well enough to swim it continuously, like say freestyle or backstroke, is tantalizing. However,
2) After doing a fly workout, TWICE, which has a primary objective of piling up "garbage yards" (your term, I'm just repeating it back to you), I have to wonder if maybe we need to find you a hobby (or a job, or a girlfriend,...)
3) After reading my first two thoughts, I'm beginning to wonder if the 8 hours I spent in the blazing sun today at my kids' Conference Championship meet is beginning to affect me.
OK, I'm going to take my nap now.
Hi Matt! My distance fly is not my normal fly, though my stroke is developing and I am working on a style that I can use in all my events. Briefly, while I learned fly as a youth, my form was an object of derision and laughter. I was only able to swim a 'good' fly when I was about 19 years old (and swimming for a summer on my first AAU team) and that was by letting my timing be determined by my arms, rather than my kick, and having no kick at all in any stroke that included a breath. While I was able to do a :52 100 y fly and a 1:58 200 y fly, I was young and strong and really fit.
I am now neither young nor strong, and 20 years of indolence have taken their toll. A 200 fly is an object of fear for me (I swam a 200 LCM for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago). When my arms shut down at the end, I realize that I can no longer afford to just *pull* my body through the water.
I still find a simultaneous two beat kick and breathing very difficult (is this like rubbing your tummy and patting your head?) but 'distance fly' may be my ticket to an improved stroke. By slowing my tempo down, adding a significant glide with my arms forward, and mentally 'prepping' for a kick, I can actually get the kick in - more important, my feet aren't three feet under water when I take my breath. And I don't get tired. It is still very slow compared to my 'no breath' stroke (now sub 25 s for a 50 y), but the hope is that after a year of swimming it, I will no longer have to 'prep' for the kick and I can speed up the tempo.
So this spring I swam a 1650 fly in 22+ minutes. That is not as fast as I hope to swim it later, but I was pretty pleased, and it was not nearly as hard as a 200 fly (but more boring). If you're interested, it was about 6 strokes/length and quite legal. No, it is not like swimming freestyle or backstoke (yet). But you should ask the woman who finished the 1650 about 2 minutes ahead of me, maybe it is for her. :)
And Matt, it is not 'garbage yards' but 'garbage yardage.' I'm sure a poet like you can hear the difference! So the purpose for me is stroke improvement, and while I appreciate your concern and willingness to help me, I have a job and a wife and a couple of kids, and my hobby is . . . . well, swimming. (and posting here). And, you know, I like challenging workouts!
Former Member
Good lord...a 1650 fly? ::passes out on the spot, quickly recovers:: My old coach thought i'd be a great flyer...but...a 1650 of it?! Gaah. Granted, I was also 11 or 12 the last time I was on the swim team. I was determined to do backstroke, he wanted me to do fly. Unfortunately, I was already a little plump, and that made it harder.
Who knows, maybe as I get fitter, I'll be able to finally see if Tom was telling the truth. Right now, I'll stick to my back. I can breathe with NO problems that way. Congrats on a 1650 fly though!
Rinconada Masters, in Palo Alto, CA have been hosting this event for several decades (!) Here is a web site with information:
But the information from the race this year is not on it :(
I've always thought it an interesting thought experiment to imagine giving yourself the following practice:
1000 free
1000 ***
1000 back
1000 fly
The first three might seem boring, or useless, or a hassle, but for most people (including me) the last one seems nearly impossible. But why? It's just a different stroke.
Swim fast,
Greg
This must have been mentioned before.... the Australians keep national records for long distance in each stroke e.g. 1500m Back.
See under 'records' in: www.aussimasters.com.au/
However, they appear to have chickened out with fly and only have to an 800 meter national record.
The men's record for 40-44 SCM 800 fly is 10:43.14. Since this is an inconceivable distance for me i.e. longer than 50m (never mind doing it fly), I have no idea if it is good or not.
As Greg said, "it's just another stroke". But it sure seems like it's more of a "whole body" stroke than the others. Ask yourself, when (if) you crash while swimming fly in workout or at a meet, what hurts? If you're like me, the answer is "everything"!
The Rinconada 1650 fly race is intriguing, if not somewhat maniacal. Here's another challenge. When my club, Ventura County Masters, swam the 1-hour postal event last January, we thought it would be great "fun" to try to put together a 4x1 hour medley relay, with each of us swimming for an hour of a stroke. Our primary goal was to finish the swim, but the ultimate prize was to better the Phoenix team's record from the prior year (we weren't the first ones to come up with this, and neither were they. I think a team from New England preceeded them).
To make a long story short, Jim McConica and I both swam the fly leg, mine for the younger squad and his for the "geezer" group - all 50+. Jim went an astounding 4330 yards in that hour, and I tired into 4275 yards. (For what it's worth, at the 1650 mark, Jim was 22:16.5 and I was 22:09.5).
That swim hurt like nobody's business, and my wall breaks became more frequent and longer in duration as the hour progressed. I've swum some long distance freestyle - none of those swims hurt nearly on par with the fly hour.
I've always thought of butterfly as a great barometer stroke. I can get a good idea of the kind of overall shape I'm in by how much workout fly I can do in terms of distance, repeats, etc. Also, the longer swims are a test of one's mechanics and efficiency in addition to basic conditioning. Fortunately, I'm not interested in finding out too frequently!
Another tough event to do distance is breastroke. That's why there are few breastrokers that have butterfly as their second best stroke. And most flyers usually have either free or back as their second best. I think Lynn Colella-Bell was one of the few that placed at nationals in both events at the two hundred distances. On this board just me and another person had both breastroke and butterfly as their two beststrokes. In my first meet since 1977, I did the 50 meter breastroke at 44.94 but the 100 meter at 1:53.10. Usually women who do at 44.94 in the 50 meters at the 45 to 49 age group do the 100 meters in the 1:40's or better. That's why I think breastroke also takes more conditioning than back or free.
Greg Lundquist, the great breaststroker also was nationally ranked in the fly when he was a kid. In fact, in my experience most breaststrokers can do fly pretty well. I also agree that it is rare that someone who is primarily a butterflyer also is a very good breaststroker. The problem usually is a lack of a good strong breaststroke kick. Otherwise, the strokes are pretty similar.
Welcome to the club unfit. I too did breastroke and fly was a kid. I was terrible at backstroke. The only time I swim it half decent was when I was 13 to 14 because I was on a team then that did a lot of it. My Freestyle is mediocre. Image doing a 1:05.8 for the 100 yard butterfly and a 1:03.7 freestyle for the 100 yard. That's only two second difference and most people swim their freestyle 3 to 4 seconds faster than their fly. Now in my 40's I'm starting out with breastroke, need to get into better shape for fly.
