I'm not from a competitive swimming background but has volunteer to coach our informal masters group once a week. I'm trying to establish a theme for each session (8-10 weeks). Last one was the 1000 yards. We did lots of pace work and endurance sets for the last 2 months. This next session I've decided to focus on the 100 Fly.
Most of the swimmers can do 25 or 50 yards for a few repeats but that's all. Most of the swimmers are 40-50 years old with no competitive swim background either. Our workouts are 1 hour (3 x week).
Does anyone have any suggestions on sets for 100 Fly or just good resources for coaching in general.
Thanks so much!!
:)
I just turned 50 and find that my lower back suffers a bit from repetitive fly. Still, I wanted to swim the 200 fly in a meet, and knew I had to build up some endurance. To get myself used to it, I decided to start out with 25s.
At first, I just tried to do 8 x 25s fly, taking as much rest as I needed. I should mention that A) I swam fly when younger, and I don't recommend new adult swimmers start out with nearly this much, and B) even given my background in swimming fly, I think these 25s were on intervals of pretty close to a minute each.
Over the next month, I gradually built up to where I could do 40 x 25 fly, on maybe 45 seconds. I purposely didn't look at the clock--just listened to my body. My feeling was it doesn't do you too much good to swim horrible fly, when your arms are too tight to keep proper form. Better to do short distances where you can hold a decent stroke.
Once I could do 40 x 25s without cursing the day I was born, I tried to start throwing in some 50s--maybe 20 x 25, then 6 x 50, then 8 x 25 to finish up.
Eventually I got to where I could actually swim 10 x 50 fly on :50. Then I started throwing in some 100s, figuring that if I could swim half the race distance in practice, I could probably grit out a full 200 in a meet.
It worked: I just swam a 2:21, my best 200 yard fly time (actually, pretty much my ONLY 200 fly time.)
Note: I don't swim the 1000 worth of fly every practice, but try to do so maybe 2 x a week when training for butterfly. Bottom line philosophy: swimming fly, especially when you're not used to it, is pretty traumatic. Build up to it very gradually, and your body can slowly adjust to the stress it puts on shoulders, lower back, stamina, etc. If you overdo it at the beginning, however, you are inviting injury (and a lifelong hatred of butterfly!)
I just turned 50 and find that my lower back suffers a bit from repetitive fly. Still, I wanted to swim the 200 fly in a meet, and knew I had to build up some endurance. To get myself used to it, I decided to start out with 25s.
At first, I just tried to do 8 x 25s fly, taking as much rest as I needed. I should mention that A) I swam fly when younger, and I don't recommend new adult swimmers start out with nearly this much, and B) even given my background in swimming fly, I think these 25s were on intervals of pretty close to a minute each.
Over the next month, I gradually built up to where I could do 40 x 25 fly, on maybe 45 seconds. I purposely didn't look at the clock--just listened to my body. My feeling was it doesn't do you too much good to swim horrible fly, when your arms are too tight to keep proper form. Better to do short distances where you can hold a decent stroke.
Once I could do 40 x 25s without cursing the day I was born, I tried to start throwing in some 50s--maybe 20 x 25, then 6 x 50, then 8 x 25 to finish up.
Eventually I got to where I could actually swim 10 x 50 fly on :50. Then I started throwing in some 100s, figuring that if I could swim half the race distance in practice, I could probably grit out a full 200 in a meet.
It worked: I just swam a 2:21, my best 200 yard fly time (actually, pretty much my ONLY 200 fly time.)
Note: I don't swim the 1000 worth of fly every practice, but try to do so maybe 2 x a week when training for butterfly. Bottom line philosophy: swimming fly, especially when you're not used to it, is pretty traumatic. Build up to it very gradually, and your body can slowly adjust to the stress it puts on shoulders, lower back, stamina, etc. If you overdo it at the beginning, however, you are inviting injury (and a lifelong hatred of butterfly!)
