Greetings!
This is my first post so bear with me as I give a little history...
I am 43 and a professional musician. I swam USMS in the 80s. I was competitive all through high school (graduated in '78), I was an ocean guard for 6 years on beautiful Nantucket Island, I coached HS swimming and taught advanced lifesaving and water safety for several years.
I am recovering from a 4 year illness and began swimming again in November. A year ago I could barely walk let alone swim. Now I swim 4x/wk in a 25 yd indoor pool. My top yardage to date is 4000.
My current workout goes something like this...
(all free)
1000 warmup (average 20 minutes)
2x500 (1 without and 1 with paddles)
5x200 "Lungbusters" (3-5-7-5) - tough cause I have asthma!
5x100 on 2 minutes
6x50 on 1 minute
200 warm down
I have always tried to go from distance to sprints in all my workouts.
Now the catch - I had back problems and got used to pulling my entire workouts. I am trying to break the habit. I just bought Vertex II short blade training fins as a start. I am fairly tight in my build so I have to be careful not to do any damage as I try and get my kicks back.
I would appreciate feedback on my workouts as well as advice on my kick training. I am very self motivated but have as a goal to rejoin USMS in the near future.
It is great to have access to this wonderful forum and I hope to see you all at meets in the future!
Parents
Former Member
Ted,
Welcome back to the pool. It sounds like your workout is fairly challenging. Most Masters groups are averaging somewhere around four thousand yards per session depending on the experience level.
Anyway, two comments. The buoy became a bad habit for me on distance sets. As a pure sprinter, I had always swam rather flat in the water, with little or no roll. In weaning myself off of the buoy I've had to focus on technique which in itself is a very good thing. Instead of wishing for the sets of 75's or 50's, I now welcome the distance swims. By forcing the head into a downwards position, the hips will magically rise to the surface. The legs are now part of the "boat", instead of being the "anchor". And the end result is that the new head position has greatly helped my speed. Even though I'm not quite near my 46 hundred time from the early eighties, the technique improvements have outweighed the need for brute force in going fast. At least that's what I say.
Secondly, save the sprinting sets for the end of the week. They usually require recovery. And at this age, it's well needed. My favorite set when doing solo workouts is ten 75's as follows: One lap kick with a board, take a ten second rest on the wall, go an all out sprint on the second lap, recover on the third lap with double arm back or *** stroke. And repeat. There's no interval.
They say if you want to swim fast, you've got to practice fast. Concentrate on being smooth and clean in the water first, then add the speed.
Lastly, fins are an excellent tool for adding power to the kick. And they definitely loosen up the ankles. Our coach starts every work out with about ten 50's kick before going into the main sets. Hope this is helpful.
I was greeted with some very good information when first posting here myself. Good luck with your efforts.
Ted,
Welcome back to the pool. It sounds like your workout is fairly challenging. Most Masters groups are averaging somewhere around four thousand yards per session depending on the experience level.
Anyway, two comments. The buoy became a bad habit for me on distance sets. As a pure sprinter, I had always swam rather flat in the water, with little or no roll. In weaning myself off of the buoy I've had to focus on technique which in itself is a very good thing. Instead of wishing for the sets of 75's or 50's, I now welcome the distance swims. By forcing the head into a downwards position, the hips will magically rise to the surface. The legs are now part of the "boat", instead of being the "anchor". And the end result is that the new head position has greatly helped my speed. Even though I'm not quite near my 46 hundred time from the early eighties, the technique improvements have outweighed the need for brute force in going fast. At least that's what I say.
Secondly, save the sprinting sets for the end of the week. They usually require recovery. And at this age, it's well needed. My favorite set when doing solo workouts is ten 75's as follows: One lap kick with a board, take a ten second rest on the wall, go an all out sprint on the second lap, recover on the third lap with double arm back or *** stroke. And repeat. There's no interval.
They say if you want to swim fast, you've got to practice fast. Concentrate on being smooth and clean in the water first, then add the speed.
Lastly, fins are an excellent tool for adding power to the kick. And they definitely loosen up the ankles. Our coach starts every work out with about ten 50's kick before going into the main sets. Hope this is helpful.
I was greeted with some very good information when first posting here myself. Good luck with your efforts.
