What do YOU need to do to have a major swimming breakthrough?"

If you were stronger you would probably swim faster weight training is important for sprinters ande Originally posted by Alex Ande: Thanks for your tips, now: I am not very tall: 5' 8" Neither fat: 150 pounds And I am not lifting weights but I would if needed. Alex

this is kind of vague, i need specifics on your situation to give you good suggestions where are you now how have you been training where do you hope to be the more info the better ande Originally posted by EyeoreSAM I am always searching to make a breakthrough. I'd love suggestions!

Hey Ande! If you are giving advice I can use all that I can get. I have been frustrated over the last 3-5 months in that I no longer seem to see any improvement. I am 47 year old male, 5'11 1/2", 208 lbs, 29% body fat, and have tested my resting heart rate as low as 52 but more often about 54 Beats Per Minute. I only started swimming 1 year ago and had never done any swimming workouts prior to that, though I was a fairly dedicated competitive runner in high school (1:57 half-mile). Other points of note are that I have a ruptured and degenerative disc disease of my L5/S1 lumbar disc (which is the reason why I had to take up swimming to address what was my increasing weight problem). So I only do open turns out of fear about my back. When I began I weighed in at about 230 lbs, dropped down to 198 lbs, but have now come back up to 208 lbs -:( . I swim fairly consistently with a local masters swim club 3 times per week where we average 3,000 - 3,600 yards per workout over an hour to hour and 15 minutes. Most of these workouts consist of shorter intervals (25's, 50's, 100's) and at least one of the weekly workouts is focused or includes IM training. I generally swim an additional 2 times a week on my own. These workouts I tend to do longer distances and have several times exceeded 6,000 yards, but more often average in the 4,000 to 5,000 yard range (intervals of 200's, 300's, and 500's). I have been averaging 16,000 - 20,000 yards per week (when I do not include the rare week where I can't train or only train 1-2 days for work or other reasons). All my training is in SCY pools. While I have not competed yet, I hope to next year. So I am guaging my improvement on "time trials" often completed at the end of workouts with the masters team - all of which are done as push-offs. It is worth noting that when I am swimming with the team, my times are noticably faster - I guess due to the fear of slowing down those in my lane though they make me lead the lane most of the time. Freestyle is my best stroke, with butterfly next. My *** and back are pathetic and I have serious kick issues on all strokes (based upon kick sets I do with the others in my lane, I can easily outpace everyone in my lane when doing full freestyle stroke, but can't come close to keeping up when doing kick sets). About 5 months ago I got a 100y time trail at the end of a workout down to about a 1:05. And last Friday, I did about a 1:07. I have definitely plateaued in ths area and can't figure out how to get out of this rut. Any ideas?

hello, first be careful with your back situation next I encourage you to get slim, get back to 198 and trim down even more if you can, try the acting as if technique and the last battle technique on hard efforts in key sets, you can read about them in the swim faster faster thread Lastly do some speed training and this might help you drop your 100 time down to what you'd like it to be. good luck, keep me posted, ande Originally posted by 401kman Hey Ande! If you are giving advice I can use all that I can get. I have been frustrated over the last 3-5 months in that I no longer seem to see any improvement. I am 47 year old male, 5'11 1/2", 208 lbs, 29% body fat, and have tested my resting heart rate as low as 52 but more often about 54 Beats Per Minute. I only started swimming 1 year ago and had never done any swimming workouts prior to that, though I was a fairly dedicated competitive runner in high school (1:57 half-mile). Other points of note are that I have a ruptured and degenerative disc disease of my L5/S1 lumbar disc (which is the reason why I had to take up swimming to address what was my increasing weight problem). So I only do open turns out of fear about my back. When I began I weighed in at about 230 lbs, dropped down to 198 lbs, but have now come back up to 208 lbs -:( . I swim fairly consistently with a local masters swim club 3 times per week where we average 3,000 - 3,600 yards per workout over an hour to hour and 15 minutes. Most of these workouts consist of shorter intervals (25's, 50's, 100's) and at least one of the weekly workouts is focused or includes IM training. I generally swim an additional 2 times a week on my own. These workouts I tend to do longer distances and have several times exceeded 6,000 yards, but more often average in the 4,000 to 5,000 yard range (intervals of 200's, 300's, and 500's). I have been averaging 16,000 - 20,000 yards per week (when I do not include the rare week where I can't train or only train 1-2 days for work or other reasons). All my training is in SCY pools. While I have not competed yet, I hope to next year. So I am guaging my improvement on "time trials" often completed at the end of workouts with the masters team - all of which are done as push-offs. It is worth noting that when I am swimming with the team, my times are noticably faster - I guess due to the fear of slowing down those in my lane though they make me lead the lane most of the time. Freestyle is my best stroke, with butterfly next. My *** and back are pathetic and I have serious kick issues on all strokes (based upon kick sets I do with the others in my lane, I can easily outpace everyone in my lane when doing full freestyle stroke, but can't come close to keeping up when doing kick sets). About 5 months ago I got a 100y time trail at the end of a workout down to about a 1:05. And last Friday, I did about a 1:07. I have definitely plateaued in ths area and can't figure out how to get out of this rut. Any ideas?

hey everyone, I feel like i've just had a breakthrough. It all started yesterday evening. While editing a videoclip I used a song called "Top of the world" by Van Halen. Somehow the song and its lyrics ("nothing's gonna stop me - nothing's gonna scary me") got me into IPS. Luckily I could transfer a good deal of this feeling into today's workout and it really made a difference. Right at the begining during warmup I felt like I was going faster than before and much more effortless. During the training I could keep this feeling and I was always bumpin' into the swimmer right in front of me, although I gave them a good headstart every turn. (In a 10x50's on a minute I would not start until passed the middle of the pool, sprint down until I had to stop a few meters from the wall to avoid bumpin' into their turn, wait again until they passed 15 meter mark and then sprint again and finish right with them). And I also could set a much faster cruise pace on the 18x100's we did today than I was ever able to set even with much less 100's. By the end of the workout I was really getting tired and had to fight to finish the sets and keep my technique acceptable but in the end, I feel like I've gotten a great workout today. I hope I can save this feeling for my future workouts because I feel like this is the kind of workout I need if I wanna make national squad times by 2008.

thanks for sharing your experience I hope you work hard and smart and accomplish your goals. ande Originally posted by Matthias hey everyone, I feel like i've just had a breakthrough. It all started yesterday evening. While editing a videoclip I used a song called "Top of the world" by Van Halen. Somehow the song and its lyrics ("nothing's gonna stop me - nothing's gonna scary me") got me into IPS. Luckily I could transfer a good deal of this feeling into today's workout and it really made a difference. Right at the begining during warmup I felt like I was going faster than before and much more effortless. During the training I could keep this feeling and I was always bumpin' into the swimmer right in front of me, although I gave them a good headstart every turn. (In a 10x50's on a minute I would not start until passed the middle of the pool, sprint down until I had to stop a few meters from the wall to avoid bumpin' into their turn, wait again until they passed 15 meter mark and then sprint again and finish right with them). And I also could set a much faster cruise pace on the 18x100's we did today than I was ever able to set even with much less 100's. By the end of the workout I was really getting tired and had to fight to finish the sets and keep my technique acceptable but in the end, I feel like I've gotten a great workout today. I hope I can save this feeling for my future workouts because I feel like this is the kind of workout I need if I wanna make national squad times by 2008.

anyone else wanna break through?

Hey Ande, Recently, I had 2 sets of 10x50 SCY on 2:00 where I was coming in at 34 seconds in free and on the second set (which was breaststroke) I was coming in at 35 to 36. When I first started with the age group team a few months back, I was at 40 to 45 seconds for free. I would start off around 40 to 42 seconds and by the end of the set I was at 45 seconds. I still have a long way to go but the improvement is exciting so I figured I would tell you. I am really looking forward to getting to beinf in good enough shape to compete. One more thing, at the end of practice in the 50 LCM pool we did an all out 50 from a push and I went 25 seconds with fins. Going that fast felt really cool. Having water flowing along you at that speesd really lets you see how important streamlining is. Now, I WANT to go that fast without fins, that is my new goal. It is freaky how much fun I am having at a practice. I love it, even the under water work. Hook'em Blue

Don't know if this will result in a breakthrough, but I'm finally (after 2 years) able to swim (no pull buoy) descending sets of 400s, 300s and 200s. Why is that? I credit the following, in no particular order: Healthy (relatively) shoulder Training partner of similar ability Coached workouts 3 days/wk with the Masters team Coached workouts with the age groupers 3 days/wk during the summer Dry land work Stroke improvement, including a change from a 2 beat to a four beat kick (and for the first time able to kick 50s on 1:00--no fins, no board). My new goal (among others) is to swim faster at 50 than in my 40s (inspired by Tom Wolf).

congratulations! Ande Originally posted by gull80 Don't know if this will result in a breakthrough, but I'm finally (after 2 years) able to swim (no pull buoy) descending sets of 400s, 300s and 200s. Why is that? I credit the following, in no particular order: Healthy (relatively) shoulder Training partner of similar ability Coached workouts 3 days/wk with the Masters team Coached workouts with the age groupers 3 days/wk during the summer Dry land work Stroke improvement, including a change from a 2 beat to a four beat kick (and for the first time able to kick 50s on 1:00--no fins, no board). My new goal (among others) is to swim faster at 50 than in my 40s (inspired by Tom Wolf).