I'm a huge fan of my Vasa trainer - you probably read some of my posts earlier this year when I bought it around January 2014 if you did a search on Google or Vasa.
Your price, even with shipping is an awesome deal. Mine was new for $2000, but I still consider it well worth the cost and would absolutely buy it again.
For me, the Vasa absolutely translates to freestyle swimming - nearly identically in my case. It literally feels exactly like swimming with paddles to me, down to the power and form. My stroke rate is a bit higher in the water(sans paddles) than on the Vasa, but all the power and endurance I build on the Vasa translates directly to my freestyle results.
Without working especially hard on my Vasa, but putting in decent time on it per week (4-5hrs of Vasa+pool per week), I dropped almost 10sec/100 for distance in pool and OWS, which I'm thrilled with. And I haven't even really cranked it yet on the Vasa - I was focusing on bike a lot this past 6 months, so Vasa was more of a means originally to not lose a lot of swim ability, but I ended up improving since it allowed me to signifcantly add volume to swimming due to the sheer convenience.
I would be confident enough now with my Vasa that I'm confident that I could swim PR or near-PR swim times with just 1-3 short pool sessions before race day. I actually have much less of a difference between Vasa vs pool than I have pool vs OWS, and I suspect most people would feel the same way.
Honestly, the Vasa has been so good to me that at this point I would not even consider an endless pool setup or even an at-home 25m lane, due to the upkeep and cost of those systems. The Vasa is so stupidly simple with no wires or other complications that its even less maintenance than the minimal maintenance of a bike trainer or treadmill. For me, it's been good for everything, from longer 60-90 steady state endurance swims (hard to do at busy public pools) to things like pool-like 10 x 200m as well as 25-50m sprints. I'd recommend you do all of the above - the Vasa works excellently for all of them.
And it's not just me that endorses their use - their in the regular rotation at the Germantown swim program, and you can see that even ex-olympian gary hall sr chimed in to offer his support and approval of the vasa erg on one of my threads earlier this year.
It's an awesome device - go crazy and expect big things!
Your price, even with shipping is an awesome deal. Mine was new for $2000, but I still consider it well worth the cost and would absolutely buy it again.
For me, the Vasa absolutely translates to freestyle swimming - nearly identically in my case. It literally feels exactly like swimming with paddles to me, down to the power and form. My stroke rate is a bit higher in the water(sans paddles) than on the Vasa, but all the power and endurance I build on the Vasa translates directly to my freestyle results.
Without working especially hard on my Vasa, but putting in decent time on it per week (4-5hrs of Vasa+pool per week), I dropped almost 10sec/100 for distance in pool and OWS, which I'm thrilled with. And I haven't even really cranked it yet on the Vasa - I was focusing on bike a lot this past 6 months, so Vasa was more of a means originally to not lose a lot of swim ability, but I ended up improving since it allowed me to signifcantly add volume to swimming due to the sheer convenience.
I would be confident enough now with my Vasa that I'm confident that I could swim PR or near-PR swim times with just 1-3 short pool sessions before race day. I actually have much less of a difference between Vasa vs pool than I have pool vs OWS, and I suspect most people would feel the same way.
Honestly, the Vasa has been so good to me that at this point I would not even consider an endless pool setup or even an at-home 25m lane, due to the upkeep and cost of those systems. The Vasa is so stupidly simple with no wires or other complications that its even less maintenance than the minimal maintenance of a bike trainer or treadmill. For me, it's been good for everything, from longer 60-90 steady state endurance swims (hard to do at busy public pools) to things like pool-like 10 x 200m as well as 25-50m sprints. I'd recommend you do all of the above - the Vasa works excellently for all of them.
And it's not just me that endorses their use - their in the regular rotation at the Germantown swim program, and you can see that even ex-olympian gary hall sr chimed in to offer his support and approval of the vasa erg on one of my threads earlier this year.
It's an awesome device - go crazy and expect big things!