I kicked the new year off with a bang;

4x1000p@15;00 +100IM@2;00 (14;34/14;03/13;59/13;56) (1;28/27/26/25)
100 IM kick
4500SCY

Happy new year fishes!!!

10x100

11x100

Been a little sick. Pool was closed Monday, didn't swim Tuesday. Wednesday I was feeling better, but not 100%, so I went with an abbreviated workout of 1900 yards.

200 pull, 200 kick warm up.

20 x 50 on :55.
Early reps were in the high :35's, built the effort and worked down to low:34's by the end. Set didn't feel terribly taxing. Bodes well for my tertiary goal of being able to do a sub 5:50 500 this season.

16 x 25 fly on :35
Went high :16's to low :17's on all 16 reps. Focused on initiating the breathing early and getting the head back down as the arms are coming over the top. Also experimented with finish timing. If I'm come into the wall off a half stroke, I've been taking one final long stroke and gliding, but taking two shorter strokes proved to be faster.

100 EZ


Dentist's appointment today, so no swim at lunch. Back at it full-bore tomorrow.

For the 25m fly sprints, how often are you breathing? I will try some tomorrow, but I think I would need to go on 40 to make sure I double the rest period. But I think I would end up on breathing twice in 25m if it was a one length. Also are you focusing on the kick or pull. Also should I focus on finishing or a harder short pull?

Its only 3000ft but you feel it. Even when I lived up over 4k full time and trained 5k+, this 3k pool always kicks my ass. Dan has the same feeling and he has lived high for 15 years straight now! I think in the USMS book that you start to get a handicap at around 3k too, so something to that altitude..

General question for this thread. How do I increase my stroke rate for back stroke? Swivel hips faster? I can't seem to move my arms faster as I can in free going from easy cruise to sprinting.

These are a little slower than sprint speed, so I’m breathing every stroke. (BTW, these are 25y, not 25m! ) On a true sprint fly set, I’d be breathing every other stroke.

My focus is more on the breathing timing and the recovery than the pull or kick. I’m trying to breathe early, get my head down, and squeeze my shoulder blades together on the recovery so I can stay flatter. It takes a lot of energy to pull your upper body out of the water. The less up and down I do, the father I can go before fatigue sets in and my stroke turns to butterstrugle.

This is my struggle with back as well. Jason once told me to lead with my shoulders. It sort of worked but I haven't spent enough time trying to ingrain it yet.

i would try to focus on a quicker recovery, so accelerate the arm movement when its above the water. time your kick correctly to kick your left foot at the moment your right arm is leaving the water and starting the recovery. Just my experience that the underwater arm will naturally accelerate to match the speed of the the recovery arm. just want to give you guys something try I'm not a coach. edit if that doesnt work do more backstroke kicking instead of kicking on your stomach

i would try to focus on a quicker recovery, so accelerate the arm movement when its above the water. time your kick correctly to kick your left foot at the moment your right arm is leaving the water and starting the recovery. Just my experience that the underwater arm will naturally accelerate to match the speed of the the recovery arm. just want to give you guys something try I'm not a coach. edit if that doesnt work do more backstroke kicking instead of kicking on your stomach

36 x 150y today as:

6x150 @ 2:10
1:00 break
12x150 @ 2:05
1:00 break
6x150 @ 2:10, snorkel
1:00 break
2x150 @ 2:05, snorkel, buoy, paddles
2x150 @ 2:05, buoy, paddles
2x150 @ 2:05, paddles
2x150 @ 2:10, 50 back, 100 free
4x150 @ 2:10, 50 kick, 100 free

5400 mostly aerobic yards

I use a buoy to isolate my pull and allow myself to focus higher intensity on the pull, since I'm not using the legs and getting gassed by kicking. Also, helps me break up my swims, when I'm shooting for a particular distance goal. Lifelong swimmers who also do open-water races in wetsuit-legal courses, use a buoy so they can get the alignment they'd get from a wetsuit without burning up in a pool. Wetsuits benefit non-swimmers and those who haven't been lifelong swimmers more. You probably see a much greater focus on buoy (and neoprene shorts) among groups of triathletes and open-water swimmers who have the majority of their races in cold water.

Swam a meet Sunday. Went 20:53 in the 1650y free. That was 20 seconds slower than my goal, but 24 seconds faster than my previous best. Been doing lots of long sets (+/- 25 reps) of steady-pace 100's on 15-20 seconds rest, hoping my pace there would translate to a sustainable race pace for the 1650. That turned out to be a little optimistic.

Depending on how much rest, that *could* be a reasonable proxy. Did you start on pace and die, or hold an even pace that was a second per hundred slower?
I think some longer intervals are also really useful, even if they wind up being slower than mile pace. A favorite set of mine is 10x300. This complements rather than replacing the 100s.

Leading up to the race, I was able to do 25 X 100 at < 1:14 on a 1:35 interval. I once was even able to do 20 of them on a 1:30 interval. Was hoping, when adding time for a 4th flip turn, that would translate to a sustainable 1:15/100 pace for the 1650. Wasn't really the case. I was already over 1:15/100 by the 300y mark. Went 1:16.50 on the 5th 100, and kept in the 1:16.5-1:16.9 range though the 1000 mark. I was a little more ragged on the third 500, with 100 splits between 1:16.5 and 1:17.9 . Went 1:16.4 on the 16th hundred, and closed with a final 50 of :35.20.

Long story short, it wasn't the optimal race execution, but it was far from a "go out fast and die" train wreck. The guy in the lane next to me was a good example of that; he was 6 seconds ahead of me at the 500 mark, but I caught him by ~900, and finished 21 seconds ahead of him.

Were you in a tech suit? I'd say it's much more likely to be a good proxy with that boost. That's probably another way of saying that yeah, you're likely to be a second or two slower.
It's also important to say: practicing that race and being *well rested* is a big deal, especially in the 1650. If it was toward the end of your day, or you were tired going in, you're definitely not going to be able to hit your optimal times.

7.1 mi run 65:02
675 yd swim

7.1 mi run 65:02
675 yd swim
OK OK....I'm going to beat on this thread again. Is this thread supposed to be about bragging rights about workouts and feats of strength, or are we going to actually learn about swimming from each other. Posting workouts without talking about what the whole point of the workout was all about seems to make the thread less interactive. Sorry for beating on you, but there is a training log to just enter workouts....can we have some discussion.

Dr. Tigerchik wrote:

I swam 650 yards of freestyle then kicked 25 to cool down :-)

The reasoning behind my workout of 4500y:

1) mostly aerobic or higher-end aerobic, since yesterday was a short sprint workout.
2) aerobic because I wanted to work on something that I should have been applying for a long time, but haven't. During part of yesterday's workout, I felt a bit spry, and applied a technique that was reinforced when I was in the weight room on Tuesday. I did a set of lat pulls, and reminded myself to keep my shoulders down and back, instead of extending my shoulders. The idea is to activate the lats on the motion, and not the start the motion with the relatively weaker smaller muscles like the delts.

Translating this to Swimming terms, I thought about keeping my shoulders down on my free pull, instead of extending too far on the reach in front. On a few 50s, I found I did a pretty easy set of repeats holding :30. It made sense to me to start the catch with the shoulders not as extended, because it's a stronger movement that way. The result was the breezy swims.

So, today, I thought about doing the entire workout aerobic or higher intensity aerobic, including warm up, to reinforce this technique. I was going to repeat it as a mantra: "shoulders down."

The result was that I did some moderate 300s on 1:20 pace (yards), and even the first one, without a warmup, was 3:54, and the snorkels were about 3:55. When I added a stronger kick on a few, I was 3:40, with an HR of probably no more than 140.

Yes, I added one more half-cycle to each 25 (from 14 to 15; 13 to 14 with paddles) but I was faster with a bit less effort. I'm looking forward to my next session, probably Saturday, when I'll try to add some speed swims with this technique.

You got out on the opposite end!? Actually, I think I’ve done that.

When you are trying to lengthen your stroke, you really extend your arm. It's like a kid in class answering a question by raising a hand very high up ("What's the capital of Burkina Faso?" "I KNOW! I KNOW! It's Ougadougou!"). In the pool, if you extended both arms for a far reach in front, your shoulders would go to your ears, ideally, sort of like the ideal streamline.

What I tried to do:
1) In the weight room for lat pulls, I grabbed the bar, sat down and braced my knees, then positioned my shoulders down and a little back, so that my shoulders didn't go up to my ears.
2) In the pool, I tried to replicate this position of my shoulders, and tried to recover my arms without over-reaching too long in front. The stroke felt shorter, and I tried not to get my shoulders too far forward. I did need to synch the hip roll a but faster to match the tempo, but I don't roll too much, like is perhaps taught that there must be an over-emphasized roll.

The idea is two-fold: get into a catch more directly by not reaching in front, and therefore involving the lats earlier in the stroke, and relying less on the delts and biceps to start the catch. Second is to try to reduce the dead zone in the freestyle cycle with a quicker catch and less length and glide.

When you are trying to lengthen your stroke, you really extend your arm. It's like a kid in class answering a question by raising a hand very high up ("What's the capital of Burkina Faso?" "I KNOW! I KNOW! It's Ougadougou!"). In the pool, if you extended both arms for a far reach in front, your shoulders would go to your ears, ideally, sort of like the ideal streamline.

What I tried to do:
1) In the weight room for lat pulls, I grabbed the bar, sat down and braced my knees, then positioned my shoulders down and a little back, so that my shoulders didn't go up to my ears.
2) In the pool, I tried to replicate this position of my shoulders, and tried to recover my arms without over-reaching too long in front. The stroke felt shorter, and I tried not to get my shoulders too far forward. I did need to synch the hip roll a but faster to match the tempo, but I don't roll too much, like is perhaps taught that there must be an over-emphasized roll.

The idea is two-fold: get into a catch more directly by not reaching in front, and therefore involving the lats earlier in the stroke, and relying less on the delts and biceps to start the catch. Second is to try to reduce the dead zone in the freestyle cycle with a quicker catch and less length and glide.

You doing it from a push?

I MIGHT be able to sneak out to the pool tomorrow at lunch, we'll see.....

pool was closed yesterday due to chlorine issues. I ran 8 mi, did some core work, and rode 12.4 miles.
Today I ran 7.7 miles w/ 2.1 @ 8:27 pace and 3.1 @ 8:20 pace, then I swam 925 yds

500 swim
50 kick
100 swim
50 kick
200 swim
25 kick

Nice job with the 200IM. It has been killing me as it was not that long ago that I would just put a little pressure on a swim and do a high 2;30's, go hard and go low 2;30's for 200IM's. My brain has not wrapped itself around that those old times have passed and I now have to readjust my thinking.

Recently got back into thinking about this and did a 2;38 broken at the 50's. Went (38/41/45/34)2;38. I think that will be my eventual goal to break that time in a full out tt. I really dog the fly now or it is curtains on the middle two 50's...

I may try tomorrow again in SCM to see if I am a bit faster. Would be nice to have a 3:4x time to start the year. //

A 400m IM will be a lot faster in a SCM pool, turns are very important as well as the extra breath every once in awhile. Go for it and know it will be a 3;4 something...

I may try tomorrow again in SCM to see if I am a bit faster. Would be nice to have a 3:4x time to start the year. //

A 400m IM will be a lot faster in a SCM pool, turns are very important as well as the extra breath every once in awhile. Go for it and know it will be a 3;4 something...

read your posts and decided since it was "stroke day" at masters Id throw my hat in the ring.
200IM (yards bc I live in boston)..
2:29
For the effort I thought I would be better. But no excuses. Will do again next month and I better be WAAY faster.

Pushed several 100s free (within a set) the other day around 56-57 so fitness and speed are there...

Set was: 5 x through
4 x 50 IMs (12.5 each stroke) on 50
3 x 75 as 25stoke 50 free IM order on 1:15
1 x 25 kick on :30
1 x 100 Free on 1:30
times on the 100s were 102,58,56,57,57

Masters tonight should've been 3000m but cut the last set short with double thigh cramps and cramps in the right foot.

Ok made it up to the altitude pool with Dan today and was quite surprised, guess the smooth water is like a taper for me;

5x100s@1;40 (1;29 to 1;25)
5x100IM kick@2;05(1;53 to 1;49)
500p@7;30(6;26)
Broken 200IM @ 1;00(36/41/43/34)2;34+ 100IM kick(1;58)
6x150p@2;20(2;03 to 1;56) 100IM kick(1;56)
4x50@1;00 odds breast, even free(45/41/43/38)
3000SCY

So knocked about 4 seconds off my virtual 200IM broken, went about 85%, so happy about that. I may be able to do a non stop one sooner than I thought.