Both you and I are on the same page with respect to resume inflation epidemic inflation, so I totally get there is a need to on the forum to "check in" on the data. That's fair. We see it all the time with people with uncalibrated power meters or entering their lightest possible weight on Zwift that they achieve 1x per year but are currently 10 lbs over.
I do agree that short course meters is faster than long course meters. Your upper body just gets that extra rest beyond the push off, so 100% agreed there. I have just been swimming short course meters more because it is a 7 min drive from home for 25 minutes to the 50m pool and the hours there are no convenient with work hours.
In terms of spinal flexibility and my disc issues, one thing I left out in the first postt. Part of the reason I got into fly was due to my spinal issues in torsion that actually affect me most in freestyle, and secondly in breast stroke if my kick is wide. I first started doing dolphin kick drills underwater breathing every 5th stroke with a breast stroke pull as a form of core strengthening rehab routine. I was doing core work on dry land, but wanted to extend this to the pool. Honestly this was the starting point in learning butterfly. I had read that fly was originally invented by breast stroke guys who realized that it was faster if you did the recovery overhead over water than under water, so I just tried it one day and nearly drowned, but tried it a few other times, but mainly stayed on 5 dolphin kicks and one breast pull for this core strengthening drill. Without the torsion my disc was not getting in the way.
Some time after starting this routine, I decided that I wanted to see if I could cover 25m and then the madness described in the first post followed. During this time my dolphin kick was all really really bad and between a weak dolphin kick and bad timing, well, I was just floundering. But I kept floundering because my engine and upper body were strong enough to overcome the floundering. As mentioned, my dolphin kick off the wall barely got me past the flags. I watched youtube of pro swimmers easily covering 15m and I "felt' like I should be able to do 10 "easily" LOL, so decided to work on that more. Lots of Q&A on various ST threads from experts here on different aspects of the stroke helped me refine more over this past year than anything I can get from coaches on pool decks locally. It's not that the coaches are not good, I just can't make it to their workouts on the other side of town, and I feel that the virtual coaches on here are way better than the ones that are "near me".
I am hoping to get in for a disc surgery this winter under the communist Canadian system (in the infinite queue because i don't look decripid enough to warrant emergency surgery.....one of the women who swims at the pool with me who is a doc says, that my problem is that I took too much care of myself and did every possible rehab possible, so the docs don't treat me seriously). In any case, I want to go in with the strongest possible core to give myself the best chance to rehab. I hope to get back to riding mainly because I miss riding in the hills. But I am certain that swimming will be my primary sport for life now.
This is my primary pool open 6 am to 4 pm and then 7 to 9pm daily with 3-4 lanes 7 min from home
and this is the 50 m pool that is 25min from home
When the weather is minus 27C like today, these dolphin tanks are like taking a daily vacation. Seriously, I only took 2 days of vacation this year (the first company I worked for ran out of capital from China, and I spent the last 4 months trying to help pull it around, and then it shut down....then i started my own tech company in Oct....so had no time for vacation....plus no paycheque for 7 months, and investing my own capital in my company....swimming isi dirt cheap here in Ottawa....$450 for the entire year including gym!)....but I did not feel like I did not have vacation. I go for daily vacation time to these 2 locations