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February Fish Thread
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Post your swim workouts.

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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I slept in yesterday, so just an 8 mi fartlek run.
Today 7.5 mi easy run and 375 yd swim (350 free + 25 kick)

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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Thursday:
15 x 300 @ 4:00, 7 swim, 3 snorkel, 1 snorkel and paddles, 1 paddle and buoy, 2 paddles, 1 swim
2 x 150 @ 2:00
100 CD
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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Two out of 5 woke up sick this morning, so just going through the motions until I get it, or hopefully dodge this cold:

3x100s@1;40(1;28/1;25)
3x100IM kick@2;05(1;57's)
7x200p@3;00(2;44 to 2;38) 100IM kick(1;57a0
100 breast/100free@2;00(1;35/1;24)
50brst/50free@1;00(43/38) 100IM kick(1;50)
2500SCY
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Re: February Fish Thread [monty] [ In reply to ]
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5000m yesterday afternoon and another 5000m this morning. Not my smartest move!
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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400Y WU
Pyramid 100, 200, 300, 400, 400, 300, 200, 100 steady
4x 50 (sprint 25, slow 25)
200 CD
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Re: February Fish Thread [ajstiles] [ In reply to ]
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Did my first 4K of the year yesterday:

500 easy WU
500 pull, 400 kick
450 pull, 350 kick
400 pull, 300 kick
3x300 pull
200 easy CD

Today I have 2900 yard swim planned, followed by easy 6K run afterwards.
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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500 @ 8:00
500 @ 7:30
Straight into
5 x 100 @ 1:30
1200 snorkel
6 x 100 @ 1:30
5 x 200 @ 3:00, paddles
6 x 100 @ 1:30 no paddles
7 x 100 variable rest, alternating 50 stoke or kick/50 free

5600 long course meters
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Re: February Fish Thread [140triguy] [ In reply to ]
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Yesterday
500s
1000IM kwf
200IM w/fins
300 pull
4x[4x25 progressive] avg=:20/:18/:17/:16 last one :15
100 s/k cool
2500 yards
and then a 5.33 mile run in 43 minutes

This morning
500s
500p
2x[3x150kwf alt fl/bk/fr]
200 IM w/fins
5x100IM@2:00
400 s/k cool
3000 yards

No run - giving my hip the day off - flip turns hurt like hell, so I quit doing them.

Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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I'm going to beat up on you again....posting workouts has almost zero value to other readers....can we talk about the actual techinical parts of swimming of it this month a bit more than just talking about feats of strength (for that we can go to any bike FTP thread anyway). I learn almost zero about swimming just reading about other people's workouts, whereas when some of you post about what you are working on, it is often more enlightening than almost all the coaches on the deck that I had access to (I think I just got stuck with useless people.....or it might just be that when people type to explain they actually have to do a better job explaining the body motions).

How about we train all month for an end of month virtual swim meet? What events this month? I vote for 200 IM, 100 free, 50 fly. Next month I am going to spring the 200m fly on you guys unless more people talk about actual swimming then just post math/feats of strength numbers!!!

OK, today's feats of strength was a 4500m swim, where for the breast stroke legs I did 2 breast kicks per pull (similar timing to fly 2 kicks for each pull....is that correct to get the timing)?

Also I did a few 25 m sprints dolphin kick with fins on no breathing. A few underwater, a few at the surface. I found the "at surface" easier. Is this correct. At the surface feels like more front of body work (abs, quads)....underwater, you're working both sides. I was faster at the surface!!!
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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i work on pretty much the same things every time I'm in the water, so that'll get pretty boring very quickly.

Here's a challenge for you, what do you think those things are, in broad strokes?

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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posting workouts has almost zero value to other readers//

Actually it is a great resource for the fishes to pinch a workout or particular set or two. This thread has historically been mostly ex swimmers, thus just the bare bones actual workouts, sometimes accompanied with times, and an occasional reason for the set. But you have come busting into the house now and want to learn all this new fangled stuff, which is fine. But I think you will have to continue to ask your specific questions, and of course you will get answers here. We pretty much know why everyone is doing such and such, and take it for granted if they don't ask questions, then it is just plain swimming as usual.


But of course every once in awhile someone posts up a video of a spectacular race with a fast time, and even then they get critiqued on the finer points, so not that we are above it, just not as excited about it as you are at the moment...


I love the idea about a virtual swim meet, think I may have even had it a long time ago. Hell, maybe we even did it and I forgot!!


SO 200IM, 100 free, and 50 fly this month, sounds good to me. Of course we will have to accommodate all the distance formats, LCM< SCM< and SCY, but us fishes know how to do that easy enough. Lets throw ages and sex into the results too, make it a bit more fun for comparisons...

Forgot to add, I agree with you that running workouts need to be purged from this thread, not sure how or why they creeped in..
Last edited by: monty: Feb 2, 18 18:17
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Re: February Fish Thread [monty] [ In reply to ]
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the running is all TC's fault,


monty wrote:
posting workouts has almost zero value to other readers//

Actually it is a great resource for the fishes to pinch a workout or particular set or two. This thread has historically been mostly ex swimmers, thus just the bare bones actual workouts, sometimes accompanied with times, and an occasional reason for the set. But you have come busting into the house now and want to learn all this new fangled stuff, which is fine. But I think you will have to continue to ask your specific questions, and of course you will get answers here. We pretty much know why everyone is doing such and such, and take it for granted if they don't ask questions, then it is just plain swimming as usual.


But of course every once in awhile someone posts up a video of a spectacular race with a fast time, and even then they get critiqued on the finer points, so not that we are above it, just not as excited about it as you are at the moment...


I love the idea about a virtual swim meet, think I may have even had it a long time ago. Hell, maybe we even did it and I forgot!!


SO 200IM, 100 free, and 50 fly this month, sounds good to me. Of course we will have to accommodate all the distance formats, LCM< SCM< and SCY, but us fishes know how to do that easy enough. Lets throw ages and sex into the results too, make it a bit more fun for comparisons...

Forgot to add, I agree with you that running workouts need to be purged from this thread, not sure how or why they creeped in..

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: February Fish Thread [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
i work on pretty much the same things every time I'm in the water, so that'll get pretty boring very quickly.

Here's a challenge for you, what do you think those things are, in broad strokes?

I would think in broad strokes the only three things you are thinking are streamline (at all times), strong catch and pull, and how your body position gets messed up on not when breathing. This would be outside of hitting your pace times. Would this cover what I need to be thinking of?
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Re: February Fish Thread [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
posting workouts has almost zero value to other readers//

Actually it is a great resource for the fishes to pinch a workout or particular set or two. This thread has historically been mostly ex swimmers, thus just the bare bones actual workouts, sometimes accompanied with times, and an occasional reason for the set. But you have come busting into the house now and want to learn all this new fangled stuff, which is fine. But I think you will have to continue to ask your specific questions, and of course you will get answers here. We pretty much know why everyone is doing such and such, and take it for granted if they don't ask questions, then it is just plain swimming as usual.


But of course every once in awhile someone posts up a video of a spectacular race with a fast time, and even then they get critiqued on the finer points, so not that we are above it, just not as excited about it as you are at the moment...


I love the idea about a virtual swim meet, think I may have even had it a long time ago. Hell, maybe we even did it and I forgot!!


SO 200IM, 100 free, and 50 fly this month, sounds good to me. Of course we will have to accommodate all the distance formats, LCM< SCM< and SCY, but us fishes know how to do that easy enough. Lets throw ages and sex into the results too, make it a bit more fun for comparisons...

Forgot to add, I agree with you that running workouts need to be purged from this thread, not sure how or why they creeped in..

OK, this all makes sense. I suppose if I was on a tennis or soccer thread, I'd just post the score and stats, but I would not be talking about the fine craft of what the technical nuances were to get there, so now that you provide that context, I get that for the rest of you guys, the "box score" from the workout, tells enough of what was going on. This would be like me posting the results from a Cricket T-20 international. They would make almost no sense to you guys.....that's the problem when those of us who did not grow up swimming come on this thread. We're only getting box scores that give us no instruction on what to go do and work on to become better swimmers.

Unfortunately for you guys, my persistence rate is high (both in sport and in life), so I'll be asking you guys what you were working on and what I was working on. I do think that if you guys share those, you will get some more people who are not from a swimmer background join in and use this thread as a resource (and add to it)

Can someone tell me what the timing of the two kick breast stroke drill should feel like. I assume there is one hard kick and one shorter tight kick like when doing fly?

In terms of the virtual swim meet, Monty, or Jason, why don't you guys pick a monthly set of events (I vote for no 1500m and 800m please since those are more or less Olympic and Sprint tri distance....prefer swim events that don't happen in a tri). I suppose it would be enough to know if it is SCM, LCM, SCY. Not sure if we need to divide up age groups etc (well, in my case, I'll be last place regardless, until we slice it and dice it to 52 year old guys on ST from Ottawa Canada with 40,000 posts, who is tech company founder whose 21 year old avoids talking with him....OK, on the last one, maybe that's most people with a 21 year old).

Alright I will keep asking. If someone can answer the 2 kick breast stroke drill that a few have mentioned that would be great.
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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My focus right now is pulling more with my lats - I have a somewhat flat stroke/low hip rotation, and tend to rely on my upper back muscles and under-use my lats. I also have a slight hitch in my stroke somewhere in the pull on the righthand side; based on swimming on a tether, I believe I have a slightly slower recovery on that side. I suppose lately I've also been thinking about tight streamlines off the wall.

Mostly, when I get in for 10 minutes after I run, the sole goal is to preserve feel for the water. So what I'm REALLY working on is getting out of bed earlier so I have more time to swim ;-)

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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1 pull-2 kicks breaststroke can help with timing, and for being farther extended out front into a streamline.

I'm a lifelong swimmer, and my technique is pretty much grooved in (for better or worse). I do think of anfew technique things here and there, like the pitch of my hand, high elbow on both arms (since I breathe to one side 95% of the time), snapping my turn (using my head for momentum), head position on the streamline, more of a wave action in fly, using my head, rotating and kicking in backstroke.

Other times, like in yesterday's long course session, where I made up my own practice, I thought about listening to my body/fitness as I swam through. I adjusted speed and intensity to stay aerobic once I figured out my speed just wasn't there yesterday.

Over the years, in swimming, marathons, and ironman races, and the training for those, I've done a great job of listening to what my body was telling me. I haven't ever had a bike power meter, and when my Timex HR/GPS distance meter watch ran out of battery in 2008 or 2009, I haven't tracked hr or distance. Considering my low-tech approach to training and racing (for most of my time running marathons from 2001-2007 and IM from 2008-10) except for a few years with that HR/GPS, I trained only with a watch on land. I never took my hr in the water, and never took my hr on land except for when I had that special watch.

In short, besides a few minor technique things in the water, I mostly gauge myself, and it's worked pretty well.
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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All righty then, you are getting some feedback. I will say that when I swim I'm usually thinking about keeping my elbow high in the catch and streamline. I work on the 2 beat kick at the same time, alternating left kick with right pull and vice versa.

And this is one of the reasons I like to pull with paddles a lot, I don't have to think about high elbow, it is forced into the stroke for me. It also keeps my entry hand high on the surface so I won't tend to start my pull too deep, which happens from time to time when I'm not thinking about it.

I kick with a board a lot (about 25% of workout usually) as this is a real core workout for me and my HR is just as high as swimming fast too. And I just feel better in the water when my kick is going good, and I really feel that transfers to running and riding too, and not just for recovery. And lastly, when you have a strong kick, you will be able to go a lot faster in those tiny little sprints that swimmers call races.

Working on strokes I think a lot about form, especially in breast stroke. That one stroke has changed so much from when I used to swim it in the early 70's, I just have a lot of deprograming to do. Mostly done now, so really working on that pullout with dolphin kick, that gets you more than half the lap when you figure in two turns, so kind of important.

Butterfly is pretty set, although I have started to try and breath every stroke once in awhile. It was always every other in the old days, think Phelps has smashed that old standard and like free, air is king in swimming. Backstroke is mostly getting that push off right and popping up with momentum, not the stall I usually do because I went too deep or shallow. Then it is working on the elbow pull, something I never even though of when swimming in the old days, keeping the hull as small as possible.

So there you go, but keep in mind that it is very difficult to work on more than one thing at a time, as soon as you focus on something else you lose that other thing you were doing. So get to the point where it is almost automatic on one thing, then move over to the next low hanging fruit..
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
i work on pretty much the same things every time I'm in the water, so that'll get pretty boring very quickly.

Here's a challenge for you, what do you think those things are, in broad strokes?

I would think in broad strokes the only three things you are thinking are streamline (at all times), strong catch and pull, and how your body position gets messed up on not when breathing. This would be outside of hitting your pace times. Would this cover what I need to be thinking of?

Close, but not quite.

It's streamlining, timing, and forearm angle before I try and pull my upper arm back.


If I want want to get specific, streamlining is a few things, ( head position, momentarily locking the elbow on the reach, and alignment from shoulder to toe. I have a few cues that I use, eg what the water should feel like on the top of my head and on my back.

Timing is really a pace / effort thing, but really I'm playing around with the timing as it affects streamlining.

On the pull I have a couple of bad habits, especially my left arm, so I'm usually conscious of those things, but still trying to swim fast at the same time.

Funny enough, on back and breast it's the same things, but not on fly. Fly is mostly about getting into the rhythm and staying low. breathing frequency (montys protestations notwithstanding) is secondary to rhythm.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: February Fish Thread [Dr. Tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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Dr. Tigerchik wrote:
My focus right now is pulling more with my lats - I have a somewhat flat stroke/low hip rotation, and tend to rely on my upper back muscles and under-use my lats. I also have a slight hitch in my stroke somewhere in the pull on the righthand side; based on swimming on a tether, I believe I have a slightly slower recovery on that side. I suppose lately I've also been thinking about tight streamlines off the wall.

Mostly, when I get in for 10 minutes after I run, the sole goal is to preserve feel for the water. So what I'm REALLY working on is getting out of bed earlier so I have more time to swim ;-)

Thanks for the cue to pull with my lats. I do that in the weight room with lat pulldowns but constantly forget to do that in the pool....I'm always focusing on hand and forearm position when I should probably be more focusing on lats and upper arm and the rest will follow better!
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Re: February Fish Thread [140triguy] [ In reply to ]
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140triguy wrote:
1 pull-2 kicks breaststroke can help with timing, and for being farther extended out front into a streamline.

I'm a lifelong swimmer, and my technique is pretty much grooved in (for better or worse). I do think of anfew technique things here and there, like the pitch of my hand, high elbow on both arms (since I breathe to one side 95% of the time), snapping my turn (using my head for momentum), head position on the streamline, more of a wave action in fly, using my head, rotating and kicking in backstroke.

Other times, like in yesterday's long course session, where I made up my own practice, I thought about listening to my body/fitness as I swam through. I adjusted speed and intensity to stay aerobic once I figured out my speed just wasn't there yesterday.

Over the years, in swimming, marathons, and ironman races, and the training for those, I've done a great job of listening to what my body was telling me. I haven't ever had a bike power meter, and when my Timex HR/GPS distance meter watch ran out of battery in 2008 or 2009, I haven't tracked hr or distance. Considering my low-tech approach to training and racing (for most of my time running marathons from 2001-2007 and IM from 2008-10) except for a few years with that HR/GPS, I trained only with a watch on land. I never took my hr in the water, and never took my hr on land except for when I had that special watch.

In short, besides a few minor technique things in the water, I mostly gauge myself, and it's worked pretty well.

For today's breast stroke drills, I tried to do 1 stroke with 2 breaststroke kicks followed by the next pull with 2 dolphin kicks. What this did was forced the breast kicks to get a bit tighter to keep similar timing and body position with the upper body and kept doing some 50's like this. From there went to single breast kick with a shorter pull to synchronize with less leg action. Does that sound right?

In the main set category, it as 3x200 IM as 50 fly-25 back-25 breast-100 free, followed by 8x50m as 25m underwater dolphin sprint with fins with 25m free recovery. Then this was followed by 1000m continuous as (25m fly sprint-25m easy fly-25m free sprint-25m free recovery) x 10. On the free legs, I was trying to time my breathing so it happens when I can see my recovery arm coming back. I think I am breathing too early and it is messing my streamline with my other arm and I am lifting my body with my right pulling arm to breath on the right rather than breath on the right when the right are is recovering:


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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:


For today's breast stroke drills, I tried to do 1 stroke with 2 breaststroke kicks followed by the next pull with 2 dolphin kicks. What this did was forced the breast kicks to get a bit tighter to keep similar timing and body position with the upper body and kept doing some 50's like this. From there went to single breast kick with a shorter pull to synchronize with less leg action. Does that sound right?




Doesn't sound right to me. typically when you do a 2 kick / 1 pull breaststroke you want to keep the kicks consistent with how you would normally do them, and keep the pull the same, but you just tack on the extra kick in streamline underwater. It's a drill designed partly to get you kicking in the streamline phase of breaststroke, when resistance is low, rather than during the breath and recovery when resistance is high.

pull in streamline, then kick in streamline.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
Last edited by: JasoninHalifax: Feb 3, 18 10:24
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Re: February Fish Thread [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:


For today's breast stroke drills, I tried to do 1 stroke with 2 breaststroke kicks followed by the next pull with 2 dolphin kicks. What this did was forced the breast kicks to get a bit tighter to keep similar timing and body position with the upper body and kept doing some 50's like this. From there went to single breast kick with a shorter pull to synchronize with less leg action. Does that sound right?




Doesn't sound right to me. typically when you do a 2 kick / 1 pull breaststroke you want to keep the kicks consistent with how you would normally do them, and keep the pull the same, but you just tack on the extra kick in streamline underwater. It's a drill designed partly to get you kicking in the streamline phase of breaststroke, when resistance is low, rather than during the breath and recovery when resistance is high.

pull in streamline, then kick in streamline.

OK, so there is no up and down body motion during the second kick....hands, arms, head, core, butt all locked into a straight torpedo, and just a hard breast second kick. So what you are saying is pull with streamlined lower body, kick with streamlined upper body?
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Pretty much that.

Bear in mind that I'm not a particularly good breaststroker, my kick is horrible.

I'm faster doing pull than swim.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
Last edited by: JasoninHalifax: Feb 4, 18 7:14
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Re: February Fish Thread [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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We had another messy IM set the other day, and in fact, truth be told, I got out bc it was so messy no one could follow it.
Our leader usually puts up great sets. But this last one was a doozy.

Before that we did sets of 4 x 125s (4 of them)
First set: fly on the last 25, second set back, third brst and the last two were tempo free focusing on bc on the last 25 (breathing every 5th stroke)
Fly focus was to have two good harmonics off the wall (i usually skip these bc i suck at them) and then keeping the feet quiet as my hips were the primary moving part in the fly. --- tempo felt quick and light despite the traffic of 4 others in the lane.
Back, I focused on where I carried my weight. Back is always a struggle for me. So i leaned heavily on the vertebrea directly behind my sternum and keeping my chin slighly closer to the bottom of the pool than my forehead (helps to get hips up)
Breast, I focused on hip connecting to the turn of my hands out front. When I press DOWN (not back) i want my hips to slide toward that point. Vs lifting the head and having the hips sink. It will help move you forward.
The free portion was all locking down my scapulas during my streamline and trying to keep it that way. Noticing pace, effort rhythm. The breathcontrol is just easy. Focusing on the exhale. But the locked down scapulas take my stroke count from 11 to 13/14 strokes per length (anecdotal) but interesting bc my pace quickens and my effort goes down.

Hope that is the feedback you are looking for...?

With a 17k week and still ticking off this stupid 100/100 run challenge... im kinda tired for Jan/Fab...:)

DaveD
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