You could swim more, but since it sounds like you are just starting out. The place where you could make a bigger improvement would be working on starts, turns and underwater break outs.

Hope this helps.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
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There are many more accomplished swimmers here than I - I'm a triathlete making the transition to mostly a masters swimmer.

We swim BR at a similar speed - I'm not sure I could get much faster at BR in 4 weeks. I tend to think in 3 to 6 month blocks of time for real improvement. The main thing I can think of, that might be improved in that time frame, is making sure you set up your turns well. Practice marking the lane lines and knowing how many strokes to the wall so you can touch correctly at full extension and with speed. If you already do this I'd work on the breakout.

But again, I'm an adult learner and others might have better suggestions. Your coach is likely the best resource.

That makes lots of sense. Thx.

You're not likely to appreciably improve your conditioning in a month. That doesn't mean there aren't things you can do with a couple extra workouts a week that will help you be faster. What are your Masters workouts like? Are you getting any coaching on starts and turns? How far are you going underwater before breakout? Is a single dolphin kick part of your underwater work off the block and off each wall? Are you doing any race-paced sets? What are your 50 splits for that 1:35 100 breast you're currently capable of? Are you racing long course or short course?

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Agree with others, technique is where you are likely to make more gains in the next month. Have someone video you. You will probably be surprised! There are many ways in the breaststroke technique to find gains, not least ensure you have a super-streamlined glide phase and you hold the glide long enough to reap the benefit. Think: kick, GLIIIIIIIDE, pull, kick, GLIIIIIIIDE, pull...

If you didn't grow up swimming, one BIG thing you can improve are your starts. Especially because lots of things can go wrong quickly when you dive in off the blocks. Someone else mentioned turns, and there is probably some low-hanging fruit there as well. You might have the masters coach watch your stroke/kick/timing and see if they can provide any input there. Also, whenever the group does kick sets, you can do breaststroke kick - although you probably already do!

Seems like the best breaststrokers (which I am NOT) have really good timing/flow within their stroke. Good luck, you are brave!

Agree with others that said work on starts and turns. Especially starts as I am guessing you don't spend a lot of time on that at practice.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Agree with others that significant additional fitness gains are not the low-hanging fruit there, but technique refinement, starts and turns are a good place to look. I'd suggest reading the blog posts at the links provided below...not my blog BTW, but a resource I've consulted recently with good results.

Improving Breaststroke Technique <= Solid, basic info in this post

"Snap Your Feet Together"! <= This post is where the money is...read it, try it, tell us what you learned.

If you have no competitive swimming experience, as others have mentioned, make sure you work on your starts. Diving off a block is not that big a deal but it gets easier, and a lot faster, the more you do it. The trick is to enter the water in such a way that you maintain your speed while gliding, and with breaststroke, doing your pull out. While reaction time is important, the real key is your entry into the water and what happens while you are underwater. Maximizing the benefit of the speed you generate off the blocks is the key to good start. Particularly with breaststroke, it takes some practice to master the pull out and getting to the surface at the right point to start swimming so you are maximizing the benefit of the underwater pullout you are allowed while not spending too much time underwater.

And on a more basic note, just making sure you do not knock your goggles off takes a little practice and for God's sake do not forget to tie your suit ;-)

As mentioned, some race pace time trials would be nice. A 50 and 100 are not like pacing an IM but it is slightly more complicated than just going "all out" if you want to maximize your performance.

Probably not an issue but just to be safe, breaststroke has some specific rules for the stroke, start and turns you have to follow so ask your coach if you have anything you should worry about.

I was a breaststroker in a past life.

On the pullouts and starts, timing is everything. In my time, you couldn't do the dolphin kick, but I would suggest watching coverage of olympics etc just to see where they engage the dolphin. Some people do it as they enter the water/push off, some time it with the pull out. If you're clever you might even be able to get away with two dolphins ;)

Don't pullout too soon, as you will lose speed. You want to push off hard, and you should be able to intuitively gauge your speed, timing, as to when to begin your pullout, Something I used to do in training was always try to get close to the 12.5m line on each turn. If I glided massively, I could usually get past it. In a 25m pool, you can spend a lot of time of underwater.

What % of training time do you spend doing breaststroke? Breaststroke is quite a specific skill, so you should spend a lot of time doing it. Should be doing it on all of your main sets.

Some race specific work for 100s are broken 100s. Break them into 25m efforts, with about 5 to 7 seconds rest at each 25. This should be as hard as you can go. If you are going hard, you should begin to feel all of your muscles fail at once in the last 5m of the 100m/a 100m race.

Training for a 50m race, you want to do lots of 25 sprints at max effort. If not doing them from a dive start, do them on 60 second cycle. You will need the rest if you are going to be doing them at max effort.

One drill which I found good was 2 kicks 1 pull.

Race pace 25s. Aim for about 20-21/25 on 35 or 40 as your send off. Work the pull out as best you can.

1. Streamline tight (including feet together)
2. Pause.
3. Single dolphin kick.
4. Pause.
5. Pull hands back.
6. Slight pause
7. Hands forward and whip kick
8. Breakout and start swimming

I have been working on keeping my knees close together to reduce drag. My 50 breast in the 200 IM is 40xx and 100 in 400 IM is 1.25xx so nothing special.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=Y0SbPBU_g68


They talk pausing to hold the glide speed off the starts and turns.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

yeah there is definitely a pause. you don't want to kick (well breaststroke kick anyway) too soon after you do the pullout either, as if it is too soon, you will interrupt the glide speed.

never had to bring a dolphin into it whilst I was swimming though.

nowadays if I do 25m of breaststroke kick my knees will suffer and I will likely get some kinda running injury...

I know the elite guys do this, but I've tried it both ways and do better combining the dolphin kick with the pull.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Try slowing it down during a set of 25s. Take a hockey puck and mark how far you should go off each wall. Keep looking down as well. Lifting your head to see creates drag.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Not that anyone cares, but I will thought an update was in order given all the suggestions.

I ended up swimming 1:26 and 38 for 100m and 50m respectively (short course).

I had spent a lot of time practicing turns as suggested, but it was for naught as by the third turn I was so out of breath that I could not hold my glide on the pull out at all. It was really ugly.

Overall, it seems I need a lot more conditioning as I found it very tiring.

Did you have a goal time? I can't remember. I wasn't sure from your OP if this was your first meet ever? If so congrats. I'm sure it wasn't as ugly as you think. Or as ugly after turning 150 in a 200 fly with a melt down !

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

It was my first meet in 30 years. I never swam club but swam two or three meets a year in highschool. I joined a masters group last year for the first time.

I was hoping to get under 1:30 so that was good. Will keep at it for a bit.

Keep doing what you're doing. Add some 75's at 100 goal pace. Lots of rest between reps.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Given that you must be late 40s and you were in your first meet in 30 yrs, your times are really quite good. To put them in U.S. 25-yd perspective, you went around 34 for 50-yd breast and 1:17-ish for 100-yd breast which are very respectable times. Regarding your being so out completely out of breath by the 75-m point, lots of non-sprinters, e.g. most of ST, just do not realize how intense an all-out 50 or 100 yd/m swim can be when you're going all out in a meet. As realAB pointed out, the best way to practice that feeling is by doing those 75s at 100 race pace on long rest.

One question though: no freestyle events??? I would've thought as a tri-guy you'd have at least wanted to swim the 400, 800, and/or 1500 m free, or did you just want to save all your energy for the two breast events??? Also, what about the 200 breast??? Did your meet offer it???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I was thinking the exact same thing. Very solid! If you got to those times in ~6 months without any race pace training, I'd say you have the potential to go quite a bit faster, and be reasonably competitive on a higher level.

I was in a similar situation to you a few years ago. Swam as a kid (although a bit more competitively than you), then came back to the pool as an adult after a 27 year layoff. Swam 2-3 unstructured workouts for 3 months before my first meet, where I went 1:10 for 100M free, short course. I thought that wasn't bad for the amount of work I'd put in, so I decided to see where I could take it with some real effort. I found a program called Ultra Short Race Paced Training, or USRPT.

Long story short, training for the 100 with USRPT calls for lots of 25's at 100 race pace on 15 seconds rest. One key difference from "conventional" training, though, is that you only do as many reps as you can at actual race pace. If you miss a "target time," you rest an interval before you resume. Once you "miss" three times, or if you miss twice in a row, you abandon the set and go on to an active recovery set. Anyway, 10 months and ~1400 25's free at 100 race pace later (plus ~1500 50's at 200 free race pace and ~900 75's at 400 free race pace), I went 1:03.50 for the 100 free, long course.

Breaststroke is my second weakest stroke, but I've dabble a bit with USRPT training for the 100 breast. The one time I swam breast in a meet, I went 1:16 for 100 yards. That was enough for me to just barely crack the top 100 in the US in the 45-49 age group for the year (97th). If you're going 1:26 SCM now, I'd guess you have the potential to get into the 1:10 range for SCY or 1:19 range for SCM, which would be right around the threshold for a top 50 ranking in the US and squarely in the top 20 in Canada.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Thanks for the encouragement. I didn't swim any free races because my free is terrible. I started masters to improve my free (which has been happening, but slowly) but my breastroke is almost as fast as my free, so comparatively, that is a much better event for me to race.

No 200 breast this time. Will do it next chance I get.

Thanks for the tips on training. One of my knees gets screwy with too much kicking, so I am working up to proper volume. Right now I try not to do more than 500m total per workout. The short fast stuff might be a good solution.

What meet was this at ? Thornhill Masters?

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Sure sign of a natural breaststroker. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."