Ya, old LH is the poster boy for the Vasa, proof positive that it can work to improve your swim times if you work at it hard for a few months. You might be able to pick up a good used one on Ebay for under $1000, vs the $2000 new.

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

Lightheir, school me on Vasa. Send a PM if necessary. $2k won’t be a deal breaker if it works (and isn’t a huge mess of a trainer taking up a shitload of room).

Sorry for hijacking this thread but can you mimic a vasa trainer with a teather in a pool?
My pool at home is 10 meters and can only get to a real swimming pool once a week. Any ideas on how to incorperate swim workouts in a small pool? I can swim everyday if I can figure this out.

Culley22 wrote:

Lightheir, school me on Vasa. Send a PM if necessary. $2k won’t be a deal breaker if it works (and isn’t a huge mess of a trainer taking up a shitload of room).

This is THE thread I started a few years back when I was pulling the trigger. Includes some long term updates later in the thread.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4858114;page=3;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;


Enjoy - I like rereading this thread for fun once in awhile!

I actually posted about this in July when I went to a lake vacation house rental that was far away from any pool and there was too much boat traffic to safely swim more than 25 yards in any direction past the dock.

I bought a swim tether and it definitely works for freestyle. I used it every day for the whole week, an hour a day, doing pickups, sprints, easy long stuff, etc. If you have a small pool, it will definitely be legit for swim training.

Here's the BIG problem though - it's SUPER BORING. Seriously, you think you know how boring it is now, make it 4x that. Makes staring at the blue line in a pool like super exciting and interesting. I did it because I had to, with upcoming races 2-3 weeks after that and I was in good swim shape, but it definitely wasn't something I was looking forward to doing. Still, if I had a baby pool in my backyard, I would absolutely own and use a tether at least once in awhile for convenience.

The Vasa is actually pretty boring as well, but has a big upside - you can watch movies or listen to music/podcasts very easily as you would on a bike trainer.

Another nice thing about a swim tether is that it works extremely well for stationary running. I had strained my achilles the week before during a race, and def didn't want to worsen it given the upcoming races 2-3weeks later, so I did a fair amount of water running on top of the stationary swimming. (The water running worked great because it allowed me to watch my 7 yr old daughter play in the water for hours on end while getting something done in the lovely outdoors.)

Kinda sorta but I've never liked the tether myself; however, i was always attaching the tubing to my waist but other STers who have said in other swim threads that they had more success attaching it to their ankles. They said their feet/legs did not seem to sink near as much this way vs the waist. I haven't needed to use the tether the last few years though, so i haven't yet tried out the ankle method myself. IIRC, JasoninHalifax has used the tether a good bit so you might shoot him a PM on this as i haven't seen many posts from him in the last few weeks.

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

Ive been using a pull bouy with the ankle strap. Its super boring even with a mirror on the bottom of the pool. Idk how to break it up.

Well, you could always do 2-3 min hard, then rest 20 sec or so and go again. If you can find an underwater clock, you could make this more precise, or if not just go off of your feeling of fatigue. I would guess it is going to be pretty boring regardless. Personally, i would just swim 100s and 200s just using your 10 m pool as if it were a 25 m pool. Lots of turns for sure but at least you will know today whether you're going faster than yesterday/last week/last month. Turns done properly definitely speed you up a lot but still your pulling power will account for roughly half of your time so you will likely see some variation in your speed day to day. In sum, I say fook the tether. :)

Do you do flip turns??? If not, perfect opportunity to learn them there in your own pool.

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

The bike maintenance is already done. It was a one-time 36 hour ish investment from start to finish, including everything such as shopping, wrenching, cleaning, etc.

Unfortunately, taking it to the next level in swimming from here will require a lot more than 36 hours!

Ah I see, well, just keep this trade-off in mind if you start to spending more time on bike maintenance/upgrades.

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

I had a horrible time finding a swim coach. I don't like in a large city, so I didn't have a lot of resources. I asked and asked, but couldn't find anyone who could help (a lot of people promised, but didn't know what they were doing).
Then one day at the gym I noticed a really fast couple doing drills. I asked if either of them would be interested in coaching a few private sessions. It turns out that they were both former D1 swimmers, the woman had coached before, and they had student loans to pay off. I never would have found her through standard searching, but she helped me tremendously.

I wondered about the VASA option for you, but it does take up a shitload of room. Their website isn't always super enlightening, but I assume they still sell the pieces to convert one to wall mount with a separate bench as Ray did for his training cave: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/...this-weekend-12.html

I don't agree. I swam 2-3 times per week for 2 years fairly consistently. A good mix of volume roughly 2,800m average swim workout peaking at just over 4,000m for my IM. The last 7-8 months I started incorporating much more intensity and shorter repeats which is where I saw most of the gains come. So lots of 100's as fast as I could, mixed with some 200-400 intervals at HIM pace with paddles. In 2 years I went from a 1k TT of approx 24min to 17:10. Not lightening fast, but on 2-4 swims a week I'll take it.

Another cost of living in AK. I'm surprised it ended up at only $900. If you have access to a local business with a known shipper account at AK Air Cargo you could look into this option for shipping. The hassle is getting the seller to drop it at the airport, but a lot of larger cities have expediters that do this for a low price. Not sure if Vasa in VT to Boston works or not, but it would get you the AK Air link.

SwimOutlet also appears to be carrying VASA and may have more shipping options from OH or CA.

The VASA Ergs come up for sale used, but the challenge is always shipping. Sometimes boxing them too.

I am not a good swimming case study because my swimming is bad too, but when I've used the VASA regularly it has resulted in my fastest swim results. I've gone to the approach of focusing training on my bike and run which pays back more on results time reduction than what I get the time I invest for swimming.

Think i’m Gonna pull the trigger on it. I have a place down in NV, and I can have it shipped there for $200. I’ll keep it boxed up and then take it back as luggage when I come back up in November. Just need to make sure AK airlines won’t have an issue with a 89”x3”x3” package. I think it should be fine (thinking skis here), but want to double check. hate to get to the AP and have them go “yeah...we can’t take that”, and be fucked.

I asked them for the measurements and weights of the shipment boxes to see what I was dealing with. Seems like the unit itself is 57lbs (in the shipping box), so that’ll probably cost me in some overweight fees, but still much cheaper than trying to have it shipped directly to me up here.

Only real negative I see in this, besides the $2500 price tag: I’ll have no real excuse for sucking at swimming. Lol

Glad you were able to work it out.

I noticed this option the other day too: http://www.carlile.biz/...ces/package-express/ But it will only help you getting it as far as ANC because I don't see a Nome option. So you'd probably be down to getting in on AK Air from here anyway.

The 89x3x3 sounds like the beam for the standard VASA beam/bench configuration. It this the set up you decided to go with? The wall mount and separate bench (shown on Ray Maker's page link earlier) will take up less floor space and pack up a bit tighter between sessions.

Yup, going with the standard. Space won't be an issue for this (since it isn't going in my house) once set up, plus taking off the rail isn't that hard, and it can be slid to the side of a room fairly easily...and it's cheaper than the "space saver" option ($399 for the bench?!?!?!?!?! and yes I realize I could try to get another bench on the cheap and rig it to work).

We shall see how it goes....or if the wife unit loses her mind on this purchase (though it's much cheaper than the bike I built).

Best swim drill you can do is swim more. If you are slow, you just need to get in the water and swim more when you aren't smashed from too much biking and running.

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

Acknowledged earlier in this thread Tim. Rural Alaska, off any road network, presents challenges not common most other places in the US.