Sounds like you really need to just work on your stroke.
You can't go fast with crappy form. Keep your yardage up by using tools like a pull buoy and fins so your stroke doesn't break down.(if that makes sense)

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Ready or not here I come!
Coaching NY's Southern Tier
Swift^3

Lots and lots of short repeats.

Also, don't worry about swimming perfectly when you swim fast. Just focus on one thing at a time, and swim fast doing that one thing.

Maybe you do a scissor kick, rotate too much on the breath, cross over and drop your elbows. Don't try to correct all of that at once. Just pick one thing to do well.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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You shouldn't have a lesson more than once a week for not more than about 30 minutes. Focus on one issue in the stroke at a time. The 4x a week you are swimming, swim hard while trying to improve that one issue. It'll typically take about 2-3 weeks to make the change, then move on to the next issue. But you have to swim hard while trying to change the stroke. Swimming slow will only train you how to swim slow. Be patient, work hard and prepare for a long time to improve your swimming.

Hope this helps.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
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Thanks! I was wondering about how to proceed since I need to improve my stroke but want to be fit enough to swim a decent time for my 1/2 IM in May, My swim instructor is a former D1 swimmer and she said that they would typically spend the first part of their season doing drills and working on technique and then would add speed as the season progressed. So, her advice was only to swim as fast as I could while still maintaining good form. I've been focusing on high elbows with the early catch being secondary but it is taking a while to overcome literally decades of swimming with flawed form. So, following her advice, I have not been doing any speed work until I could progress to the point where I could at least stop dropping my elbows whenever I tried to swim fast ("fast" definitely being a relative term for my swimming:).

That is a lot of yards to be swimming with a flawed stroke. Because, unfortunately, you are just practicing and reinforcing your flaws. And that is not something you want to do.

However, after you feel that you have essentially corrected to a considerable degree your biggest stroke flaws, I would still keep the yards to under 3000 per workout (especially for a race distance of just 1.2 miles). Because, unless you are very fit in the water, most people have significant stroke decay as they fatigue. Which can happen as you approach 3500 yards.

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what he said x1,000!

to some degree we all struggle with the above. Short intervals (with speed) give you (your motor planning and muscle strength, etc.) a chance to accommodate to the technique so it becomes the "habit."

Going slow has a place in helping to learn technique, certainly. But, the real "feel" and stresses can only be felt by going fast. As a point of reference for myself - last spring I swam with the local fast swimmer who knows his stuff. He gave me a few suggestions. Which I'm still working on from warmup to cooldown (old habits die hard and all that). I'm to the point of during 100's I can hold the improvements, no problem. 300's sometimes yes and sometimes no. 1,000's? I can hold the technique improvements - until... I don't. Maybe half way, on a good day.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but it didn't take forever either.

Make friends with the pace clock - Enjoy the journey.

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

I've always like this article:

The High cost of good form
by Dan Empfield 9.23.04
(http://www.slowtwitch.com)

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...corn/costofform.html

I don't really agree with this statement.

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I am not sure I follow.

Do you think it is a good idea to practice when is fatigue is such that you can't hold good or decent form?

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1) There isn't a magic number of yards / metres that happens.

2) part of improving is to do it while fatigued. You need to learn to hold form while fatigued, and the only way to do that, that I know of, is to swim in a fatigued state.

3) the concept of "ingraining poor form" is somewhat overblown. If you know what it is you need to improve, and how to improve it, and focus on doing those things, then that is the majority of the battle.

4) You can always switch to shorter intervals, take more rest.

When I was a club / collegiate swimmer, how many times do you think coach said that I could stop because my form was breaking down and i shouldn't ingrain bad habits?

oh, and the goal is to be able to swim 1.2 miles really easily. The distance should not be a challenge, at all, in any way shape or form.

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All good points (above).

But, I think that it is likely that the OP is not as experienced or as fit as a swimmer as you were when you were a collegiate swimmer. Probably the difference is/was huge. My post was just an attempt to tailor some advice for the OP and his exact situation.

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True, but that started even when I was a club swimmer at my first practices. I had terrible form when I started competitive swimmign at age 14. I was still in the water for 1.5 hours after school from Day 1, probably 3500-4000m at that stage. You didn't get to get out. Coach would stop you, (or more likely talk to you between repeats or between sets) remind you to do whatever it was that needed doing. Then you got to keep trying. Then again the next day, and the next.....

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Yup, common stuff in youth coaching. The question I always wonder: yes, this is what happens, but how effective or optimal is it? I don't think it is.

And, further, should that approach be the one that should be used for an adult-onset swimmer (a swimmer for triathlon) when the swimmer is 30-50 years old and also fairly time limited?

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Well, it's pretty effective. The proof is the thousands of kids who come through the club system every year. Is it optimal? Dunno. But I do know that people have been trying to build a better mousetrap for a long time, and when it comes down to it, there is no substitute for hard work.

If you are time limited, then that is even more reason to keep going rather than stop when you are tired. You only get so many chances to work on these things every week.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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Unfortunately this swimmer will almost always be slower out of the water than a former fish.
It's also really, really hard for an adult to take the club path. What 45yo wants to swim with a bunch of 9-12 yo's?

With the adult onset swimmer you've got to pick one thing, and do it. Over and over and over, like people on here asking the same dumb questions over and over. There is no search function in the pool only a swim function.

many of the problems with adult onset swimmers is they swim too few yards, don't swim often enough, don't know what drills to use to correct which stroke flaw. They'll swim traditional catch up drill to work on high elbows for instance.

What they should be doing is swimming more yards and swimming them more often but using things like fins more often to help them make it through and provide the propulsion necessary to feel what the changes they need to make feel like. They need to figure out what their specific flaws are then find the specific drills that fix those flaws. Then they need to drill then swim. Many adults drill say 10x50 they they move to a set of 500's or something.

Instead they should maybe do 20x75 or 100 as 25drill/swim/drill or 50drill/25swim or 25drill/swim or 50drill/swim and not try to crush the interval.

Stroke improvement and fitness improvement needs to go into the same set(s).

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Agree with most everything you say. Lots of people make only a half-hearted effort at the pool.

But some do make a lot of effort. Unfortunately, that is still no guarantee of success. Because, in my experience, I have seen many many adult onset swimmers (triathletes) who are swimming quite respectable weekly yardages/frequency, but yet they are doing it with bad and really visible stroke flaws.

Before they get the progress they deserve, these adults need help to get these flaws fixed. Because it is a lot like riding a bike with a big parachute. Even a huge and super fit powerplant can do very little against that, you'll still be slow as molasses.

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+1

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Ready or not here I come!
Coaching NY's Southern Tier
Swift^3

You've already gotten good advice from your coach. I know you *want* to have a respectible time for your upcoming half, but what how long do you plan on being a triathlete? What about your time for races later this year, next year and the next?

Does a short term setback in time for the swim (which could be offset by more energy available to you to spend on your bike & run) make up for what could potentially be better long term development?

How much time do you want to spend rebuilding your stroke after every race because you took 6-8 weeks prior (or more) to work on speed with your current stroke?

There are a lot of different options, but you hired a coach, who is a skilled swimmer, giving you what sounds like good technique instruction AND good advice for your training.

you can probably go faster between now and your race by sacrificing some of your time spent swimming WELL with time spent swimming faster and less well. But you could also say, this year is my rebuilding year, I'm going to follow the advice of my coach, and accept the tradeoffs knowing that this fall/next year I'll be even faster than I would have been otherwise.

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Suzanne Atkinson, MD
Steel City Endurance Coaching