For those of us that can actually swim with an ankle band, how does everyone work the drill into their normal workout?
I normally do 100 X 5 with full (about 60 second) rest. I’ve noticed that my first 3 are in the 1:45 range, then the last 2 are a struggle to hold 1:55. It is also the first thing I do after my warm up, so I’m fresh going into the drill.
Is this normal, is 500 m too much for this type of drill, or do I just need to HTFU?
I feel like To ankle band, or not to ankle band, has been a topic on here multiple times, with the hard core swimmers finding it worthless. I am not a hard core, or even a good swimmer, so take it for what it’s worth that I’d die trying 5 x 100 of these. 25’s, yes. 50’s, hard but survivable. 100’s, no bleeping way.
I’m coming back from hip surgery. Early on I was jonsing badly for cardio fixes and was cleared to get in the water so long as I did NO kicking. So I got real friendly with my buoy and snorkel, and ditched the buoy once warmed up. I didn’t band my ankles and what I learned is this drill is far easier when using a snorkle. It allowed me to focus on form w/o the panic of needing to breathe and yeah, I was able to clear 100 yds this way.
My personal view is that I can swim a long time with ankle band on with my legs in a good position, however, I find it ends up getting me swimming flatter. I actually worked up to 1K continuously with band and no paddles, which fell in the the category of “feats of strength” but with not that much utility, other than helping my turnover and catch. I think doing 50’s is plenty and no more than 5-8 of them. I prefer the three hole band that allows for a tight kick, but proper hip and shoulder rotation.
It’s a VERY worthwhile skill to acquire.
Yes, you can swim fast even without doing it, but you will be wasting small amounts of energy in terms of body position and bobbing (which is offset by kicking).
I like it because it’s a self-correcting drill. It’s pretty hard to do it incorrectly, because if you’re doing it wrong, you sink. For me, it’s by far the best and most useful drill I’ve encountered - in fact, it’s probably the only drill I find particularly useful as a MOPish swimmer. (The other Total immersion type drills are too easy now.)
I just add 100-400yds of it to my typical swim set, sometimes more, to reinforce the technique. If you’re very comfortable with it, start trying to do sprint sets with it - I find these very tough and a good drill for maintaining form while under stress.
I struggle to use just the band. I can do 25-50yds before things go downhill.
My coach and I work the band into training in a few ways:
Band only, short intervals at a steady effort, ie rounds of:
20x25 band only, steady
300 pull w/pb/paddles
Paddles/PB/band, hard intervals:
10x100 on 10-12sec rest, hard
Paddles/PB/band, endurance/cruising intervals:
3x800, 6x400 etc
I find the band to be far more useful when incorporated with paddles and buoy. It forces me to keep my feet streamlined and pull hard, but pull correctly. It’s no longer a survival task. One of my favorite sets (not for those with bad form or who tend to have shoulder issues):
400 warmup choice
10x100 best effort on 10-12sec rest w/paddles/buoy/band
2x500 cruise paddles and buoy
20x50 best effort on 10sec rest w/paddles/buoy/band
2x500 cruise paddles and buoy
200 cooldown
Did that set at least 1x/week for a few months back in the winter and really felt that my fitness was coming along.