If you’re kicking breaststroke with fly arms, that’s not butterfly - that’s a drill.
It’s still legal butterfly for Masters meets, though.
give me a break…jeez
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Did an hour fly once, the 4th hour of an 8 hour swim to prepare for a 25K OW race. You gotta do something to break the monotony when you are swimming for 8 hours. Funniest thing, the last half hour of fly felt a lot better than the first half hour.
Also, that bit of a glide and maybe an extra kick before starting the stroke is a ‘cheat’ that any 8& under will pick up because coach will let you get away with it when you’re tiring, unlike slipping in a one arm stroke, which will get you chewed out at any age.
I think Marky V told me once that he did 100X 100SCY fly on the 1;05 interval once… Don’t remember if he made it or not, but definately did most of them…Did 80x100 during holiday training senior year of high school, but I think the sendoff was 1:20 or 1:25… sad thing about this is I chose to do butterfly. I had the last laugh though, as I finished well before those who chose 150x100 freestyle.
Funny thing is, as a freestyler and a fly hater, I would have picked the 150x100’s, and been fine with being in the water longer. I’m sure many of those swimming with you felt the same way! Now there were a couple of people on my HS club team, namely Rebecca Cook and Justin Hensen (That probably brings back some memories, MarkyV) who could swim fly all day…
Growing up as a 100m and 200m butterfly specialist, I had a crazy coach who routinely made me get in and swim the butterfly sets with the freestylers.
I remember doing sets like, 30x200m on 2:30 butterfly, and 6x1k on 15min butterfly- I still wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares re-living those experiences 8 years later.
Yep. There was a point/counterpoint on it in the USMS magazine a couple issues ago…
In school, I remember showing up for morning workouts and coach had 30*200’s fly’s written on the board, and I would know that my whole day was about to suck.
I still have bad dreams about 200 fly’s in meets that went bad in the last 50. I have hurt more in the 200 fly and the 200 breast than I ever have in a 400 IM.
Now there were a couple of people on my HS club team, namely Rebecca Cook and Justin Hensen (That probably brings back some memories, MarkyV) who could swim fly all day…
Yes indeed. We all could, and WOULD, choose to do fly all day long. Ridiculous now but it seemed so nonsensical then.
Monty… new years eve 1995 96x100s all fly… i didn’t finish, but did get into the 90’s. I think that was the only time my coach ever expressed mercy and sympathy for me. Simply told me that i didn’t have to finish the set. I had to be pulled out of the water. We went to IHOP for breaky, i believe i fell asleep at the table. I was in bed before 9 that night. No NYE celebrations for me
Someone on another board posted a link to a video Mary Meagher’s last world record in the 200 fly. (beautiful stroke technique and she seriously would have gone a 2:03 or faster with modern turn technique)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lmCEjE0if0
And from the discussion of the vid:
“I got to see her swim a 1500 fly one year at Belmont Shores. She was in a guys heat and swimming for Mark Shubert (1983, I think) taking a year off from Cal to train for the Olympics. My coach and I sat in the bleachers watching her counter hold up 11’s or 13’s and figured out the counter was holding up her splits. Shubert had a deal with her that if she broke 18 minutes he’d buy her dinner. She did it. My coach and I sat there in awe.”
That was great, thanks! 
Awesome! I used to be a lifeguard at Lakeside Swim Club (you can her Lakeside jacket in the video). I spent a lot of time watching her swim back and forth. Her fly stroke was beautiful and looked effortless, like she was a dolphin or something.
It makes me sad when I compare that to my fly stroke, which is more like the thrashing of a wounded fish. 
My best event in HS and college was the 200 fly, and in HS I used to do our timed 3000 set all fly. If I remember correctly my best time as 31:05. In all honesty, as long as you have good technique, a 3000 fly is not as bad as it seems.
Now in college we rarely did that sort of distance fly work. My freshman year I got to train every day with Melvin Stewart and it became really clear, really quickly that to be an elite flyer you have to train fast, not long. I don’t remember Melvin doing anything longer than a 200 in practice and even then they were often broken at the 100 or 50.
Awesome! I used to be a lifeguard at Lakeside Swim Club.
One of the coolest ‘pools’ of all time. What a fantastic place.
Distance fly sucks. I was a flyer for a long time but I can’t say I ever looked forward to anything longer than a 100.
And you can’t kick breast and still call if fly. Might as well swim side stroke…
I was at a tri where a swim coach I knew did a sprint tri, in which he did the whole swim fly.
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Wow, she didn’t miss a beat the entire 200, now THAT was butterfly at its’ finest. Sorry Mr. Boettcher, you’re not doing fly.
Girl on my college swim team did a 10,000 yard fly once. Coincidentally, she developed into a very fast FOP triathlete.
Great old video and funny that the two announcers were the same ones for the 81 ironman that year for wide world of sports. Jim lampley and Diana Niyad…
I’m one of the “nutjobs” who enjoys open water butterfly. I know folks who have swum Big Shoulders with Boettcher and say he’s always in a wetsuit (flotation assistance and speed assist), and he does indeed use the “butterfrog” kicking technique that US Masters still allows, but FINA does not ever allow in butterfly. At least one person said “he does NOT do butterfly” and it appears the consensus here is similar from the comments. In general, I also feel someone isn’t much of an open water swimmer at all they are dependent on wearing “water wings”, i.e. a wetsuit. I only wear one if the temperature of the water dictates it, and never if I’m working on a record. I did some comparisons on open water butterfly speed you might find interesting, even if I had no numbers for the speed of the water the swims were performed in to normalize the data. These are all non-wetsuit and butterfly that is FINA legal.
http://openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Open_Water_Butterfly_Swims
This… done many long distance sets… up to 5k fly out of an 8k session.
Did 19xx LCM for a 1500.