While most of y’all are doing the running 100/100, right around Canadian Thanksgiving I embarked on my annual *Don’t Be a Hydrosloth *project.
Swam (most doing the Brent Hayden Swimming Secrets Program) 5 or 6 times a week from mid-October to late January.
Progress was pretty good - as I went from having to try hard to swim a 2:00/100 M to swimming very easy at 1:54.
My crowing achievement was right around Christmas, doing 11 x 500 , with the last one at 9:58 =)
I ended my swim program on Jan. 24. Took a full week of swimming off, then resumed my regular swim schedule which is 3 x / week.
Today was my reality check day - disappointing.
Did 6 x 500 at the same level of intensity as my 11 x 500 about 6 weeks previous.
Be damned if I could get any under 10 min, the best was a 10:13.
What was even more disappointing/revealing was just how bad my form was: choppy, no glide, all over the lane} I was back to my form of the year 2002…hence my ST handle.
It’s disheartening at just how quickly proper swim form can vanish.
The high cost of good form indeed. The High Cost of Good Form - Slowtwitch.com
I did better with Bre-X
I think what I’ll do next October is switch to more of an intensity/endurance approach and see if the gains last longer.
I’m the downer poster who warned you of limited gains at this point. Hate to say it but sounds like I was right.
Still don’t give up. You can still improve and even if you don’t go faster you can be a lot fresher after a same speed swim split and then hammer the bike run.
I’m in your similar shoes, it’s like impossible for me to get any speed gains as of late. But I’ll take any little progress I can get!
I’ll still be swimming 3-4 times / week…forever (well except for Oct-Jan).
That’s not giving up.
Yes, you were probably right.
My further downer predictions - it still wont’ help a ton.
I’m swimming 5-6x/wk now, but I went all the way up to 9-10/wk with doubles. It was tiring, but in the pool, I got only a hair faster for all that work. My OWS seemed to improve a lot more, but I suspect a lot of that was low hanging fruit in comparison to the pool. I’m still nowhere near a FOP swimmer and will surely never be one.
If you’re on the plateau part of the swim curve for a few years, the gains are small and hard won. Having a good coach will def speed things up if you have significant technical flaws.
I’m the same way. If I swim 4 times a week, which I did almost all of '22 I feel good in the water. I decided to take all of November off. Started back in December and felt like a rock in the water and my times reflected that. Fast forward to today and I’ve been averaging my 4 times a week (12-14K) and I’m feeling good again and recording decent splits (for my age). Frequency seems to be the most important aspect of training of the swim for me. But I can probably say the same for running and biking, I just “feel” it more swimming.
More of a venting thread than anything.
While most of y’all are doing the running 100/100, right around Canadian Thanksgiving I embarked on my annual *Don’t Be a Hydrosloth *project.
Swam (most doing the Brent Hayden Swimming Secrets Program) 5 or 6 times a week from mid-October to late January.
Progress was pretty good - as I went from having to try hard to swim a 2:00/100 M to swimming very easy at 1:54.
My crowing achievement was right around Christmas, doing 11 x 500 , with the last one at 9:58 =)
I ended my swim program on Jan. 24. Took a full week of swimming off, then resumed my regular swim schedule which is 3 x / week.
Today was my reality check day - disappointing.
Did 6 x 500 at the same level of intensity as my 11 x 500 about 6 weeks previous.
Be damned if I could get any under 10 min, the best was a 10:13.
What was even more disappointing/revealing was just how bad my form was: choppy, no glide, all over the lane} I was back to my form of the year 2002…hence my ST handle.
It’s disheartening at just how quickly proper swim form can vanish.
The high cost of good form indeed. The High Cost of Good Form - Slowtwitch.com
I did better with Bre-X
I think what I’ll do next October is switch to more of an intensity/endurance approach and see if the gains last longer.
Keep up the focus and determination. Good luck on reaching your goals.
11x500 is a massive massive set. I think measuring your progress against 15-20x100 is a bit more manageable. You want to be able to easily repeat 50s under 1 min, then under 55, then eventually sub 50 while not doing a full on sprint stroke. Work on this and it’s a lot more manageable mentally.
it’s amazing what it does to a person’s swim confidence when they swim in a group and suddenly that lane “pressure” of either not wanting to be in the way or not get caught by the person behind you also does for a swimmer.
Yep, 1998-2017. 4 different groups. I made a lot of friends.
So, 19-20 yrs of training with 4 diff Masters groups did not get you out of “hydrosloth” status??? I would have thought all those years of intervals would have made you into a decent swimmer, but you say they did not???
Well for sure there *has *been progress, from time to time over that 20 some year span with the masters groups - going from not being able to swim 500 M to a 1:30, and then a 1:20 IM swim. Mind you with those 10:15 500s (M) I was doing on Saturday, I was back to about my 2002 swimming speed.
Well for sure there *has *been progress, from time to time over that 20 some year span with the masters groups - going from not being able to swim 500 M to a 1:30, and then a 1:20 IM swim. Mind you with those 10:15 500s (M) I was doing on Saturday, I was back to about my 2002 swimming speed.
that’s weird… normally would expect all those miles to translate into some kind of muscle memory, which should preserve the swim form at least somewhat…
The best way to get better is with patience and a coach you are communicating with regularly. A few weeks of hard training, following a plan isn’t going to make a big difference. You’ll see some gains, but they will go away fairly quickly. Building a skill, a real skill takes years of hard, intense, deliberate work. If you go to Anders Ericsson work, he breaks mastering a skill into three different approaches.
Deliberate practice is “the individualized training activities specially designed by a COACH or TEACHER to improve specific aspects of an individual’s performance through repetition and successive refinement.”
Purposeful practice is similar to deliberate except it isn’t guide by an expert in the field that the student is trying to improve in.
Naive practice is the idea that simply doing something over and over again will drive us to expertise.
I dunno Tim, I mean the Brent Hayden Swimming Secrets program that I am using, is in my belief highly deliberate (albeit, I’m the one determining the refinement) + purposeful.
I have had success with it - no doubt (dropped about 5-6 seconds / 100 M)
It’s just the rapid deterioration of form that has me dejected.
As far as Ericssons take on naive practice, indiv. results will vary, for many learners doing something over + over will produce the good results, for some it will not.
I have had success with it - no doubt (dropped about 5-6 seconds / 100 M)
He’s been in the sport for a long time. I’m sure it’s a solid program.
It’s just the rapid deterioration of form that has me dejected.
That’s understandable, but I think this is the big issue with triathlon and swimming. It’s unrealistic to think that you’ll make significant gains in the swim from 5-6 hours a week of practice for 2 months and then transition to 3 hours of practice a week for 8-9 months out of the year. To put it into context, most of the front pack swimmers in triathlon I’ve worked with either were swimmers who had put in 20-30 hours a week for closing in on a decade or more and the ones who didn’t come from swim backgrounds and made it to the front pack swam consistently 8-10 hours a week for upwards of 5-8 years before getting there.
As far as Ericssons take on naive practice, indiv. results will vary, for many learners doing something over + over will produce the good results, for some it will not.
Check out The Death of Expertise. It’s a good book that will address your statement.
I hope this helps and I wish you all the best with your racing and training.