Some of you may remember me asking for swim help last winter. At that time I was a flondering mess. I have come a long way, but still struggle. My main struggle is speed. Can’t seem to get any. I can do the distances, but slow. I did a Oly today (3/4 of a mile in 29 min. :(} ). Right now my mile is 31-33 minutes (no flip turns). My 100’s seem to stay around 1:50. SOOOO–how do I get faster? I am swimming 4 to 5 days a week. Typically I will do two days of straight long swims (1 mile), one day of 10-12 x 100 on 20 seconds and one day of 1000 yds straight (typically takes me 19-20 minutes). I have been told that my legs sink alot. I have worked with a coach and done the TI thing, but drills just don’t seem to translate into improvement. HELP ME!!! If it’s swimming more than how much and what should I focus on .
Typically I will do two days of straight long swims (1 mile), one day of 10-12 x 100 on 20 seconds and one day of 1000 yds straight (typically takes me 19-20 minutes)
junk the long swims, or do one every other week. Swimming is an interval based sport. Swim intervals. do short intervals, long intervals, intervals on different rest etc. While there are not many great swim workout books (IMO anyway) there are a few that have good workouts in them. If possible join a masters swim team for a month or three to get the jist of how to structure workouts.
I do have a question for you though—I feel like I made my greatest improvements when I started doing the longer swims. Why? I am all for doing anything that will make improvements, but help me understand why? I am concerned that my form is why I suck so bad. Can intervals help that? Seems like the longer, slower stuff helps me with that. I am just trying to understand so don’t think I am poo-pooing what you said. Swimming is definetly my limiting factor right now and I am starting to get real sick of it!!!
well you probably had low aerobic capacity to begin with. Also what did the clock say about your improvements? Feelings are great (so my therapist says), but the clock doesn’t lie.
well you probably had low aerobic capacity to begin with. Also what did the clock say about your improvements? Feelings are great (so my therapist says), but the clock doesn’t lie.
Don’t know if I am misunderstanding you or not, but as to the low aerobic capacity I followed my crappy swim today with a 22.5mph avg on a 28 mile windy/rolling hills bike course and followed that with a 44min 10k. I am not superman, but it put me in the top 50 of the race. I wouldn’t say my aerobic capacity is my limiting factor.
As to the clock, I improved by 10 seconds per 100, however, times are always hard for me as I don’t do flip turns. I can keep with a buddy who swims, but he kills me in the corners with the flips.
Don’t know if I am misunderstanding you or not, but as to the low aerobic capacity I followed my crappy swim today with a 22.5mph avg on a 28 mile windy/rolling hills bike course and followed that with a 44min 10k. I am not superman, but it put me in the top 50 of the race. I wouldn’t say my aerobic capacity is my limiting factor.
As to the clock, I improved by 10 seconds per 100, however, times are always hard for me as I don’t do flip turns. I can keep with a buddy who swims, but he kills me in the corners with the flips.
having good swim fitness is different then having good run fitness which is different from having good bike fitness. So your swimming aerobic capacity could have been a limiting factor, or technique, etc.
So you improved :10/100. Now what are you going to change to improve another :10/100 other than doing flipturns?
Like someone else said, swim fitness is totally different. My bike and run times were awesome while my swim times always sucked. I started putting in 5-6 days a week with a lot more yardage each time while doing more drills which has made me much more efficient(more speed, not more effort). I only do long swims once or twice a week, usually once open water with a group of people and its about a 1mi swim in the ocean. I wouldnt say that helps me become faster, just helps with sighting, currents, etc. Im not an expert though, there are many other more experienced swimmers on the board but i would say swimming 1:50’s your stroke needs a ton of work(drills) along with more time in the pool to feel the water better and correct your stroke.
Learn how to do flip turns. They’re not that difficult… then you can keep up with your friend too ask him to show you how.
Yes they are (at least for me). I’ve put huge effort into them, to no avail. I fear that some of us just don’t work well upside down.
I agree with omoore, ‘drill, drill, drill’. Swimming is technique limited, you can hammer 25mph on the bike and run 7 min/mil but until you can improve your technique you’re stuck. What drills? I find the total immersion stuff works pretty good ( Emmit Hines is a less gauzy version of TI, check out http://www.h2oustonswims.org/). Once you master some drills – warm-up, drill 10-20 mins (think about swimming), 30-45 main set hard intervals (swim don’t think), warm down (try to get back form you destroyed with the hard intervals). The USMS workout forum has plenty of these types of workouts.
Technique, Endurance, Strength. It takes all 3. You should be working on each 3 every week so mix up the workouts. I would also emphase each 3 at different times over a 4-6 month period (periodize it) and adjust your volume accordingly. Feet sink - if you are doing T1 then you should be getting the right idea so next step is to master the band only sets. You may swallow some water for a month or two but you will live.
Brian helped me out a lot with my swimming. One thing I can add from a “learner’s” perspective is that doing my swims in sets allows me to really focus on form while I do the set. When I do long swims I just get into a rhythm and my form just is whatever it is with no chance of improvement.
I was stuck for a while as well with times not much different than yours.
Not only is swimming highly technical, I have realized it is also highly incremental. By that I mean there are very few Eureka moments where a single thing is changed with immediate great benefits. Instead one has to work on all aspects over a long period of time. But over time, the improvements become noticeable and even permanent.
Do you have a good understanding of what your limiters are, so that you can concentrate on them? In other words, have you identified what you are doing well and what you are not doing well?
For example, In my case, currently, the 3 “worst” things I do are: 1. breathing into my armpit instead of rotating around my spine, 2. not adequately setting my hand/arm before pulling, 3. “sitting” in the water, i.e. my legs hang down behind me. I drill against all 3 prior to “real” swimming and they have all improved markedly, as have my times.
As improvements continue, the list will be revised.
Technique, Endurance, Strength. It takes all 3. You should be working on each 3 every week so mix up the workouts. I would also emphase each 3 at different times over a 4-6 month period (periodize it) and adjust your volume accordingly. Feet sink - if you are doing T1 then you should be getting the right idea so next step is to master the band only sets. You may swallow some water for a month or two but you will live.
One more part of the confusion for me—I mentioned that I worked with a private swim coach (who has some good credentials), did the TI thing with their coach and have done Lauren Jensen’s swim camp here is SE WI. At some point all of them have watched me swim and gave me drills to do. I would like to say they all told me what was doing wrong and corrected that, but that isn’t the case. In fact, many times they contradicted eachother. One would say I was crossing over and that was my problem. Another would say my entry and pull was wrong. The third would say it was all about my body position. When I would ask about why they didn’t mention some of the things the other coaches mentioned they would usually say they didn’t see a problem with that particular part of my swimming. I understand different people look at different things, but for me I don’t know who to listen to. If I knew it was A or B or A and B I could work to improve them. ???
Also, it seems I don’t see much benefit when doing drills. Is it just that it takes time? I did drills for such a long time with no improvement I finally gave up on them and just started swimming distance. Any thoughts on that?
my impression, as a not very good swimmer, is that (a) your long swims have improved your “swim aerobic capacity” and that you’ve now hit a limit imposed by poor technique. i sympathize, because i’m in the same position. i can now swim the occasional 1:25 100 SCY, but my T-pace remains stuck at about 1:41/100 SCY and its not going anywhere fast. its all technique now - those 13 year old girls who can get close to lapping me sure as hell aren’t “fitter” than me, but they certainly swimming with vastly greater finesse.
Band workouts are great to see what flaws you have and force you to start correcting them in order to survive. I was a relatively good tri-swimmer when I started doing them but really struggled beyond 25y. Now, after 6 months 50-100yd is no problem.
Band only sets (or BO for short) - You basically are tying your feet together so that you can’t kick or very little kick at all. I think most people cut apart a inner tube. You can also cut apart an old bike tube and tie it together.
It really forces you to optimize your body position and perfect your pull.
Hmmm, I detect some obsessive/compulsive behavior here. Not uncommon among adults learning to swim. Sounds like you’ve got the basics but maybe looking a little too hard for that silver bullet that’ll catapult you to the fast swim lane. Odds are low that this will happen (see post about incremental gains). With hard work and good technique you can probably shave maybe 5-10 secs off your cruise pace ‘in the pool’, whether that will translate to your open water swim, hard to say. I was a lifelong 1:45 cruise pace swimmer, got it down this year to 1:35-1:37 (re incremental), however swim times in tris, no change. So keep up the good work and go easy on hopes for a great leap forward…then again there’s Gary Hall’s speed camp this winter, I wonder…
ask him to show you how.