While cleaning out the junk drawer, I came across some DVD’s with most of my underwater filming work from when I was training. After locating a computer with a functional optical drive (harder than I thought, haha), I have ripped them to YouTube.
January 2008 at OTC (this one has some time hooked up to the velocity measurement device they had) https://youtu.be/A20Pkmg4EvY
Anyways, I’m not sure the utility of these to anyone, but I thought it’d be fun to share. I only put my times/results in this post for context.
Summer of '07 I split 1:50.0 200m free, and went 2:03 in the 200 IM at World University Games- not a great year from a development and improvement standpoint. Fall 2007 I moved from Wisconsin to Charlotte to train with David Marsh at SwimMAC. At Olympic Trials in July '08 I went 49.9 100m Free, 1:49.7 200m Free (training/goal time of 1:46) and 2:00.0 200IM (4th place).
If anyone is really curious, I think I can dig up some race videos too…
Just some comments I’d like to hear your (expert) opinion on.
you seem to go deep off the walls and execute the breakouts really well and I think it is . How much did you work on that specifically?
** I’d say “detail” work like breakouts was maybe 5%-25% of your time, depending on the phase of the season. Set it up early, try and maintain through the volume/workload phase/refine during taper**
your hands move fastest the last part of the stroke. are you trying to a. pull hard or b. finish the stroke as quickly as possible? Setting an anchor with a high elbow, then accelerating through the stroke was the focus. Med-ball throw-downs are a good dry land exercise to approximate this.
did you have a best stroke? I came into college as a backstroker, my first junior national and national cuts were in the 200 back. I became more of an IM’er in college, and added freestyle as my secondary focus as a late college/post grad, though I was B finalist at NCAA’s in the 200bk my senior year . Freestyle provided more opportunity for relay participation - thus swimming the 100 and 200 at Trials, hoping to be top 6, rather than top 2 in an individaul event.
ankle flexion is ridiculous. can your toes touch the floor if you are sitting on the ground with your legs straight in front of you? STRETCH STRETCH STRETCH. Ankle flexion was an active focus of my stretching regime. Toes touching with straight out legs is pretty much a requirement to be able to kick as requried to swim at the elite level in middle distance and below. Now as a 35year old part timer, nope, my flexion is not as good.
4 beat or 6 beat kick in a 400 IM (did you even do that event?)
6 beat kick for everything - I was an All American 400imer in college (6th at NCAA’s), but long course I was better suited to the 200IM for some reason (mental?).
do you consider the 200 free time an under performance? Yes, I was quite disappointed by my trials 200 - I thought I could at least semifinal, which means an outside shot at finals, which means an long-shot at the Olympic team.
4 beat or 6 beat kick in a 400 IM (did you even do that event?)
6 beat kick for everything - I was an All American 400imer in college (6th at NCAA’s), but long course I was better suited to the 200IM for some reason (mental?).
You may have seen it but there is a video somewhere out in the youtube universe which shows Dolan’s kicking patterns during the 400 IM at the '96 Oly. The thing that stuck with me was that he only did a 1-beat kick during his first 100 fly, presumably of course to save energy for rest of race. I thought this was pretty interesting given that he was the WR holder at the time, back in the dark ages of the pre-Phelps era.
I’ve swum the 2 fly twice as a masters swimmer. first time the piano came down HARD. last time I went with a 1 beat for as long as I could to try and save my legs. didn’t work, piano still fell, but I did improve my time by 9 seconds or so…
2 fly sucks…
I liked seeing the breaststroke timing, that’s what I need to work on. that, and breast kick in general, I don’t have the range of motion. although not sure I should use you as an example, seeing how you got outsplit by 3 guys I’ve never heard of at Trials. Some dudes named Phelps, Lochte, and Shanteau? Who the hell are they?
1 Beat Fly? No way - I need 2 just to keep rhythm. Dolan was a beast and a half to do what he did. Shit, yesterday was the first time anyone’s taken a significant step forward off his 500fr record in 22 years! Yes, they’ve been chipping away, but not a big step til yesterday (4:07.25 FTW)
Order of Death:
400IM
200 Fly
200 Breast
200 Back
Funny story - I took my sweet ass time leaving the pool deck in '08, so I was behind all 3 of them walking down the steps to the tunnel. I only had a brief flash of pushing them down the stairs and calling it an ‘accident’, but somethingsomthingTonyaHarding.
Also, I realized when posting this thread, the audience was going to be narrow, and I specifically thought of you, AJThomas and EricMulk as the most likely respondents, haha.
**Funny story - I took my sweet ass time leaving the pool deck in '08, so I was behind all 3 of them walking down the steps to the tunnel. I only had a brief flash of pushing them down the stairs and calling it an ‘accident’, but somethingsomthingTonyaHarding. **
LOL. too funny…
I guess when I say I went with a 1 beat fly, it’s technically still a 2 beat but not a lot of force on the “pull” beat. I usually have a lot of legs in my fly stroke…
1 Beat Fly? No way - I need 2 just to keep rhythm. Dolan was a beast and a half to do what he did. Shit, yesterday was the first time anyone’s taken a significant step forward off his 500fr record in 22 years! Yes, they’ve been chipping away, but not a big step til yesterday (4:07.25 FTW)
Order of Death:
400IM
200 Fly
200 Breast
200 Back
Funny story - I took my sweet ass time leaving the pool deck in '08, so I was behind all 3 of them walking down the steps to the tunnel. I only had a brief flash of pushing them down the stairs and calling it an ‘accident’, but somethingsomthingTonyaHarding.
Also, I realized when posting this thread, the audience was going to be narrow, and I specifically thought of you, AJThomas and EricMulk as the most likely respondents, haha.
Dolan’s efforts were sadly forgotten in the age of Phelps. Dolan was a beast. If I recall correctly, that was the same time as Potts at Michigan too. Wasn’t Potts 3-4th at trials in the 400 IM going into the Atlanta games?
Dolan was a beast and a half to do what he did. Shit, yesterday was the first time anyone’s taken a significant step forward off his 500fr record in 22 years! Yes, they’ve been chipping away, but not a big step til yesterday (4:07.25 FTW)
Grothe descended that swim after the first 100 which is equally as impressive as the time I think.
One big thing that becomes very apparent is if you have a stall in your stroke, which commonly occurs during the breath. So learning how to continue to maintain speed (more accurately not decelerate) during that phase.
Yeah, looking back at the last video there, I think it’s out of sequence. You can see a marked difference in the velocity curve.
“Before” is at the end of the video (around 1:00)
“After” is near the beginnning (20-30 seconds) and has a much smoother profile, without the drastic lows
1 Beat Fly? No way - I need 2 just to keep rhythm. Dolan was a beast and a half to do what he did. Shit, yesterday was the first time anyone’s taken a significant step forward off his 500fr record in 22 years! Yes, they’ve been chipping away, but not a big step til yesterday (4:07.25 FTW)
Order of Death:
400IM
200 Fly
200 Breast
200 Back
Funny story - I took my sweet ass time leaving the pool deck in '08, so I was behind all 3 of them walking down the steps to the tunnel. I only had a brief flash of pushing them down the stairs and calling it an ‘accident’, but somethingsomthingTonyaHarding.
Also, I realized when posting this thread, the audience was going to be narrow, and I specifically thought of you, AJThomas and EricMulk as the most likely respondents, haha.
Dolan’s efforts were sadly forgotten in the age of Phelps. Dolan was a beast. If I recall correctly, that was the same time as Potts at Michigan too. Wasn’t Potts 3-4th at trials in the 400 IM going into the Atlanta games?
Yep, Potts was 4th in the 400 IM, in 4:22, at the '96 Trials.
1 Beat Fly? No way - I need 2 just to keep rhythm. Dolan was a beast and a half to do what he did. Shit, yesterday was the first time anyone’s taken a significant step forward off his 500fr record in 22 years! Yes, they’ve been chipping away, but not a big step til yesterday (4:07.25 FTW)
Order of Death:
400IM
200 Fly
200 Breast
200 Back
Funny story - I took my sweet ass time leaving the pool deck in '08, so I was behind all 3 of them walking down the steps to the tunnel. I only had a brief flash of pushing them down the stairs and calling it an ‘accident’, but somethingsomthingTonyaHarding.
Also, I realized when posting this thread, the audience was going to be narrow, and I specifically thought of you, AJThomas and EricMulk as the most likely respondents, haha.
Dolan’s efforts were sadly forgotten in the age of Phelps. Dolan was a beast. If I recall correctly, that was the same time as Potts at Michigan too. Wasn’t Potts 3-4th at trials in the 400 IM going into the Atlanta games?
Yep, Potts was 4th in the 400 IM, in 4:22, at the '96 Trials.
Americans go 1-2 at that Olympics & Potts was 4th at trials. I don’t think most here can wrap their heads around how fast Potts was as a competitive swimmer.
