Swimming with Billy

To finish off today's posts... today's swim fit was a (short) sprint day. Not much to say really about the whole thing other than my times were mostly pretty good.

We did dive-from-the-blocks sprints, starting with 3 x 15M, then 4 x 25 and then two lots of 6 x 50M "relay" (there were three of us, I did 1 and 4). The 15M sprints were okay, but the 25M were really quite good. The first two I did were free (12.7 and 12.4) and the last two were 'fly (13.9 and 13.4). I was well please with these - especially the fly.

And the on to the "relays" my first leg was free (29.1 and 29.4 in the second), and the second leg was fly (35.1, 35.5). Okay 35.x not great, but I was very tired (my whole body shaking by that time) and I was still feeling the effects of last night.

Warm Up
1 x 400 EZ
6 x 50 kick on side 10RI

Main Set
3 x 15 fast
4 x 25 fast
2 x 60 x 50 relays (as above)

Warm Down
2 x 200 EZ

So no distance at all but - some quick swimming for me, and I am sure 13.4 got to be a world record!

Cryptic title this one, but it's to do with Wednesday's triathlon session. It was really quite busy (three to a lane!) and it was probably the hardest session I've done for a long time.

The main set was a "valley" progression 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 length swim with a minute rest between each set. So far not so hard (btw that's 42 lengths or 1050M if you're interested). Now the main focus/instruction for the set was to keep a "good" stroke count in mind, stick to it throughout the whole set and whilst descending (6 .. 1) each swim should be pro-rata faster. What I ended up doing was to do this and on the ascending set try and stick at a "brisk" pace (I think a finishing 2:00 for the last 150M is brisk!) The bit that made this really challenging was sticking to a good stroke count.

Now before I became "quick" (aka started racing short distances) I could hold a pretty low stroke count. And these days it's gone up somewhat. So this session I decided to really challenge myself and during our warm up settled on 14SPL (strokes a length). And so we set off, the first few were okay, but pushing near "racing" pace on the 50 and 25M repeats is a challenge for me on 28 and 14 strokes.

To cut a story short I managed 14s all the way through (except for most first lengths which were 13).

So the 588 refers to the number of (single arm) strokes I took to swim 1050M!

And then to finish off we did 8 x 25M sprint from a pool-side dive!! Absolutely goosed at the end!

Warm Up
3 x 200M at 60, 70 and 80% effort

Main Set
6 .. 1, 1 .. 6 length repeats holding 14 SPL
8 x 25 sprint

Warm Down
2 x 100M EZ

Again not posted for a while but here's a set we did on Tuesday that was really good and quite thought provoking. For the past couple of weeks (it must be because it's near the end of term) the lunch time sessions have taken on the air of drill/technique work. But Tuesday was a "you've got to swim clever" day.

So what was it? Basically the instructions for the main set were 9 x 100 on 1:45 descend each repeat by 3 seconds. Well 3 seconds doesn't sound much but actually when you get halfway through the set you just start to think... The big problem for most of us was that we all started too quickly so basically couldn't make the times. And to make matters worse Martin who was leading (blame him!) miscounted and we "peaked" on repeat 7 - so the last two were dreadful!

So the session was:

1 x 400 EZ
9 x 100 on 1:45 descend each repeat by 3s
3 x 100 EZ

My scores were something like:
1:28, 1:24, 1:20, 1:18, 1:15, 1:12, 1:07, 1:17 and 1:10

Very tired at the end.

Tonights tirathlon swim session was an interesting descending set. It was interesting not so much for what the main set was (500, 400, ... 100) but because I decided to FOCUS on just one thing. Most tri-swims I focus on a number of elements (not all at the same time! but different components of my stroke on different sets). But tonight I concentrated on just one thing for pretty much the who 2K set.

We swam as a threesome - Tim first, me second and Nicola third at five second intervals. Tim's a bit quicker than me (a lot if we're racing) so it was good to have someone setting a reasonable pace, and not having to be concerned with that. So what I focused on was getting a vertical forearm/early catch at the front of my stroke. I know I was concentrating on this because quite often the wall arrived before I was ready to turn!
Why did I focus on this? Well a few weeks ago one of the best swimmers I've ever swum with (during a Swim Fit session in Stockport) said that I drop my elbow too early in my stroke. This came as a bit of a shock, because I didn't think I did, and as far as the "general population" goes I don't. But as far as good swimmers go - I surely do. So I decided that when Swim Fit's over for summer, I'd devote a far amount of my summer swimming to trying to learn this skill. I haven't started yet, but tonight offered a good opportunity.

So breathing one-sided for each 100M I concentrated on the breathing side's arm for the duration of the hundred - trying to drop my wrist and hand whilst rolling slightly with my shoulder to allow my elbow to be significantly higher than my wrist. And only when I was in that position start to engage my core body and rotate/pull. If you watch any good long distance swimmer (Hackett and Thorpe are two really good examples) you see that they get into this high-elbow/vertical forearm position _very_ early in their stroke - their arm's in this position _way_ in front of their heads. Now typically my stroke has this high elbow/vertical forearm position much later in my stroke (probably somewhere between my head and shoulder) and as a consequence they get at least 2-3 feet(?) more propulsive traction per stroke.

I'll talk more about this in a later post, as I experiment more with this idea. But it was hard work and really made the session fly by!

Warm Up:
20 x 25 on 30

Main set:
1 x 500 RI 1:00
1 x 400 RI 1:00
1 x 300 RI 1:00
1 x 200 RI 1:00
1 x 100 RI 1:00

Warm down:
10 x 50 on 1:00 (25 drill, 25 swim)

For the last couple of months, everytime I go to Amazon I get adverts for those bloomin' PowerBalls. So I gave up and got one (arrived yesterday). I've watched a few saddo-videos on YouTube (not the best selling medium for this type of thing) and read a bit about what they are supposed to promise. According to the "blurb" they're great for hand/grip/forearm/upper arm rehabillitation. And they are good for those sports that need good forearm strength (citing things like golf and tennis), they also supposed to be good for musicians (building forearm/finger strength).

So anyway mine arrived yesterday and Ive had a couple of goes yesterday and one just now. I have to say it's clearly a skill (amongst other things) as my left hand/arm co-ordination has been shown to be incredably poor!

When you do get it working, it really does pack a punch. Something to do with physics and centrapetal/pedal forces but get the thing spinning at a reasonable velocity (I am yet to hit any dizzy heights) and you can really feel your lower arm working.

I read a long time back that those little hand-grip-squeezie things are good for building/strengthening your lower arms. And on one swimming site they recommended this as just another handy exercise to do, the rational being that you use your hand/wrist/forearm as your main anchor point whilst swimming, so perhaps strengthening it wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Anyhow we'll see how it goes...