Almost Drowing at Masters - choice of fly drill, really?

Chris G

Accidentally did my first masters swim last night.  I guess that a masters thing started up around first of the year at the local Y.  As I never swim in the evening and only have been in the pool once since Nov I guess it is not that surprising that I did not know about it.  Anyhow I walked into the pool a couple minutes before 8 and knew that something was up as there were a bunch of tri folks I know standing around waiting for the swim team kids to get out of the pool, too many.  I talked to the coach who I kinda know a bit and learn the deal.  She asks if I want to play and naturally I say sure.  She decided that I should be in the fast [people that can actually swim] lane seems like a bad idea to me but she insists.  My plan to meet an old friend who is a newbie tri dude, swim an nice easy 1500-1800 and go to the bar went to crap quick.

I managed to hang in for the warmup stuff and was feeling pretty good about myself for a couple of minutes.  Two way faster folks but I could kinda hang with the one other guy.  The main set started with  2x200 free on 3:00-3:15 which was hard but doable for me.  Then there were a bunch of 75's rotating through all the strokes as 25 drill choice/25 swim/ 25 drill choice on 1:30.  Having not swam fly since I was about 13 I was way in over my head.  I had to ask what a fly drill even was [figuring it can't be harder than actually swimming fly right?] Best the slower dude and I could come up with was 3 kicks then one stroke, uh OK.  Anyhow FLY IS REALLY REALLY HARD. Not real sure my arms were getting out of the water.  Drowning seemed like a real possibility. Backstroke is pretty hard too when you never,ever do it.  Anyhow I managed to muddle through the 10 75's and thought I may actually die.  When we got to 4x100 on 1:30 I knew that it was time for me to beg for mercy. 

Is it OK to drop down a lane whenever? Coach girl was not around and I needed to move or start getting lapped so I did.  Issue was that although I had no business playing with the fast peeps, I was much faster than the 3 people in the next slowest lane.  It was dramatic how much difference there was between the 2.  Regardless the workout in the next lane was way more survivable for me.  Even got a few pointers from coach girl which is always welcome.

Did not do the math but swam at least 4000 in a touch over an hour.  Never in a million years would I have swam that far on my own.  The hour flew by and I usually am coming up with an excuse to stop at 30 minutes.  Could barely wash my hair when I got in the shower, arms were crazy tired.  Going to have to learn to do the strokes better.  I imagine that going regularly would be a good thing.

Those of you that do the Masters thing do you do stuff like fly and back drills or just do all free? seems like that would have been rude?  Does doing the other strokes help tri swimming?  Can you actually do fly for any length? 

Any advice or tips?

 

 

 

Coach Rich

Ah...butterfly . You haven't lived until you're in the last 35m of a 200m fly in a race. PIANO.

If you have the time, then I think it's useful to swim all of the strokes, but at the expense of learning how and getting very good at swimming freestyle, which is what you'll race in. Personally, I don't do kick sets or anything other than free style, other than maybe do some backstroke to work on my savage tan. Then again, I haven't swam since IMCDA'08 so there you go

Nemo Brauch

My old Masters group had lots of Tri kids and the coach was pretty lenient in letting folks swim freestyle whenever it was a "non-free" set. But I kinda like mixing up the strokes every now and then. I suck at all of them equally, but I just like the way they all engage muscles differently. I can do one length of Fly before I'm pooped. If the set calls for something more I'll substitute one-arm fly. Backstroke can be particularly useful in helping you work on roll & rotation (or so I'm told). Really miss my masters group!

Oh- and for those of you working on the glutes/core stuff, apparently kicking on your back is another way to work on those muscles. Lie on your back, arms overhead tightly squeezing together so that they are along side your ears - kick on your back - but kick from the hip. Don't lock your knee, but keep it almost straight. You'll feel your hip muscles work to move your legs instead of just the quads

dhalligan

Chirs,

I did Masters for a couple of times in 08, about this time last year as I prepared for my first IM.  Doing all the different strokes really tweaked my shoulder as I'm sure I wasn't doing them correctly.  However, I had torn rotator cuff surgery in 06 and didn't want to mess with it.  I backed out and just did my own thing.

I loved the idea of swimming with others and the competition that went along with it, not to mention the great workout, but I got scared and didn't want to do damage to my shoulder, so I went solo.  I never asked about just doing freestyle.

Dave

mancona

Just stay away from the kick sets

I still have yet to try fly, but I did back stroke and breast stroke for the short 2 months I was swimming with a masters program.  I doubt it helped my freestyle at all, but like learning flip turns it made me feel a little like a swimmer.

chris malone

Next time, 1500 and the bar.

Michele Cellai

Chris- When I was in Master's, the only folks that routinely rotated strokes were those that were competing, i.e. the fastest lane folks. Every now and again, to get the rest of us out of our comfort zone, we'd do fly drills or back stroke. It was a nice change of pace as long as he didn't give us time limits and quickly returned to free. It is too hard to pass each other going opposite direction if you are both doing fly- badly. Talk about disaster! But I do like to throw in fly kick for core work. As Nemo said, backstroke is a good alternative. It forces you to focus on rotating from the core to maximize the stroke. It is also a reverse movement from everything else we do.
Enjoy!

HayesSanborn

 Fly drill, I'll usually do single arm fly = much easier. The key getting your arms out of the water is a tight core and powerful kick to propel you forward.

I do all the strokes: makes the time go by faster, its bad to mess up the flow of the lane by doing whatever you want....

On Thursday as the last 100 in a 10 x 100 set we did a 5 x 100 yd relay off the blocks. It was a blast. We mixed up the speeds of the group, some former D1 swimmers put down 53 secs for their 100's....it was my first time going off the blocks since 1994 sectionals but my goggles and suit stayed on = success. As you mentioned the time flies by, last season I very rarely would go longer than 2000 yds do to boredom, and now I'm doing a swim meet next weekend. Its just made swimming fun again...

I would stick with the faster group.