2000m this morning, 800 wu, 10x100 alternating with and without flip turns…I haven’t remembered much from January - the guard must’ve been entertained at my antics. Then 200 wd.
Dolphin kicks, they seem to be shortening my push off at the moment, certainly not adding anything. Any tips?
don’t kick until you start to slow down, aim for being at your race pace before hitting the dolphin kick. apart from that practice. its a full body motion, legs together toes pointed, you kind of press a bit down on the chest to initiate the “wave” , hips go up and then legs in the upbeat. try to keep legs extended but knees will flexion at top of upbeat. The downbeat is then a whip like action from the hips and with extension through the knees
I have a 500m lake swim in a sprint in 4.5 weeks. Not swam consistently for over 18 months but did a couple of swims before lockdown.
On holiday I did 2 very slow sea swims in average conditions and a couple of pool swims in a 15m pool at 1:40/100 but I’m attributing some pace to lots more kicking off the wall than usual.
In all swims I cramped in my calf almost straight after the swim. I’m I can get 9 pool swims in and none ow.
Q - what sessions should I do and how do I stop the calf cramps?
Thanks - I felt the hands go up a bit at the start too, does that make sense?
For me, thinking about relaxing the calf during the kick, and most importantly swim in the am, run or bike in the pm.
Try to keep arms in front of head in streamline otherwise you’ll add to frontal area drag. Remember hand over hand and link the thumb from top hand under bottom hand
If you can put up with the annoying squeaky accent this is pretty good. Only drill I haven’t seen is the side kicking
Struggled through another 1600m 30 min session just now. Probably not ‘helped’ by my 60 min run early this morning…not used to 2 sessions a day anymore!
Quarantine finishes on Monday.
Slot at the pool booked for Tuesday.
Just got the swim bag out for the first time in 2 years. Guess who’s tried everything he’s heard and read to swim better 
Il just be using fins & paddles now. Will have 3 weeks and 9 swims to get as fast a 500m as possible at a sprint Tri.
Should be fun (and also slightly depressing)
I’ve done 9 swims in the past month since reopened. Seen big improvement so far in terms of it feeling far easier to keep going and endurance. Reckon speed will take a lot longer to come back for me, but also haven’t really tried to do any hard swimming like I would if wanted to do a 400m.
Not sure why butterfly is banned due to COVID. Granted its a nice excuse not to have to re-learn it, tried this week and lifeguard blowing whistle straight away. For context pool is a double width lane, there was one other person in it and they were nowhere near me. If anything it would be enforcing distancing!
Swimming going OK at my place, they allow 5 slots every 10 minutes so could potentially get busy but reality is people aren’t booking on, it’s still a lot quieter than pre-covid despite 2 pools being shut still.
No idea why? Maybe because you might touch someone?
What sort of sessions would you do if you were me?
I think week 1 is just get a feel for the water and try to get some endurance, I’ll probably only get 800-1000m done before I fall apart.
I’m thinking weeks 2 & 3 go like this:
Swim #1 - about 1500m with swim and drills, mainly technique
Swim #2 - about 1500m with hard 25’s & 50’s
Swim #3 - 2km with longer reps, inc a 500m TT
What do the experienced swimmers think?
3 sessions a week. Minimum 40minites of effort, dont waste time on drills just get fit. Do some hard 25s off say 45seconds. That is hard, not threshold, no bimbling, blowing out your arse hard. It will build aerobic conditioning as HR wont drop enough. It will be rough. Id do a set of 100s off say 2mins. 4x100 then 3min easy swim/drill and do another 4. This should be at 400m pace
Then some steady 200s Say IM pace.
I might upset someone with this but I did a length of butterfly last week - noone else in my double lane, and the lifeguard didnt say anything.
Id agree with Hammerer.
I always have hard 25s in my warm up from his advice. And do about 800 wu.
Myself I just restarted 3/wk last week, so keeping sessions short; I think it was 2700, 2100, and 1800 OW.
Main sets were 100s at whatever felt below threshold, and no specific rest intervals just whatever suits especially with other swimmers to avoid/make room for.
OW was continuous though at a relaxed pace.
Ill be more rigid when it feels right.
Noticeably cooler in the lake last night, all that rain has knocked a couple of degrees off at least.
Can’t see it creeping back up much this time of year either. Still nice wetsuit temperature though.
Clapham leisure centre aren’t bothered at all it seems.
The Covid instructions up on the wall say fly might not be appropriate at all times, but categorically states backstroke is not allowed.
Loads of people are doing both.
I started easy sessions first week to get enjoyment back, but they still had some hard 15 and 25m bursts. I’ve done a few threshold and harder sessions since, including this morning which was coincidentally very similar to hammerers session, nothing fancy but for idea I did 3x100, 4x75, 6x50, 8x25 all maximum effort - Again to reiterate not threshold, not sustainable, well above 400m race pace, not pretty but just learning how to hurt again
Had about 5 minutes rest in between each set to do drills.
Next point - I don’t think need a whole session devoted to drills, and it’s something I get the impression lots of triathletes over focus on. Being able to do a drill well with perfect technique is great, but pointless if you don’t actually swim like that when it matters. Most people’s race performance (including short distance pool level) is based not on how well they can start, but at what point they fail and how badly technique breaks down. Yes having some ingrained motor patterns helps hence the repetitive high volume nature of swimming, but ultimately if you’re not fit enough your technique will fall apart as soon as it gets hard regardless how much drill you do. I certainly felt like I was thrashing around this morning, slow turnover etc!
Only time I’d be torn is if you’re saying you can’t do a hard session because too tired and want to focus on bike run. I like relative high frequency for swimming to promote ‘feel’ and try do 3x a week even if shorter/easier, but still think they should at least have some hard 15s/25s/50s to promote technique. If you’re really too tired and don’t want to compromise other sports then there’s a difficult line between just easy swim/drills to maintain frequency, and being better just having a rest day and nailing the sessions that count.
That said, I’m guilty of doing quite a lot of Z2 sessions, but I’m accepting that will only have me just maintaining.
Sorry that turned into a spiel, just some rambling thoughts.
2300m today, pool okay but a little disappointed in the freestyler passing breast strokers. I know it can be frustrating, but no passing means no passing. And the breast strokers were very patient with me passing at the wall every few minutes.
Still finding my pace and rhythm, I seem to fall into high turnover and lose my reach when I’m not concentrating and my SPL and RPE goes up accordingly.
A lot of good points there @Chriswim. It’s what triathletes are told to do in magazines, swimsmooth and the like. Articles are telling people like me, who learned not to die as kids but weren’t swimmers that we shouldn’t be practising bad technique. Your technique must improve before fitness, etc. My best swimming has come from lots of sprinting (well it’s a sprint for me 
), hard 50m-100m intervals and long sets with paddles. Popov doing lots of easy swimming I really don’t think is of any relevance to me.
ETA: Lack of practice at and therefore fitness to have a rhythm that allows me to of one hand providing propulsion at all times is really holding me back I reckon. (I mean once I get back swimming frequently, new normal, whatever that is)
