Here I am four months into masters swimming and every one of my strokes is in the process of being completely overhauled. In freestyle I’m working on a wider placement of my hands, a more direct pull, higher elbows under water, longer stroke, more body roll, tighter core, easier recovery, and head positioning. In breaststroke I’m working on better coordination between kick and stroke, a more efficient pull and recovery, seeing some “going downhill” undulation, improving my kick preparation regarding drag, a more symmetrical kick, and increased flexibility in both core and hip. In backstroke I’m working on keeping my head position steady, better balance in the water, shallower catch, more roll in my shoulders, tighter core, more efficient hand entry, a smoother transition from one arm to the other, and especially, a faster stroke rate. In butterfly, after three solid months of stroke work, I’m still working on a wider pull, more relaxed recovery, stronger second kick, better body undulation, and increased kick and stroke coordination. And I haven’t even mentioned my kicking tempo and efficiency; haven’t practiced block starts or backstroke starts more than a handful of times; and don’t get me started on my turns, which range from poor in my open breast and fly turns, to worse in my crawl flip turn, and then only pitiful can be used to describe my back rollover turn. And on top of all this affecting every stroke there are my aerobic capacity, endurance, and strength issues – all major weaknesses right now.
I raise this because even my limited racing experience this season has shown when I become tired my technique falls apart rather quickly, and in a little more than one month my last ‘tune-up’ swim meet comes along. After that my opportunities for swimming ‘make-ups’ for blown races and racing the events I want to this season become ever more restricted. So I have a lot of meterage to put in to both try to better assimilate my coaching plus make my new techniques natural enough I can stick with them when I start tiring. It’s going to be interesting for sure.
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6 comments:
The degree of your work ethic is astounding. No one works harder, or deserves more success than you. When we move to the long course pool in the summer, Ian will be looking over his shoulder for sure.
I need to search back through your posts to see what your racing goals are, but it sounds to me like maybe it is time for rethinking them? If you are working that hard on technique in all your strokes, perhaps this is a building rather than a peak racing year, and the idea should be use the meets as more of interim report cards than real performances. But maybe that is your goal--I am not sure.
Anyway, good luck with all the technique work. I sometimes find that trying to improve on everything at once can be overwhelming (I am still dealing with this for backstroke and butterfly and to a lesser degree for freestyle). If that is true for you (which maybe it is not, but the list for freestyle was daunting!) then you might get some advice from your coaches about triage, and work on the most critical aspects of the stroke first. Or else split your times by weeks, so that in any given week you are really targeting one stroke, and not working as carefully on the others.
Or are you not finding this daunting?
And what are you planning to swim in your next meet?
My reply to your questions ended up being a summary of what I'm looking to gain from swimming. I'll probably add it to my blog at some later date as a separate post, but for now you and Joe can read it as my response to your comments and questions.
I’ve touched on my swimming goals a couple of times, the most recent I believe to have been in my October 26, 2007 post ‘Summer Weight Program’, where I officially wrote off the 2006/2007 season in favour of starting a full weight program immediately. Not difficult to do since I only started swimming mid-September so I never had great expectations for this season. Success for me would be to lose all my excess fat and rebuild myself back to the 190- 195 lbs I was in my thirties. My ultimate goal would be to fully rehabilitate my back, something which a few of the people I’ve consulted (definitely not my doctors) say is possible. I would never, ever be swimming Masters if it wasn’t for my back and my need to build up muscle for my coming twilight years. But since swimming does build muscle and provide back rehabilitation it became obvious I should do a lot of it, and if I’m doing a lot of swimming anyway…
So here I am swimming competitively again. I don’t have a problem with radically changing all my strokes at the same time, I rather find it enjoyable. My chiropractor once asked me if I didn’t find Bikram’s yoga repetitive and boring after a while and I could honestly reply the thought never occurred to me. So long as I have not mastered all twenty six positions (and I’m not close to mastering even one) I always have something to work and concentrate on. The same goes for swimming. Every lap I do I’m thinking about how my hands are entering the water, my elbows, my breathing, or any one of the myriad areas where I’m technically weak. With every one of my strokes so flawed garbage yardage is impossible for me. In my earlier posts I’ve also touched on my expectations regarding the times I achieve this season (for example my November 18, 2006 post ‘Feeling Good But Unfortunately Not Fast’) and you’re absolutely right about my looking at them as only interim in nature. Swimming goals? Well as a child I was competitive with individuals who later became world class and Olympic medalists when I was at a considerable disadvantage in physical development. I’d like to finally put to rest the question as to how good I really was and see if I had serious talent. If you haven’t already read my November 12, 2006 post ‘Talent, God’s Gift’ it’s one of my favourites and encourage you to read it. The post also makes reference to another I’m especially pleased with, my September 28, 2006 post ‘My First Coach Archie McKinnon’. Regardless, I’ll be out of swimming in a couple of years competitively speaking, with the distinct possibility of withdrawing from serious swimming in a couple of months. It’ll depend on how I can handle tax season and swimming at the same time and I have real doubts it is possible. But that’s the future. For the upcoming UBC meet I’m planning to enter the 200 back, 100 fly, and the 50 free. Not really keen on doing the 50 free, but it was only included when scheduling didn’t allow the inclusion of the 100 or 200 free. My only real concern is for my 200 back and doing seven turns over a new distance I’m not used to. But that’s why we race isn’t it? To find out.
Thanks for filling that in, and listing specific older posts. I will check those out....
I don't know whether by saying that you will be out of competitive swimming in a couple of years, you mean that you will have passed a point where you can see what you are really capable of, or whether you mean that you'll be on to something else. But if you mean the former, one of the things I like about masters swimming is that I can continue to find new challenges. I have been swimming competitively for four years now, and each year is new. I am still seeing so many improvements in my stroke, that i find improvements in my time, too. And then becuase there are so many events, there are always new challenges. I saw a very impressive performance in the mile at US SCY Nationals by a man in the 90-94 age group. That rocks, and the prospect of being able to swim that event at that age motivates me, even when I feel bummed about my short-term racing abilities.
And those sound like good events for your meet: you'll be able to learn a lot in swimming them, and measure some things about what you are learning, too. I can't wait to read about it.
OK, off to look at some of the earlier posts....
On my list of future editorials is one which gives my thoughts on Masters swimming and its legitimacy. Who knows, though, when I'll get around to that one. But I'm 100% with you on being physically able as I get older.
I'll look forward to that editorial.
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