Today was butterfly day, and since I cannot really swim fly yet (did I mention that I swam 2 separate 25s of it last Saturday? With long fins, but STILL.), I did a combination of dolphin kick and one-arm drill. My coach suggested really working to make each dolphin powerful--starting from the chest of course--instead of doing lots of little dolphins, which has been how I have typically done butterfly kick.
My coach will not even use the word "kick" for fly, because, he said, the stroke does not really have a true kick so much as a dolphin movement involving the whole body.
Working on the power of each dolphin made a huge difference, as I could really work on the power of the movement. Furthermore, I could use the 1-arm drilling to make sure that the rhythm of my kicking was pretty much the same as the kick rhythm when I actually swim. I mentioned earlier that my core strength is pretty low right now, so this was also a great drill for me in terms of rebuilding strength.
Also, my coach pointed out that in my freestyle, I tend to pull with force all the way through the pull phase, which leaves my arm and my shoulder tense at the beginning of the recovery phase, thereby putting unnecessary stress on the shoulder. Instead, he suggested that after my pull passes my waist, which is effectively the end of the power phase of the stroke, I release my elbow so that when the recovery begins, my shoulder is in a better position. I have not really got the hang of this yet--it is always difficult to integrate changes into a stroke--but I think I can really feel how this will be better for the shoulders.
I did not feel comfortable doing my 900 swim today, because I was feeling too much stress on my left shoulder.
Do I get extra points for doing 2600 yards of kick? I hope so, because I can hardly stand up.
THE WORKOUT
1100 warm-up: 600 with long fins, 500 with no fins (200 swim)
800 skill set focused on dolphining: 8x100, 50 dolphin + 50 something else (kick)
1200 main set: 6 rounds of 100 IM + 100 FR, where second and fourth 25 of each is swim; for each 100 by round: 25 fast/75 easy // 50 fast/50 easy // 75 fast/25 easy; after four rounds I cut out the swimming and did all kick (400 swim)
200 cool-down: with long fins, alternating 25 kick/25 swim (100 swim)
TOTAL: 3300 yards (700 swim)
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2 comments:
A 3,500 yard practice for someone recovering from multiple shoulder surgeries is a long, long workout - even if you did do 2,600 of it kicking. Don't wear yourself out! By the way, what does PP think of your legs after all the work you've put into them? They must be magnificent!
Yeah, I paid for it Saturday, when I had no. energy. Thursday's, though, was one of the practices where I did not realize how much I had done until it was too late.
As for the PP, well, uhm, yes, he is very nice about it!
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