You’ll find this weeks sessions here. These workouts are edging up a bit in yardage. You’re getting close to doing actual workouts! As you complete these workouts you’ll start to build some real fitness and strength. But some of you are great at getting really strong but staying really slow. It is a mystery to me how this happens. Swimming is a ballistic exercise while also being a graceful exercise. It would be a mistake to concentrate fully on grace or power, as if swimming was either one or the other.
What I want you to do, this week, is to make this a ballistic exercise. But not at the expense of a consideration of the hole you’re punching in the water. In that sense swimming is pretty much like cycling. If you’re riding a tri bike you have to put out a lot of power, but direct that power toward a purpose: sliding your bike and body through a small hole you’re drilling into the wind. I want you to drill a small hole in the water, just big enough for your shoulders to squeeze through. imagine a pipe, maybe 12" in diameter, and you have to get your body through that pipe. Your arms can be outside of that pipe, but nothing else can.
For those of you who missed the beginning of this challenge, you can start now. Here are the workouts to date:
Did the 50s today on the 1:10, which felt very do-able, but moving up to the 1:00 seems like a huge jump - I’m definitely out of breath after a :50 sec 50, and would be gasping for air after 6 of them, never mind 30. Do I just need to be patient and keep swimming 6-10K a week up from the 3K I’d been swimming before? Should I start a set like this on the 1:00 and then move to 1:10 when I can’t make the interval anymore? Or do 42 50s on the 1:10?
Thanks for these workouts, they’ve definitely increased my yards per week.
“Should I start a set like this on the 1:00 and then move to 1:10 when I can’t make the interval anymore? Or do 42 50s on the 1:10”
i would say no. better to eventually increase the number of 50s with the same 1:10 interval. then let’s try a shorter set next week on the 1 minute. if you can do 40x50 in the 1:10, you can probably do 8 or 10 of them on the 1:00. but that’s another set in a different workout.
I read an article about not gliding (link below). I know you don’t advocate gliding, necessarily, however extending my arm while I wait for the trailing arm’s elbow to be above my ear is causing me to “put the brakes on”, per the article.
Luckily I’m running a week behind this challenge so no negative effect on me currently but I was definately excited for yesterday to arrive and then nothing!
no defined rest between these constituent pieces of the set. just realize this is a warm up set, so, rest or don’t but it should not be hard.
Sorry-I asked the wrong question. I was asking about the main set (descending 500-100 w/ 50 kick in between). Are the 50 kicks meant as the rest intervals?
