SWIM SQUAD 100610

Dear all,

Before I carry on with the blog. Can you please comment now on this entry before reading any further, the following:
- Your upcoming race you're training for.
- The distance.
- Your goal of the race.

I am serious in implementing a bike session on Monday evening at 9pm, starting from sam's place. So can you also mention if you're keen. I am looking for a committed biking session. Not once in a while kind of thing. Don't worry about speed, you survived swimming with me, so you'd survive the biking too.

For the uber bikers in our team, I'm gonna keep this for the ppl averaging below 33kph for 20km TT. So kindly excuse yourself. :)

Thanks!

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So for tonight's training, we had Bryan, Hongjun and Brenda. First timers in the training and I thought they followed REALLY well. Compared to some of us like wilson and andy (NO OFFENCE! JUST NEED SOME EXAMPLES, COFFEE ON ME NEXT TIME. :p) who almost died in the first session when they came... I think they deserve a round of applause. :)

*APPLAUSEEE*****

Okay, so we got some focal points in the training to talk about.

1) A small change in the pull.
2) Mimicing/stroke for stroke training
3) Base Mileage

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A small change in the pull
This results in a slightly faster turnover and a very minute stroke rate increment. In return, you receive vast drop in timing.

Previous:
Pulling stop when arm is fully straightened and thumb pass mid thigh, and the palm facing back.

Now:
Pull ends once forearm and palm is facing back, around slightly pass hips.

What happens after the change?
- The last part of the previous pull, meaning the straightening of the forearm past the hips is really pushing the water upwards and thus driving you downwards. Erase that and you erase drag.

What to take note?
i) You still glide and reach forward. THIS IS CRITICAL. If you do it correctly, the stroke rate should increase at MAX 5 to 10%. If you don't stretch and reach forward with the forearm as you shorten the pull as per told, you'd be doing really high turn over with no emphasis on forward movement of the body through the body.

ii) As the stroke rate increases, you'd feel the need to re-coordinate your breathing again. Make sure you still stay in the water as much as you can and exhaling once you are in. The increase in stroke rate means you need a slightly quicker turn of head and inhalation. That's all.

To learn to do the breathing properly, do the shortened arm stroke but Slow Mo like how I demonstrated and you'd be able to figure out exactly where you need to turn and breathe.

iii) Effort should still remain the same as the previous pull, the increase in stroke count is only very minor, curb the feeling to pull faster and faster, make sure YOU ARE PHYSICALLY MOVING THROUGH THE WATER ALL THE TIME as you move your arm!

iv) There's alot more point but I'm gonna put this as the last one.
Instead of gliding as far as you can, you need to change this to just extending the forearm, then starting the next pull as soon as your body starts to slow down. How to know? look at the floor lor....


Mimicing/stroke for stroke training
So far, I've never read in any book this drill exist but I personally find this to be extremely helpful especially in a race situation.

Revision:
This training requires 2 or more swimmers of about the same speed and stroke integrity.
Choose one swimmer to be "leader".
All swimmers start together and once the leader starts pulling, the rest will follow.
ALL swimmers will try to follow Stroke for Stroke and try to reach the wall at the same time or faster.
Key point is the stroke count can only be Equal OR Lesser, the time taken by the follower can only be Equal OR Faster.

What does this training achieve?
When done at a moderate intensity, one is able to think about the stroke quality of his own and increase effort in the pulling while CONSCIOUSLY maintaining the stroke count to be the same as his opponent/team mate.

I personally find that when you're able to do this at race pace, you will find it easier to accomplish one important thing:
1) Pacing yourself off your opponent and having that mental edge once the competitor slows down.

I had this feelings not once but many times when I swam with someone of about the same standard. All I did is match his stroke rate at the start of the swim and go as fast as he is doing but at a very controlled manner. As all racers know, leading is more stressful than following. At some point, he'd want to increase his stroke rate to go faster than you even if just a little bit. At that moment, I'd purposely Maintain my stroke count, and glide further & faster to match his velocity. At end of one lap, I'd have done lesser work quantitatively and when I turn around, I'd be able to sprint pass him easily.
This is because usually when you increase the stroke rate to get faster just by a bit, the water returns your favour by giving you cubic times more resistant and thus you fatigue MUCH more.

Taking the last 100m for me and vincent for example, clearly anaerobically he was stronger than me and thus he was able to withstand increasing the stroke rate by about 20% once pass 1st 25m. I kept my stroke rate low and matched his speed until the 50m, when we turn around, I matched his speed for another half a lap but at a maintained stroke count, and he sped off about 3 meters in front of me with an even higher stroke rate whilst I retained my stroke rate to finish 4 seconds behind him.

1 minute after I reached, his heart rate was still sky high and mine returned to normal within the next minute. Aerobic and anaerobic fitness wise, he's definitely way above me (his 10km run is 46m, mine was 52m.) and thus the ability to sustain the high stroke rate for 75m. If that was the end of the race, it'd be really good for him, but if it was the start of the race, going into the bike leg, then I'd think having the lower heart rate but losing by 4 seconds is well worth letting the swim leg go..

This is a classic example of crazy increase in effort but small time gain in swim.


Base Mileage/Basic and General Endurance
For new comers and those who never had a strong swimming background...
Just as for running and cycling, in order to swim fast you will need a base of swimming mileage to build on.

There is a reason why the earlier a sportsmen starts, the better.

Compare a 20 years old who starts 4 yrs ago, and another 20 years old swimmer who starts at 4 yrs old.

Everyday, they swim 50 laps (swimmers log more than this, but for easy counting..). 6 days a week.
One year we swam 364.25 x 6 x 50 = 109275 laps.

so for the one who starts 4 yrs back, he'd have logged: 109275 x 4 = 437100 laps
The one who started at 4 yrs old, he'd have logged: 109275 x 16 = 1748400 laps

1.3million more laps.

Lets not talk about speed work but just moderate swim.. Can you imagine how much stronger that swimmer who starts at 4yrs old will be compared to the one who started 4 yrs back? Now, that is a very very solid base mileage to build speed on because he can probably go on and on and on forever in the pool by age 20 if he trains consistently even if its just at 50laps a day and moderate speed work. It is of course a very very exaggerated piece of demo but it displays very clearly the point i'm putting through.

It is the same theory as when you first started running 2.4km, you felt like it was a really shitty run... Then as you stick to it, you could run further... and as you run further and more frequently, you'd feel stronger in your run naturally!

I believe I've touched defining endurance somewhere in the blog but I forgot which post alrdy.

National Strength and Conditioning Association defines Endurance as ability of muscles to repeat submaximal contractions without fatigue.

In order to build muscular endurance, swim/bike/running til vomit kind of speed work is not needed, but repeated submaximal (I.E easy to moderate effort) effort work is needed.

Once again thank you guys for your time and also great job done in the training. Send me your timing and I'll gladly post them up. :)

I hope all of you are seeing improvements steadily!!!

Before ending, my WARMEST WELCOME Bryan, Brenda, Hongjun, Yiyang, Aaron to the team!!!! :)

Cheers
KK