After a couple months of having been able to consistently do 2700 yd workouts, I decided it was time to try switching things up. Up until this point, 100% of my focus has been on form, and making it as comfortable as possible - whether it getting used to bilateral breathing (last winter), introduction of the two-beat kick (summer), or maintaining form for a full 2700 yds (fall). Each one of those aspects were focused on because at the time, they were one of, if not the primary contributing factor to less efficient form. The problem I've had recently is that it has become a bit unclear what the next step is.
Way in the back of my mind, I remember an aspect of Total Immersion where reducing the stroke count per lap is something to focus on. I kept it in the back of my mind and didn't worry too much about it because, as I mentioned, there were what I considered to be more pressing needs at the time, based on my overall goal (which is to swim the 2.4 miles in the ironman as comfortably as possible). So, with the plateau of being able to maintain a 30 minute/mile pace in the water, I thought it worth seeing if I could experiment with lowering stroke count.
Unfortunately I never had enough time over the past day or two to dig out the TI materials to research what I could do for a workout for this. Even as I left the house to go to the pool, I wasn't sure what I'd do. So, on the way I decided I'd just see what happened if I did 100 yd sets, counting strokes in the first lap (25 yds) and see how well I could maintain that stroke count through the course of three more laps.
I started off by hitting the SportCount button after every 50, and then at the end of each 100 pausing it while I rested up a bit. The first lap was in a lane that I was sharing, but at the end of that lap, another lane opened up - so I reset the counter and went from there. At the end of the workout, I saw that the first lap registered a time that was for 50 yds - but the other laps were for the 100 yds. I'm not sure exactly how that happened when I was hitting the lap button after every 50 and then pausing after every 100 - it's almost like the counter interprets everything between pauses (regardless of how many times you hit the lap button) as a single lap. Thats unfortunate, because I was interested to see how the first 50 compared with the second 50 for each set. And then, on top of that, the last 100 yd set seems to have gotten purged out for some reason. Clearly I have to toy around with the thing and figure out a solution to that if I want that kind of data - but for a first time around, I'll deal with it.
So anyway, the first lap for each set was consistently around the 15.5 spl range. Every so often, during my previous workouts, I'd count strokes for a lap, and I usually ended up falling in the range of about 18. So clearly being rested makes a big difference. I found during this workout that 100 yds seemed just about right - I was able to maintain that 15.5-16.5 spl count for the set, but it was clearly falling off at the end. Then, after a 30 second break or so, I'd do another set and find the same thing. I stopped when I found that a couple sets were seeing a spl count of 16-16.5 on that first lap - going on the idea that I was now fatigued, and I didn't want to imprint bad form into muscle memory.
Below are the lap times for each set - not shown is the time for a break in between.
0 - 44.29
1 - 1:29.77
2 - 1:30.01
3 - 1:27.96
4 - 1:29.15
5 - 1:28.65
6 - 1:28.75
7 - 1:27.98
8 - 1:28.88
9 - 1:28.22
10 - 1:28.41
11 - 1:29.08
12 - 1:27.19
As another point of reference, my average 50 yd lap times for my long continuous workouts are around 51 seconds - so the sets in this workout were about 10 seconds faster per 100 yds. The question in my mind became: "Yes, these laps are faster, but they are less sustainable because I need rest after 100 yds. I am also exaggerating the stroke a bit - extending the glide, and exerting more pull, so naturally the spl count will be lower. But is this going to really be helpful in the end?"
Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that question - I'm basically hanging my hat with it on two facts: (1) anytime I've decided to make a change to my form in the past, I had to go through a period of adjustment (which entailed either slowing down temporarily until I worked out the mechanics well enough to be able to speed up gain, or gain the appropriate aerobic capacity to maintain form with the new mechanics), and (2) I may not end up being able to maintain 16 spl when I return to 'normal' form - but if I can go down from 18 to 17, that'd be a significant improvement (in the TI book, I remember a section where the guy essentially says that if you can get used to doing a lap in X spl, doing a lap in X+1 is that much easier). Granted, in that example he's talking about someone who can do 25 yds in 12 spl, and then turning around and doing something more like 20 during a race - but I'd think the concept is transferrable.
Ultimately, what I took away from this workout is that a few of the latter sets appeared to go more smoothly throughout the entire four lap set. So whereas the first couple sets were nice and smooth in the first 50, and then a little more choppy in the second 50 - some of the latter laps I seem to have managed to normalized the smoothness of the form throughout the entire 100. I was still fatigued and needed a rest, but subtle nuances (such as degree of hip rotation, angle of the arm during the catch, mechanics of rotating the head to grab a breath) seemed to have a noticable effect. So now the challenge will be to focus on those aspects a bit over the next few workouts and try to get more consistent with it. I suppose that when thinking about it, I had heavy suspicions that those aspects could be improved during the long workouts - but the mental energy required to keep everything else in check during those workouts in addition to trying to focus on those minor adjustments was a bit too much. I'm hoping that this way, it'll allow me to really pay attention to and work on just those things. Then, if I'm lucky, I'll find that the 100 yds isn't the limit - I can then see about extending to 150 and/or 200 yds. But I'm sure that'll be a while.
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