There is a limit to what can teach when you are there and I am here. Further, the communication has mostly flowed in one direction. Best is when you’re in front of me. I can say, “Do this,” and then I see if you’re doing it correctly or not. How do we replicate this when we’re separated by distance?
Confirmed Slowtwitchers have seen reams of Reader Forum threads with the title, “Critique my fit”. I count 17 of them, just in 2016, and this forum has been around for better than 15 years. That’s a lot of people putting their bikes on trainers, videoing their positions, and posting them on the forum for feedback.
How come we don’t see “Critique my swim”? Critique my fit requires a camera taking a video while the rider is aboard his bike. That means either somebody else takes the video or the rider puts his camera on a tripod and then films himself. If you have an action cam – like a GoPro – those are made for mounts and tripods are made to support action cams. So…?
I don’t know the answer to why we have relatively few Critique my swim videos when we have so many Critique my fit videos, but, this is really where we are at this point in the Guppy Challenge. This is Week-7 of the 10-week series of workouts and you’ve got most of what I can give you until I see or read the response to what I’m giving you, which ideally includes both your written response as well as a video of your swimming.
What would a video include? The gold standard would be above-water from the front, from the back, and from the side, and then below the surface, same 3 views. But I’ll take what I can get. I’d like you swimming freestyle. If you also want to show what you look like performing drills, that’s a bonus: 1-arm pulls, kicking, swimming with banded ankles, whatever drills you’re doing.
Here’s a link to the thread on the Reader Forum just for this feedback.
Beyond this, may I make a confession? When I swim with bound ankles I have less trouble breathing on my not-normal side, because I don't have that hitch in my stroke that I've pretty much gotten out of my stroke, but not entirely, while breathing on my "good" side. The moral: an AOS may well never rid him- or herself of a tendency toward bad habits. One must always reconnect with good technique.
Final word: the 59th Street Bridge Song. aka "Feelin' Groovy". You probably don't remember that. Simon and Garfunkel. But my favorite rendition is from "Harpers Bizarre". The first line of the first verse: "Slow down, you move to fast." If you are having trouble. If you can't do these drills. If you are exhausted halfway through the workout. If you just can't get he hang of it. Slow down. In fact, to improve technique, best to swim drills slow.
Guppy Challenge, Week-7, Workout-1
Warm-up => 5 x 50yd freestyle, easy, slow, establish a leave interval that gives you 10sec rest between each 50.
Style + Kick Set => Repeat the following 3 times (100yd w/bound ankles: 1st 50 w/center snorkel; 2nd 50 w/o snorkel; then swim 100 yards wth no implements; then kick a 50) This is a 750yd set.
Main set =>
GUPPIES => 12 x 100yd, on your interval (5sec to 10sec rest between each)
TARPONS => 16 x 200yd, on your interval
TUNAS => 20 x 200yd, on your interval
Warm-down => 100yd, easy, alternate freestyle and stroke.
Total Guppy yards this workout: 2300
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Guppy Challenge, Week-7, Workout-2
Warm-up => 6 x 50yd
Style set => 10 x 50yd: First 25 as slow as you can, semi-catch-up. Catch-up is when you don’t start your pull until the other hand has caught up, and both hands are touching. Semi-catch-up, when your recovering hand reaches the elbow of the extended hand you can start your pull. Second 25 is regular swim.
Style set => 6 x 50yd, bound ankles, first 3 with snorkel.
Main set => repeat through the following sequence twice (or more if you're above Guppy):
GUPPIES => 2 x (3 x 150yd, on a tough interval, followed by a 50 kick). That's 800yd total. Got that? It's twice thru a 400yd set.
TARPONS => 3 x (3 x 150yd followed by 50 kick)
TUNAS => 4 x (3 x 150yd followed by 50 kick)
Warm-down => 100yd, easy, alternate freestyle and stroke.
Total Guppy yards this workout: 2000
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Guppy Challenge, Week-7, Workout-3
Warm-up => 6 x 50yd freestyle, easy, slow, establish a leave interval that gives you 10sec rest between each 50.
Style + Kick Set => Repeat the following 3 times (100yd w/bound ankles: 1st 50 w/center snorkel; 2nd 50 w/o snorkel; then swim 100 yards wth no implements; then kick a 50) This is a 750yd set.
Main set =>
I like to do 250s. Weird, huh? 250s and 150s. There’s an arcane mathematical symmetry to these which I won’t go into. Calculate your leave interval for these.
GUPPIES => 4 x 250yd
TARPONS => 6 x 250yd
TUNAS => 8 x 250yd
Warm-down => 150yd, easy, alternate freestyle and “stroke”.
Total Guppy yards this workout: 2300
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Guppy Challenge, Week-7 Workout-4 Extra Credit!
Warm-up => 6 x 50yd freestyle, easy, slow, establish a leave interval that gives you 10sec rest between each 50.
Style Set => 10 x 50yd w/bound Ankles: Concentrate on what your arms are doing:
Main set =>
GUPPIES => 6 x 150yd, on your interval
TARPONS => 9 x 150yd, on your interval
TUNAS => 12 x 150yd, on your interval
Kick set => 4x50yd, don’t kick hard, relax, just make your way across the pool, rest 5sec or 10sec, go again.
Warm-down => 200yd, easy freestyle
Total Guppy yards this workout: 2100
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Guppy Challenge, Week-7, Workout-5 Double Extra Credit!
Warm-up => 5 x 100yd, first 50 1-arm pull, second 50 freestyle
Style Set => 6 x 100yd: Bound ankles, first 3 with snorkel.
Kick set => 6 x 50yd, with or without zoomers, but the last 2 should be without zoomers.
Main set =>
GUPPIES => 10 x 75yd, 5sec rest in between, which is basically a stop, grab the wall, take 2 breaths and go.
TARPONS => 16 x 75yd
TUNAS => 20 x 75yd
Warm-down => 150yd, easy, alternate freestyle and “stroke”.
Total Guppy yards this workout: 2300
Total weekly GUPPY yardage
If you do the first 3 workouts: 6600yd
These plus the 4th workout: 8,700yd
All 5 workouts: 11,000yd
Dryland Alternative
There's a Favorite VASA Workout thread just getting going on the Reader Forum. I'd like to see what some others think. I use VASA more as a power workout, but I'm not the only arbiter of the best way to use this dryland training tool.
Here are two of mine, that I posted in prior ROKA Guppy Challenge installments:
Main set =>
Start very easy, alternating arms, building not to exhaustion, but to the point where your technique starts to breakdown, by the time you get to...
- 90 strokes (45 each arm). Rest 3 minutes. Then, same for...
- 80 strokes (40 each arm). Rest 3 minutes. Then...
- 70 strokes. Rest 3 minutes. Then, if you think you have 1 more in you...
- 60 strokes. Rest 3min. If you think you have one more...
- 50 strokes. Rest 3min. If you're a true stud (but don't hurt yourself!)...
- 40 strokes
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Main set =>
50 strokes (a pull with one arm is one stroke in my parlance, so, 20 cycles). Start easy! The fatigue comes on you quicker than you think. Rest 30sec. Repeat this 10 times. Rest 5 minutes. Then...
30 strokes x 10 with 20sec rest in between.
