Wanna freestyle faster? Learn to FLY!

Tom Gargulak

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Aug 25, 1994, 2:35:20 PM8/25/94

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I'd just like to share something. I started swimming butterfly
several weeks ago. I always hated it because I went anaerobic
really quick and it hurt too much. Well like anything, it takes
practice and I have gone as far as 300 without rest and get in
about 1500 or more in many workouts. This from a guy who would
die after 50 just a few weeks ago.

Obviously my fly has improved tremendously. But what I really
like is that my freestyle is faster. I can sprint a little
faster, but more importantly my AT has gone up quite a bit.

I can swim long sets faster and hold the times. In fact I am
also getting pretty good at descending which is something I
was terrible at before.

Also my feel for the water is better than ever. My stroke seems
much more controlled and my S-shape pull more pronounced.

Our Masters group does fly, but not much. So often when the
coach says to do freestyle sets I will do fly. Something that
helped early on is to swim crawl, but after pushing off swim the
first few strokes fly of every lap then switch back to crawl.
Progress by adding more fly strokes per lap.

I am not trying to boast, just offer something that worked for
me. I'd like to hear from anyone that has had a similar experience.

David Barrera

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Aug 25, 1994, 5:30:55 PM8/25/94

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Care to share any secrets that improve your fly stroke so fast?

Thanks,
Dave (BTW, if you don't want the world to know, my ext is 1972)

Tom Gargulak

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Aug 25, 1994, 8:23:07 PM8/25/94

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In article <33j2if$r...@crchh749.bnr.ca>, bar...@bnr.ca (David Barrera) writes:
>
> Care to share any secrets that improve your fly stroke so fast?
>
> Thanks,
> Dave (BTW, if you don't want the world to know, my ext is 1972)

No secret...

It wasn't too bad to begin with. I just fell apart after about 25 and
struggled to make 50. The last 25 is what some people call the
"dragonfly" meaning "dragging fly".

I decided to try and improve my fly endurance, so I am forcing myself to do
lots of it. I don't think my fly has got that much faster or better,
I can just last a lot longer and it isn't "draggonfly".

As I said in my original post, my sprint freestyle is now just a little faster,
but my endurance is much better.

Reminds me when I first started running. I ran about a year.
Could not break 48:00 in a 10K. I heard about intervals and started
them. In about 6 weeks I could run close to a 40:00.

I think the fly is a sort of tough interval.

Ian L Harper

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Aug 26, 1994, 2:46:00 AM8/26/94

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I've had a similar experience with doing lots of FLY. Once I learned the
stroke, I found I liked it, and was swimming it faster than the next
faster lane swimmers. I did lots of fly on my own time, and almost
immediately noticed my freestyle times improving. This summer our pool
is 50 meters at evening workouts, and doing fly longcourse REALLY helps
even more (100m fly longcourse is WAY harder than 100y in a 25 yd pool.)
Anyway I am now thinking of swimming fly in the ocean/ a lake and just going
until I can't anymore, resting, then doing it again. I think because it
pushes you to your limit it raises your endurance at your "80%" level
or whatever. Now I just need to do the equivalent to my biking...