Practising all strokes to improve my freestyle?
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dkhartung posted 10 weeks ago.
Simon,
There are those who subscribe to the theory that doing other strokes helps to avoid muscle imbalances. I think it also helps to avoid the boredom of staring at the black line... at least doing some backstroke allows for staring at the ceiling for a while.
I do try and mix things up with some other strokes, but primarily focus on free and back, and mix in some freestyle technique drills. No one's ever going to convince me that fly and breast matter for tris, but that's just me.
588
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jnrice posted 10 weeks ago.
I was just told the SAME thing by a masters coach. Should I buy into it or just do my own thing and work 100% freestyle?
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523 days
jonovision_man posted 10 weeks ago.
bezsimon wrote:
I´m in Spain with a spanish monitor and when i question the validity of doing a very poor butterfly to help my freestyle she says its important to do other strokes so that the muscles are worked evenly throughout the body - eg back stroke compared to freestyle works the opposite shoulder muscles or something.
I pulled something last year doing a "very poor butterfly"... a coach told us to do it, but I really shouldn't have as I didn't know what I was doing.
jono
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1308 days
jkahan posted 10 weeks ago.
If you stink at the butterfly (like I do), forget the butterfly -- but backstroke (which I am also pretty bad at) is good / critical for freestyle muscle balance -- and I do some breast stroke for all around conditioning and boredom avoidance -- caveat -- I am NOT a great swimmer - just middle of the pack swimmer (I race 1/2 and full ironmans) -- and generally consider myself a very strong but SLOW swimmer (i.e. I am perfectly efficient and happy going at an okay pace).
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wirebook posted 10 weeks ago.
Given swimming is sooooo heavily technique focused, it seems logical to focus on the technique of the stroke you are doing. Whether that be in drills related to freestyle or actually doing freestyle.
I don't spend any time at all on other strokes.
-Ray
Tri Blog: Http://dcrainmaker.blogspot.com
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95 days
Triathlete954 posted 10 weeks ago.
If your having a hard time with butterfly, do one armed butterfly till you get the hang of it. Here is a link on youtube that shows what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHAvoiqZ2o
I typically do sets of breastroke,backstroke,butterfly and freestyle. In the middle of my swim workout. I used to have to draft in races to try and keep up now I am the one leading out of the water or right in front.
The best part of swimming is the fact that you can practice different strokes and they will help in the other disciplines too. Backstroke kicks work out the legs to improve the muscles for running. the breastroke kick works out the hip flexors. Butterfly gets your arms stronger for freestyle. Just talking about it makes me want to swim lol.
I really think if you give the other strokes time you will see that you are more comfortable in the water and a lot faster.
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jenez_world posted 9 weeks ago.
everything i have read indicates that it will benefit your swimming if your practice all strokes. and i think in reality it does work too. personally i do not do butterfly stroke but include dolphin kick and i do quite a bit of backstroke and breaststroke but always more freestyle. the complete stroke and drills. one of my first swims in a tri i had a bit of a moment and what got me through was doing breaststroke for awhile until i was comfortable. it helped when i realised i was keeping in touch with the freestylers and got my confidence back. i was soooo bad at backstroke but love it now i have something like decent technique.
the journey is the reward
79
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747 days
longhair posted 9 weeks ago.
I just started the same approach without the butterfly, considering I have not been trained properly on its technique.
I have found so far that it is helping me understand the feel of the water. I seem to be capable of great proplulsion on my back and I am translating that feel to the freestyle. I think it is a good idea.
I am also for muscular balance and variety. It breaks things up, particularely in the off season.
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mastromb posted 9 weeks ago.
I was a swim coach for 13 yrs and I made a habit of training all my swimmers in all four competetive strokes for muscle balance as well as body awareness in the water as has been mentioned above. As for butterfly, I would not promote double arm butterfly for anyone not well trained in the technical stroke mechanics of butterfly but single arm butterfly is always a good drill and can really work your core.
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264 days
DannoE posted 9 weeks ago.
Just to dissent, in college we used to start our season with a lot of freestyle base training before moving into our primary stroke-specific work as the competitive part of the season rolled around. So, at the end of the first 6-8 weeks of practice, I'd find myself in good shape for mid- and long-distance freestyle, which didn't really have much downside.
But then we'd move into our stroke-specific, and I'd be focused more closely on my specific events (200 Fly, 100-Fly on the Medley Relay), doing maybe 50-75% of my work in my actual stroke with just enough freestyle to maintain my base. Which was good for racing butterfly but not so good for those times when I needed to compete out of my specialities. My distance free really suffered by comparison. Some guys could hold form in multiple events, but I was always a specialist.
These days I do just enough stroke work to keep myself from going crazy from boredom. But I maintain a constant focus on mid-distance/pace freestyle. Because that's what I race.
DannoE
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..."
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Carlos Mx posted 9 weeks ago.
A few years ago, I thought that other styles were just a loss of training time, but kept doing it when my swimming coach said so. Now that I've been doing triathlons for a few years, and my training is much more specific, I do a lot of my warming up and recovery in other styles. It has helped my muscle balance, but the most important benefit has been an improved feel of the water and how your body moves in it.
Hi all
I´ve been going to a swim class for the first time and explained i wanted to improve my freestyle stroke for triathlons. Essentially the monitor is just getting me to do lots of swim drills - mixing lots of backstroke, breast stroke and a bit of butterfly in as well - none of which i know the technique of. I´m in Spain with a spanish monitor and when i question the validity of doing a very poor butterfly to help my freestyle she says its important to do other strokes so that the muscles are worked evenly throughout the body - eg back stroke compared to freestyle works the opposite shoulder muscles or something.
Anyway I have the swim smooth dvd and there is no mention of doing other strokes so my question is this. I´m not sure if im going to continue with this class as theres not a lot of technique correction just drills which i can do alone - but do people mix up their strokes or to improve my freestyle do i just do freestyle drills?
Best wishes
Simon