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Alex's swim journal

Flag-free Backstroke

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by
mcnair
, February 4th, 2013 at 10:08 PM (1495 Views)
Today I focused on free and back, though I managed to work in some of the other strokes as well. Kind of light on the yardage (3000 SCY/65 minutes), but I was feeling more tired from the core/strength workout yesterday than I thought I would. I also think that the backstroke in my first main set was pretty tough, even as I kept my free times down. Here's how it went:

WARM-UP:
400 EZ swim on 7:30
4 x 100 fr on 1:50 (1:30-1:33)
4 x 50 fr on 1:00 (:42-:40)
1:00 rest

MAIN SETS:
10 x 100 on 2:00 (alt. fr/bk; 1:22-1:24/1:44-1:50)*
4 x 50 on 1:15 (IM order; :48 fly, :45 bk, :50 br, :45 fr)**
2:00 rest
200 IM (3:23)**
1:30 rest

COOL-DOWN:
200 fr (3:24)
200 bk (4:03)
2 x 50 fly
2 x 50 fr

*The 10 x 100 on 2:00 in this set was actually on 1:45 for free and 2:15 for back (which of course averages 2:00 per 100)... this gave me a little more than :20 rest after each free rep and :30-:25 rest after each rep of back.
**I was a lot more tired on this 200 IM work than I was on Saturday with 3 x 400 IM; I think the strength work yesterday was taking its toll... when I swam on Saturday I was coming off an EZ day Friday and had 48+ hours of rest since Thursday's core/strength workout.

I am really beginning to hate having only one set of backstroke flags up at our Y. As I come into the 25/75/125/175 turns I keep trying to find the edge of the diving board out of the corner of my eye as a visual cue, but I'm all over the place on that turn--when I remember to turn at all !. The pain doesn't register right away, but I'm coming away with some nasty purple bruises on my arms once or twice a week... I'll notice them later and think "wow, that must have hurt!"

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Comments

  1. slow's Avatar
    Glad to hear things are going well! My pool doesn't have "flags" anymore...all that remains are "strings". Blink and you miss them. Haha

    I need to read back over your posts to see what kind of core work you are doing. I have been doing ~200 crunches a day and my tummy hurts in all kinds of ways I didn't think were possible. I might be looking at planks and some of the ab machines in the weight room.
  2. mcnair's Avatar
    Ha! At your pool I'm surprised even the strings are left!

    I've been doing the core exercises in Salo/Riewald and have added crunches and leg lifts to plank (front and side), bird dog, and others.... knee-to-chest exercises with the stability ball are killer.
  3. StewartACarroll's Avatar
    When I used to swim a lot of back as a kid I swam in some really bad pools and the only way to avoid hitting the wall was counting strokes per length. After lots of practice you can forget the count, you just feel it. The tough part is getting a count that works. Hitting the wall always sucks. Good luck finding a solution.