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Training for the Nationals - 50 fly. Doing 4 swims and 3 dry land a week , along with yoga. How much yardage would you recommend per workout in fly? Your workout consist of a lot of fins (which I love) but it there a rational for it? I appreciate your advice. I have been out of the water for 30 years and many things have changed.Thanks!

Originally Posted by Matthew Gordon

Training for the Nationals - 50 fly. Doing 4 swims and 3 dry land a week , along with yoga. How much yardage would you recommend per workout in fly? Your workout consist of a lot of fins (which I love) but it there a rational for it? I appreciate your advice. I have been out of the water for 30 years and many things have changed.Thanks!

Underwater kickers do a lot of fin work. In the 50 fly, I am UW almost 30 meters. I love fins for dolphin kick.

Also, I have had shoulder problems over the years. As a result, I almost never swim fly without fins. It doesn't seem to hurt me too much in races. In fact, the overspeed work may help your body get used to going really fast.

If you're only doing the 50 fly, you don't have to do too much fly yardage or overall yardage. You need to do fast 12.5s, fast 25s and fast 50s of both fly and dolphin kick with a lot of rest. Work on your starts and SDKs (streamlined dolphin kick). You can train some free for fly. And be sure to do a recovery workout once in awhile bc all that speed is hard on the CNS.

I bet you can deadlift over 20 reps with that weight.

Originally Posted by Jazz Hands

I bet you can deadlift over 20 reps with that weight.

Possibly. But I haven't done deadlifts in over two years after tearing my elbow doing them. So I'm very paranoid and am proceeding cautiously. The elbow is still not 100%. I'll never be able to do really heavy deadlifts again. And I don't really think I need to for swimming.

Lifting with straps takes the stress off my elbows in deadlift. Agreed you don't have to deadlift heavy; I like it because it builds strength in a lot of areas, so it's time-efficient.

Plus, there's a difference between heavy and all-out. If my back or hips aren't really feeling heavy low-rep deadlift, I'll just drop the weight and go for as many reps as possible.

Originally Posted by Jazz Hands

Agreed you don't have to deadlift heavy; I like it because it builds strength in a lot of areas, so it's time-efficient.

Plus, there's a difference between heavy and all-out. If my back or hips aren't really feeling heavy low-rep deadlift, I'll just drop the weight and go for as many reps as possible.

It is time efficient.

I definitely could do more reps, but I want to increase gradually to get the tendons used to it. That was my fatal mistake last time.

Originally Posted by The Fortress

Underwater kickers do a lot of fin work. In the 50 fly, I am UW almost 30 meters. I love fins for dolphin kick.

Also, I have had shoulder problems over the years. As a result, I almost never swim fly without fins. It doesn't seem to hurt me too much in races. In fact, the overspeed work may help your body get used to going really fast.

If you're only doing the 50 fly, you don't have to do too much fly yardage or overall yardage. You need to do fast 12.5s, fast 25s and fast 50s of both fly and dolphin kick with a lot of rest. Work on your starts and SDKs (streamlined dolphin kick). You can train some free for fly. And be sure to do a recovery workout once in awhile bc all that speed is hard on the CNS.

Thanks. Do you know who I could contact that could provide me with custom workouts, that knows about fly sprinters? I can compensate them for their time. My goal is to place top 3 at nationals. I need some guidance.

Originally Posted by Matthew Gordon

Thanks. Do you know who I could contact that could provide me with custom workouts, that knows about fly sprinters? I can compensate them for their time. My goal is to place top 3 at nationals. I need some guidance.

I have national and/or word records in the 50 fly in all three courses (SCY, SCM, LCM). And I was the USMS HIT coach for two years. It's not all that complicated to train for 50s -- if you do real sprint workouts and don't train with a masters team doing junk yardage).