Exploring Body Rotation

[s.sciame]

Originally Posted by gary p

In the middle of a 20x125 set yesterday, I was tightening up and my completion times were creeping up. I noticed I was not getting much rotation to my breathing side. My initial attempts to correct that were met with some imbalance. What seemed to work well for me was to rotate my hand slightly outward (i.e. pinky downward) on the spear. Presto, I was getting good rotation without imbalance, still getting a nice catch, my SPL was more stable through the entire 125, and my times dropped about a second per repeat. I was able to hold that to the end of the set. I'm excited to get back in the pool again and experiment some more with hand rotation angle on spear and catch.

Hi Gary,
20x125 is an interesting set (outside usrpt boundaries by the way). What distance are you training for with this set? How much rest beetween reps?

As for the pinky down spear, I've also seen it on Sun Yang and Romanchuk last summer: at the end of the spear his hand is completely vertical, karate style. Perhaps it's also a way to prevent shoulder issues for those who spear pretty much shallow and on narrow tracks.

Salvo

[gary p]

Originally Posted by s.sciame

Hi Gary,
20x125 is an interesting set (outside usrpt boundaries by the way). What distance are you training for with this set? How much rest beetween reps?

I'm training for the 1650 this season. With that set, I'm using the typical +/- 20 seconds rest (currently on a 1:55 interval and 1:32.50 target time). I know the repeat distance is beyond USPRT guidelines, but I've not seen correlation between the pace I can maintain on sets of 100's and the pace I can maintain for a 1000 or 1650. I actually do some 150's too. I think that's the distance that will correlate to 1650 race pace for me, while 125's probably correlate to 1000 race pace.

Those USRPT guidelines are based on the assumption that the swimmer is doing 9 training sessions a week, with 2-3 USRPT sets per session. I suspect a USPRT distance swimmer is doing 12-15 freestyle sets a week for races ranging from 200 to 1650. In that context, with that total training load, 100's may translate to 1650 race pace. I'm only getting 2-3 exposures a week to distance free sets, though, so I have a much lighter total workload. That's probably why I can hold a pace in a set of 100's that's quite a bit faster than my 1650 race speed.

[s.sciame]

Originally Posted by gary p

I'm training for the 1650 this season. With that set, I'm using the typical +/- 20 seconds rest (currently on a 1:55 interval and 1:32.50 target time). I know the repeat distance is beyond USPRT guidelines, but I've not seen correlation between the pace I can maintain on sets of 100's and the pace I can maintain for a 1000 or 1650. I actually do some 150's too. I think that's the distance that will correlate to 1650 race pace for me, while 125's probably correlate to 1000 race pace.

Those USRPT guidelines are based on the assumption that the swimmer is doing 9 training sessions a week, with 2-3 USRPT sets per session. I suspect a USPRT distance swimmer is doing 12-15 freestyle sets a week for races ranging from 200 to 1650. In that context, with that total training load, 100's may translate to 1650 race pace. I'm only getting 2-3 exposures a week to distance free sets, though, so I have a much lighter total workload. That's probably why I can hold a pace in a set of 100's that's quite a bit faster than my 1650 race speed.

Same for me, and that's an interesting strategy. I usually reduce the rests to find better correlation, but I'm recently finding that perhaps it's more effective to increase effort duration instead (ie the length of reps), while leaving the rest the same (about 20s).

But actually I had never considered sets of 125's, 150's and 175's, and I usually jumped directly from 100's to 200's. I'm eager to test these new sets, thanks for the idea!

Salvo

[sclim]

(I just posted a puzzled reply on Tom's Form/Technique/Mindfulness Thoughts thread -- #2 -- in response to a kick-rotation phenomenon that he mentioned, and my thoughts, which arose in direct answer to his description, seem to me now to belong more on this Body Rotation thread, so I'm posting this redirection suggestion).

[gary p]

Originally Posted by s.sciame

Same for me, and that's an interesting strategy. I usually reduce the rests to find better correlation, but I'm recently finding that perhaps it's more effective to increase effort duration instead (ie the length of reps), while leaving the rest the same (about 20s).

But actually I had never considered sets of 125's, 150's and 175's, and I usually jumped directly from 100's to 200's. I'm eager to test these new sets, thanks for the idea!

Salvo

LOL, I went the opposite direction yesterday, doing 100's (yards) at a <1:14.00 pace on a 1:30 interval. I failed at 14, 17, and 21. 5 seconds less rest per rep added up to a lot more accumulated fatigue.

I've also dabbled with a "pyramid" strategy. I'll start with 150's. After first fail I go to 125's. After second fail I go to 100's. All on ~ 20 seconds rest, and all at the same target pace.

Back to the topic at hand, I've found that, besides facilitating better body rotation, rotating my wrist pinky-down on spear actually gives me better feel for the catch in my fingertips.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by gary p

LOL, I went the opposite direction yesterday, doing 100's (yards) at a <1:14.00 pace on a 1:30 interval. I failed at 14, 17, and 21. 5 seconds less rest per rep added up to a lot more accumulated fatigue.

I've also dabbled with a "pyramid" strategy. I'll start with 150's. After first fail I go to 125's. After second fail I go to 100's. All on ~ 20 seconds rest, and all at the same target pace.

Back to the topic at hand, I've found that, besides facilitating better body rotation, rotating my wrist pinky-down on spear actually gives me better feel for the catch in my fingertips.

OK, I do a variation of this (of course at my own slower speed ranges). I used to think it was very important to finish a set the same way I started it. That's why when I started 100m x 12 or whatever, with fixed TT tempo, on fixed time send-offs, whenever the form broke down and the SPL soared up I would just quit, often prematurely and that would be it for the day. Now I see that if the point is to learn to delay the onset of form breakdown, I see it would be quite acceptable to extend the recovery time as I fatigued, and that would usually allow me to finish more 100s in good form.

And when the 100m repeats deteriorated to the point where longer recoveries failed to ensure a finish of the 100m in good form, I now allow myself to cut the duration to 50m repeats. I think this is a more rational use of my time and effort, than blindly adhering to my old fixed policy of 100m repeats with strict conditions until I fail then stop.

[sclim]

After I posted this last summary of where I thought I was with respect to trying to delay my stroke breakdown point, I read today Coach Mat Hudson's very useful analysis of the very same problem.

http://mediterraswim.com/2017/12/17/...ier-breathing/

He, of course, adds very worthwhile focus points to the other mixing of distances, recovery times that I had thought of. Worthwhile reading several times, thinking over and implementing in practice set design.

[Tom Pamperin]

Originally Posted by gary p

I've also dabbled with a "pyramid" strategy. I'll start with 150's. After first fail I go to 125's. After second fail I go to 100's. All on ~ 20 seconds rest, and all at the same target pace.

Reading your posts about typical workloads for competitive swimmers, I realize that learning to increase my own distance and intensity per workout would be very helpful for me to build speed and endurance.

I love this idea of reducing repeat distances after failure to continue to build training volume at target pace, while maintaining good form and technique. Thanks!

[s.sciame]

Originally Posted by gary p

LOL, I went the opposite direction yesterday, doing 100's (yards) at a <1:14.00 pace on a 1:30 interval. I failed at 14, 17, and 21. 5 seconds less rest per rep added up to a lot more accumulated fatigue.

Yes, both are ways to find better correlation, however I found there's a limit: last winter, following the principles of "the shorter the reps the better the technique" and "the shorter the rests the better the correlation", I got to the point of swimming successfully sets like

1h of continuous 50m reps on :50 target :45 (ie 72x50m)

I felt really fit, however no way I could sustain the same pace over a straight 1500. Despite the very short rests, 50m was simply too short of a distance to provide the same stimulus you'd have on a 1500 (at least for me). Just a couple of breaths at the wall were enough to reset fatigue and go on for 1h. Like if there was some kind of threshold effort I never reached by stopping every 50m or 45s, and in this state (below threshold) even a brief 5s rest was enough to reset fatigue and get away. But pass that threshold and everything changes, so the duration of effort may matter more than the duration of rest.

Another thought bf I quit hijaking this thread about body rotation :) Let's take the following 3 ways to swim a broken 1500 at 1:30/100m pace:

1) 30x50m on :50 target :45
2) 15x100m on 1:42 target 1:30
3) 7x200m on 3:30 target 3:00

In the 1st one, every 200m you get 20s rest. In the 2nd you get 24s, and in the 3rd as much as 30s. Or, in terms of %, the rest/work ratio is respectively 11%, 13%, 16%. However, don't know about you guys but I find the 1st set easier than the 2nd and the 2nd easier than the 3rd.

Salvo

[Tom Pamperin]

Originally Posted by s.sciame

1) 30x50m on :50 target :45
2) 15x100m on 1:42 target 1:30
3) 7x200m on 3:30 target 3:00

In the 1st one, every 200m you get 20s rest. In the 2nd you get 24s, and in the 3rd as much as 30s. Or, in terms of %, the rest/work ratio is respectively 11%, 13%, 16%. However, don't know about you guys but I find the 1st set easier than the 2nd and the 2nd easier than the 3rd.

That's an interesting way to break it down. Part of what you are doing with sets like your 50m on :50 target :45 pace is adapting your body to fast recovery times, so that even those 5 seconds of rest is enough to keep you going.

For me, it may be that #3 IS easier than #2 or #1--I rarely do sets with minimal rest like #1. #2 feels like it would be EXTREMELY hard for me, probably impossible at the moment.

Perhaps I should add some short-rest sets. That seems very similar to how competitive swimmers I know structure their work--very short rests.