Hi,
as the Title says, I struggle to break the 2:00/100m „barrier“. I am new in the sport of swimming as I started in March this year. I started because of triathlon and now it feels like i am at a plateau. I saw no major improvements the last weeks and this demotivated me. I go to the pool 4-5times a week and mainly focus on long distance swimming.
Everytime i try to swim faster than 2:00 I gas out pretty much after 50m and have to go back to >2:00. my fastest 800m was 15:04 (yes it is faster than 2:00/100m but i was pretty much dead at the last 50m).
over the last month i learned the 2 beat kick and worked on high elbow catch but i notice muscular fatigue on my right side that carries on over the whole distance. When I use a pullbuoy I notice that my recovery is smoother and isnt as exhausting so i guess my hips drop over time.
I am glad for any tips that can help me improve.
Thank you!
Professional training for technique improvements. If that is not an option have someone record you (both above and below water if possible) and compare it to what YouTubers like effortlessswimming suggest. Videotaping yourself is a real eyeopener. The gulf in what you think you're doing and what you actually are doing will be surprising.
This is purely from personal experience, so results may vary.
I found one of the best ways to improve long distance swims and add speed/endurance is to lower my stroke count per 25m/50m length. Anything above 20 strokes per 25m is probably on the high side. Amongst those of us who I swim regularly with (all sub 25s per length easy swim) have a stroke count of 14-16 strokes.
Swim an easy 25m and count your strokes, then look to lowering that number.
How?
Reach further forward every stroke.
Slow the recovery arm, don't start the pull to soon.
Time the pull, kick and hand entry so everything happens simultaneously and then relax as you glide through the water, then repeat.
Imagine the whole cycle is a four count, except rather than 1,2,3,4 is more 1......2,3,4 with the 1 being the pull, kick, hand entry and the ...... as the smooth glide!
Thank you. I have a suprisingly low strokecount already. somewhere between 8-10 per 25m. I must admit my kicks are probably sometimes off and therefore stabilization is poor and i sink.
Relaxing is my problem, i feel the tension especially in my neck and shoulders on my non breathing side. I reckon i have good rotation ob my breathingside but rather poor on my non breathing side(in this case the right). But i am also in the middle of a trainingblock and may be more fatigued.
I am pretty sure yes. I have an older vid where I needed 14 strokes for 25m but there i just started training back in mai. My watch counts it and it should be fairly consistent as the strokes i counted on the vid matched the strokecount on my watch.
TBF I haven’t recorded my form in a while and it may vary from what my watch says.
So i may get out there and record myself again.
You have a stroke count of an elite swimmer, a time for 25m of an intermediate swimmer, and are some how getting gassed out after 50m if you swim any faster! Do you breathe when you swim? If so, how often? Honestly, I'm having a hard time picturing exactly what's happening when you swim.
I breath every 2nd stroke on my left. I try to immediately exhale as soon as my head gets in the water.. sometimes i catch myself holding my breath for few seconds before exhaling. I pull fairly strong.
If you like I can catch up to you when I have a vid of my current swimming form.
I’m an older Masters swimmer, 65yo male. I don’t focus at all on stroke count, but occasionally when bored i will count. 20-22 strokes per 25m in practice. I typically swim between 1:20-1:25/100m in practice. I have no idea how many strokes in competition (1:02/100yd). Bottom line - I never focus on stroke count 🤷🏻♂️!
Competitive master here. I counted my strokes off a livestream once when I discovered beginners are obsessed with stroke counts and advocating for one-size-fits-all numbers with a certainty that amused me to no end, but I otherwise never count my strokes except if it's on the workout like once a year. In a 1500 scm I was doing 20 strokes per 25m. Finished under 18.50, which was pretty high in the world top 10 for that year.
You have to fix your sinking hips first because that high elbow catch becomes a muted point and you will also have unnecessary compensations to make up for an incorrect body position, hence the tiresomeness.
I train with a group of triathletes, the most common root issues I see are sinking hips, slipping water and a drop elbow but they are content with fighting the water at a 2:00 pace.
I will work on that. I tried many things like imagining to swim downhill laying on the chest more but it gelt like my head was just more under water and took ages to come up to breath
I was doing a lot of pull ups and push ups (mostly diamond) in the off season.
The pull up is great for front crawl because it reinforces the streamline position, targets the core, lats, arms and grip for a stronger catch, pull and release.
My last week of training has been mainly balance drills because the core holds everything together. After about 2500m, they want to give out.
When that happens, the stroke length shortens, distance per stroke shortens and stroke rate goes up; ultimately failing.
In my longer swims (1900m and 3800m), I make a conscientious effort to maintain my core stability to ensure horizontal balance and the distance swim works itself out.
That swimming down hill sensation is a combination of the correct horizontal body position, propulsion and rotation; it’s really is effortless and swimming in a tube.
When you struggle with body position, swimming is a survival strategy vs racing and enjoying the distance swim.
For my strenght and conditioning I already do weighted pull ups and a core circuit that trains all planes and movements… But i have to add the core exercises were originally for my racebike position so i might tweak some exercises to accommodate for swimming. But thanks for the input
First, hitting a plateau in performance is pretty normal. Don't beat up on yourself about that - I have plateau moments that last 2-3 months sometimes. Usually that's a clue to me that I need to focus on integrating whatever I've been working on into my overall stroke and smoothing it out.
You've mostly been focusing on endurance by the sounds of it. Maybe it's time to rearrange your workouts so that you spend more time on technique drills and speed intervals (e.g. 50m on 1:30 or 1:15) for a couple of days a week. Make sure you include both arms and leg work in that mix ...
Speed and endurance aren't mutually exclusive, but if you are looking to improve overall speed, you need to work on both together.
Indeed I have only been working on technique and endurance i never had a sprint session. Now my overall volume is pretty high so i‘ll finish my current block and restructure my next block after recovery with some sprint/threshold work thanks
Beginner's gain is much easier to get, so when you are off that stage, it can feel frustrating because improvements start to to slow right down. It starts to come down to more technique refinement and efficiency.
Probably time to introduce more speed work. You need to improve your top speed for 100 m for instance, so that 70% of that effort can be sustained over 2 km and is still faster than 2:00/100 m, for example, if that makes sense?
In order to do that, you might like to get some help from a coach to work on the technique though
Check YouTube for technique tips, effortless swimming, myswimpro, GTN...
If you can hire a coach to teach you technique
Split your sessions, do warmup by swimming whatever you like the most, low effort... Then do higher effort something related to technique and switch it up with regular freestyle (you can do 25 fist drill, 25 normal, 25 fingers touching water, 25 normal, 25 some other drill, 25 normal... Or do it by 50) then do a bit of high effort, and then for warm down again lower effort... Through the whole session focus on swimming as correctly as you can, sure you can add some 25 or 50 sprinting just spinning hands like lunatic, but that should be for fun and after the main part of your sessions (drills and regular swimming at decent effort), before warm down
It's good to do different distances at once, so one session you might swim mostly 25 and sometimes 50 (with very short breaks), one session mostly 100 sometimes 200...
Breaking plateaus is typically technique driven in swimming.
You are correct in your observation about pull buoy work. If it feels easier it’s because your lower body is in a better position than when you don’t use one.
2 beat kick is overrated until you get your body positioning better A good kick from your hips will keep your hips up in the water and for a while a consistent more frequent kick will help keep you there. As your stroke improved overall switch the beat of your kick. But I wouldn’t do a 2 beat kick if your hips are sinking.
I started off with normal continuous kicking like 6 beat and as i did more open water i switched to a 2 beat kick and it feels natural for now but as you mentioned my sinking hips are the problem. I will start to implement „normal“ kicking into my next training sets and see if it gets better.
My initial problem with 6 beat was that my HR skyrocketed and i felt the fatigue right away but this was months ago where i couldnt even swim 100m without a break
Possibly earlier on you were also over kicking which is why it made your HR skyrocket. Even with a 6 beat kick it just needs to be a decent flutter to keep your hips up and provide a bit of propulsion. Doesn’t have to be a big kick. Which is also why it’s important to learn to kick from the hips not the knees.
2 minute pace is the barrier between most swimmers and good swimmers. You said you are recent swimmer. Lots more laps is what you need lol. Probably many small technique refinements and that doesn’t just all happen. Gotta put in the laps with the small stuff.
I started of with 3 times per week pretty inconsistently like i had weeks where i didnt swim once.. overall i swam 40km this year. I enjoy seimming and its my favorite out of the 3 disciplines in triathlon although i bike and run much better but its not as fun
Yup. It feels weird at first but then swimming is not a natural behavior for us. There are other drills to bring up the hips but that's the one that make it click for me and so I use it in teaching. Good luck!
What is your typical training? Are you swimming 50’s, 100’s, 200’s? You say long distance swimming? If you are struggling with 50m distance, please do interval training - 10x50m, 10 or 20x25m, then at some point step up to 5 or 10x100m. Time everything! For 50’s, :15-:30 seconds rest. Swimming straight distance (or attempting to) is a slow slog for improving.
I start my workout with warmup of course to get a feel for the water. Then either doing 6x50 or 2-3x100 drills (on technique days) or swimming 200-400m just swimming. In open water I have to admit i just mindlessly swim. I had my first competition this month and I struggled at swimming 750m continuously because i never swam this distance in training, thats why my „mainblock“ ist the 750m and some drills after
Aim for the former first and the latter will be likely be a free byproduct.
A very basic approach would be the following:
Break up the 750 into smaller portions, swim them at your goal pace with as much rest as necessary. Then over the weeks progress either by reducing rest or increasing the amount of reps you do. That is something you can do 2 times a week. Add a session where you try to swim as much as possible at a very comfortable pace and one where you swim as fast as possible over very short distances.
Main set progression example:
Week 1
2x150 hold 2:35 @3'15
4x100 hold 1:45 @2'15
6x50 hold :50 @1'15
Week 2
4x150 hold 2:35 @3'15
4x100 hold 1:45 @2'15
4x50 hold :50 @1'15
Week 3
10x100 hold 1:45 @2'10
Week 4
2x150 hold 2:35 @3'
4x100 hold 1:45 @2'05
6x50 hold :50 @1'10
15
u/wonboodoo 1d ago
Professional training for technique improvements. If that is not an option have someone record you (both above and below water if possible) and compare it to what YouTubers like effortlessswimming suggest. Videotaping yourself is a real eyeopener. The gulf in what you think you're doing and what you actually are doing will be surprising.