July 21, 2008
Importance of the Negative Split
If there is one training principle I have come to both love and hate, it's the negative split. It's also one of the most important.
In short, it means that you increase effort and, thus (hopefully) speed, on the second half of your workout or race. Workouts can also be gradual in increasing effort, resulting in descending time so it is some times called descending workouts or intervals (ie. in swimming, you can do a set at descend 1-2-3, which means you descend time over the next three intervals). No matter what you start at one pace, but you end up at increased pace/effort.
Our bodies race like we train. When we go all out during a race, we often put out the most effort and have the highest speed during the first part of the race, when we're fresh. Then when the second half of the race comes, we find ourselves getting more and more tired and often slow down as we hit the finish line.
This is bad! Slowing down as you approach the finish line, often starting from miles out, means:
1. You're getting tired and depleted. Maintaining speed becomes a grinding experience or impossible. Your heart rate starts leaping higher and higher and you have no choice but to slow down or else you'll flame out...or pass out.
2. Your better trained opponents are now passing you. That sucks right? You try to pick it up and you can't!
3. As you get depleted, your muscles get stiffer and stiffer as lactic acid builds up. It just becomes a painful experience as you force your muscles to keep going, and you may be reduced to walking, or weak spinning for cycling, or for swimming your stroke rate just keeps dropping as your arms feel like lead.
4. Mentally, it just makes the race feel like the worst experience ever. You're glad to hit the finish line and you wonder why in the world did you ever subject your body to that kind of torture.
However, training via negative splits or descending intervals means you condition your body to be able to perform while tired and give more energy during the latter half of the race. You learn to pace yourself and not go all out in the beginning, and your body learns to give that extra kick in second half while your energy levels begin to wane.
In every workout I do, I try to always finish with more effort than I begin. I slowly ramp effort and speed throughout a workout and then by the end of the workout, I am sprinting towards the parking lot where my car is. Or I'm on the way home on my bike and after doing laps on Kings Mountain, I'll raise my energy level pedaling and get close to sprinting home on the bike.
It's a tough workout, but over time your body gets used to it. Come race day, you'll be thankful for training this way. During races you're always putting out 100%+ effort and you need to be conditioned to give extra effort even while your energy level is dropping.
What a rush to be accelerating and passing other competitors and feel like a million bucks as you accelerate towards the finish line!
Posted by dshen at 06:08 PM | Comments (1)
September 07, 2007
Swimming Cheek to Shoulder
In the last USMS Swimmer magazine, there was an article depicting a swimmer showing perfect streamline, one arm extended, form in the water. She was practicing the extension to pierce the water in as needle-like form as possible, and practicing to maintain this form. One thing they talked about was the fact that her head in the correct position resulted in her cheek being against her shoulder while her arm was extended forward into full extension for the stroke.
I have form that really falls apart when I try to swim faster, and also when I get tired. I really wanted to improve my ability to maintain perfect streamline form while swimming at high stroke rates. To that end, I began swimming like the woman in the article and making sure my arm was fully extended and that my cheek would touch my shoulder briefly before I began my stroke. The other thing I began doing was breathing only once every 4 strokes. This allowed me to hold my head in a stationary position and not be disturbed so much by taking a breath. I could rotate my body back and forth along the line dictated by my head and neck and make sure everything was in line and not swaying back and forth, causing drag.
So I began swimming that way. Certainly taking less breaths was challenging, but I seemed to have gotten used to that by now. If I need to take an extra breath, I'll take another breath after my last one and then go back to once every 4 strokes. But it does help me to relax and try to be very efficient in the water.
The other thing I noticed was that by touching my cheek to my shoulder, it made sure that my arm was fully extended on each stroke. Pulling so much while having my arm extended caused knots to form in my serratus and lats, and my pecs began to get sore as well. I am sure this is my body's way of adjusting to the more extended stroke. It also made me realize how short my strokes really were, and how more efficient they could be.
I dealt with the knots with lots of ART and some reduced swimming until my muscles adapted.
The result: I am more easily maintaining fairly fast (for me) swim times for 50 and 100 meters. I am finding that I can keep a faster speed for a longer period of time, than the way I was swimming before this cheek to shoulder/less breathing method. Keeping my body in a better streamline was also helping me maintain speed and not lose speed between strokes.
Posted by dshen at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2007
Shaving for Triathlon
A few years back, I got hooked on the notion of shaving my legs for triathlon. I remember hearing about it and the supposed benefits of shaving my legs. Some of these were:
1. Biking - if you get in a crash and you need to put a bandage on, pulling it off is less painful due to having no hair.
2. Biking - aerodynamics is improved by not having all those pesky hairs on your legs to create minor turbulence in the air as the air flows past your legs.
3. Swimming - less resistance through the water with all those hairs on your body creating drag.
4. General - It looks better than having hairy legs, and more consistent with the look of a healthy, motivated triathlete/cyclist.
One morning in 2003, I decided to shave my legs in the shower. It was a messy affair. Fumbling about with shaving cream and a women's razor, I proceeded to take clumps of hairs off my legs and watch them slowly go down the drain (I hoped that my shower drain wouldn't get clogged!!). I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking that it looked very weird to not have hair on my legs any more and that it felt almost...more naked.
The day after, I jumped in the water for a swim and I recall having this funny sensation of "feeling" the water more. I felt faster in the water, and unfortunately had no conclusive proof that I was faster than with hair on my legs. But I did feel better when I swam.
As for cycling, I somehow felt more like a real cyclist, and it's funny that I noticed guys who didn't shave their legs more out there on their bikes and thought they looked very...well...non-cyclist.
Then in the July-August 2007 issue of USMS Swimmer magazine, there was an article called "The Naked Truth About Shaving Down" where they give some scientific basis for why shaving is good for swimming. They claim that it helps swimming by reducing the amount of stimuli that your nervous system is receiving from the environment and that your motor output is improved when you remove that stimuli through shaving. So I guess this means that you control your muscles better through your perception of what is required to be slippery through the water and your ability to feel the water when you stroke. While I was definitely more sensitized to the water environment post-shaving, I cannot verify if my motor output is improved simply through shaving. And because I shave every week, my body has since gotten used to environment with my no-hair-on-my-legs level of sensitivity and I don't perceive any additional sensitivity due to shaving now.
In the sidebar, there is reference to a study that showed that blood lactate accumulation was reduced significantly. If I were to read this small snippet correctly, does this mean that I am being more relaxed and efficient through the water simply because of the positive feelings that one gets while swimming with shaved legs (and/or body)?
Who knows. I try lots of things and don't have conclusive evidence that everything I do improves my performance, such as taking certain supplements or the research that shows that having protein in your sports drink is better than not. Some of it is just insurance. That which does not hurt me might just help me.
Posted by dshen at 08:30 AM | Comments (1)
May 07, 2007
Constant Propulsion Swim Method
A while back I took a Total Immersion Course. I thought it was really good but it only gave me half the solution to swimming fast, which was to maintain a good body position while in the water to ensure minimal slowdown due to drag.
The other half had to do with stroking.
You'd think that by swinging your arms through the water, that all you'd have to do was cycle them faster and then you'd go faster....right?
Well, I found out that there are so many little details with the stroke that make a whole LOT of difference in your speed.
One of them was introduced to me by Marc Evans during a swim session in a endless pool. Basically, you never having one hand pushing against the water. You never stop stroking and just glide like Superman. As one hand almost finishes its stroke and has reduced pressure against the water, the other hand was already be beginning its stroke and continuing the pressure against the water. This is so that this hand has already begun its stroke before the other hand exits the water.
It took me a long time to master this even a little bit. Now, I can keep it up for short periods, but I am doing tempo sets at distance to practice maintaining this constant propulsion stroke for longer periods of time. When I get tired, I can't keep the other hand from starting its stroke fast enough before the other hand loses its propulsion. I start getting back into small periods of time where I am doing a Superman glide and then my other hand begins its stroke. This is undesirable because as I glide, I slow down, whereas if I have at least one hand pressing against the water, I can keep my average speed higher.
I also found that when I do this, I can actually swim a 100m interval faster with less arm cycles and be less stressed aerobically. My arms definitely get tired more, but I am not gasping for breath like when I am just speeding up my arm cycles in an attempt to gain an extra few seconds in speed but with exponential energy expenditure.
I really could see the effect of constant propulsion swimming when the other week I was swimming with a pull buoy and paddles. As I set out on the interval, I noticed as I looked down on the black line on the bottom of the pool that my speed was pulsing as I stroked. I would speed up during a stroke, but as my other hand began to enter the water, my speed would slow until the other arm began its stroke. I realized that I was gliding too much and waiting too long between strokes, and not really creating constant propulsion. So I altered my stroke to begin a lot sooner and all of a sudden, my pulsing speed became less and I was moving with more consistent speed. Very interesting!
So now I practice constant propulsion speed while swimming with pull buoy and paddles to fine tune my timing on the stroke, and take that neuromuscular training to swimming without tools. When swimming with the pull buoy and paddles, I can really see the effect of constant propulsion swimming versus gliding too much due to the amount of water I can catch with the paddles. It's a great way to get visual feedback on whether or not your arms are moving with the right timing to create constant propulsion.
I added this training to my tempo training with constant propulsion stroke, starting with reps of 100m and increasing that both in reps and in distance over time.
Posted by dshen at 09:08 PM | Comments (1)
April 12, 2007
Bubbles
These last few weeks swimming I've been thinking about bubbles.
Not bubble bath mind you, but the bubbles I create while swimming.
If you read about bubble formation in swimming books, some of them say that it's the byproduct of wasted energy. Energy that could have gone into propulsion gets wasted in creating turbulence in water whose evidence is bubble formation. There is also much written about quiet or calm swimming, which is the ease and flow of swimming that makes you feel and look like you're gliding through water with little energy.
Lately, I've really tried to employ calm swimming and maintaining the form which minimizes turbulence in the water. It's hard to maintain that form, as I lose concentration as I get tired. As I stroke and look at my stroke under the water, I noticed a big difference between both arms in bubble formation.
This was strange, I thought at first. My right arm would stroke with almost no bubbles at all, but my left with stroke back with a huge frothing of bubbles. As I analyzed further, I realized that I was not symmetrical with respect to my stroke. My right hand enters the water more at my head, and then glides straight forward out. My left hand, however, does a more traditional reach-out and over the water until it is almost extended, and then enters the water far forward of my head. Somehow, this reach-out and over causes huge bubble formation and if the texts are true, then I am wasting energy on bubble formation which could be used for forward propulsion but is making me expend more energy in a non-useful fashion.
So I've been really paying attention to my bubbles and trying to remove them. After figuring out what was different between my left and right arm strokes, I strove to make my left arm like my right arm. On slower stroking, I can make both arms even with minimal bubbles. As my stroke rate increases, it becomes harder and harder. Yet another thing to practice in the next coming months...
Posted by dshen at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)
March 08, 2007
Focus: Counting Sucks!
Marc Evans once asked me during a private swim session if I could actually do a drill and count how many strokes I do. It was a strange question, but very relevant as the task was very simple, which was to do 3 one arm-left arm strokes, then 3 one arm-right arm strokes, and then stroke both arms together for about 6 strokes (3+3).
I thought it to be a funny question, but then I jumped into the pool and did what he asked, although I did lose concentration a few times and stroked more or less than the instructions.
I asked him why he asked me, and apparently there are beginners who have not either not practiced enough, or even have the ability to focus on a particular drill. He was pleased that I could do it most of the time, but apparently enough people go through his swim session who cannot.
I think about this conversation a lot when I jump in the pool. It's hard to do long distance in a 50 meter pool, and even harder in a 25 meter pool, simply because counting is tough, and doubly tough in a 25m pool.
This last Wednesday, we do our monthly 30 minute swim as a measure of fitness and also for stamina building. Sometimes I absolutely hate it, because I need to count. In order to do that, I have to really have razor sharp focus and I still screw it up. For 30 minutes, you can swim over 15 laps (or 30 lengths) and if you're not used to it, it's really tough to count the laps without phasing out somewhere in the middle and then you wonder, "wait was that lap 9 or lap 10?" Once you get there, you're dead. You'll never get back on count.
Swimming 30 minutes is definitely great mental training. It trains your brain to maintain power and stroke rate for a long period of time, but it also trains your focus for counting.
To make things easier, I switch workouts for 50 meter pools versus 25 meters. If I jump into the YMCA or Spectrum Club pool, I pick a workout with more 25/50/100 meter intervals. The most I'll do is 200 m intervals. Beyond 200, I start wigging out because on a 25 m pool, you have DOUBLE the counting. And that really sucks. To do 250/300/400 m intervals multiple times is way too hard. I also try to do more speed sets, which tend to be shorter anyways but still stresses the muscles in a big way.
Posted by dshen at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2006
My New Heroes, Or There Ain't Such Thing as Growin' Old and Weak
Today I pulled out an old issue of USMS Swimmer magazine, issue September-October 2006, which featured the XI Fina World Masters Championships held this year at Stanford University back in early August.
Here are some of the folks who competed and how fast they swam:
Laura Val, 55, 50 Free 29.59, 100 Free 1:02.63
Richard Abrahams, 61, 50 Free 25.23
Christel Schulz, 66, 50 Free 32.73, 100 Free 1:14.76
Graham Johnston, 75, 100 Free 1:10.92, 200 Free 2:36.30
Oldest swimmers to compete:
Eugene Lehman, 93
Ellen Tait, 96
Things to consider. My fastest 50 is probably around 52 seconds and I can't keep that up past 50 meters. My fastest 100 is probably around 1:48 or so and that's also going all out. And you look at that partial list of folks who competed and note that they are DECADES older than you and are still swimming faster than you, sometimes twice as fast...!
Growing old and weak? Not on your life. They keep training and training and reaping the benefits of strength maintenance and health. They have mitigated the slow physical decline of aging and blast the traditional notion that when you grow old, your body will waste away. And to compete when they are 90+ years of age: WOW.
These folks are my heroes, the ones I aspire to be like. For when I grow to be as old as they are, I plan on being as energetic as they are, enough to keep racing Ironman for many decades to come. They are truly an inspiration!
Posted by dshen at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2006
Pulling with Paddles, Swim Training Controversy
These last few months I've been building up my use of paddles while swimming. It was hard in the beginning, as they put a lot of stress on my shoulders. Slowly, over several weeks, I built my endurance to use them to about 400m now. Over the same period, I've noticed the pull in my stroke has gotten considerably stronger, and consequently I have been able to hold high speeds for a longer period of time now.
At the end of every workout, whenever possible, I try to pull with paddles and really get a nice strength workout at the end of a normal Masters workout, and do about 300-400m of swimming. As I enter into my off season, I intend to get more into the strength building part of swimming in preparation for applying strength and endurance next year when the training season begins.
I have used stretch cords and also have done weight training for my catch and stroke. But I have not found that to be as effective as pulling with paddles in the water.
As I find this to be effective for me, I come also to think on all the books I've read and the coaches I've talked to about their methods of swim training.
It seems that so many opinions abound regarding swim training and the use of tools like pull buoys and fins, and what should one focus on and not.
Total Immersion coaches focus on body balance in the water and maintaining a good body position to keep the hips up as well as front quadrant swimming, where you should keep at least one arm in front of your head at all times while swimming. They say that pull buoys don't really work but fins are ok.
Steve Tarpinian, writer of swimming books and producer of swim DVDs, says that each person has an indvidual swim form and they need to find that. He also has a strong opinion on which tools work and which do not.
Marc Evans, a triathlete coach in the Bay Area, is into constant propulsion swimming and actually shortening the stroke from pushing all the way down your leg. In this way, propulsion is constant and maximal.
So how do we, as athletes know what's best for us? The only thing I can say is that I had to try about everything, and also get to know myself as a swimmer very well in terms of what my needs are, and how I swim and where my issues are. I basically had to try everything to figure out what would work best for my body, techniques, and methods.
Bruce Lee, in developing Jeet Kune Do, emphasized studying many styles and taking what works for you and discarding the rest. I believe that learning swimming is the same way, and that to broaden your knowledge base while getting to know one's own issues and strengths is the way to go.
Posted by dshen at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2006
Ways to Improve Your Swimming
Someone asked me what I thought about swimming and why they seemed to swim many times a week for months on end and never seem to improve. So here is what I've learned, and what has been told to me. Also some useful resources:
1. I think that swimming early, or doing any sport for that matter early, is a plus. People who have swam competitively while in high school/college definitely have a leg up. They already have built up key muscles which you or I do not have not...yet.
2. Definitely genetics has something to do with it. I am a butt dragger. I need to really work at bringing my butt up higher, whereas others with different body shapes and compositions seem to ride higher naturally, and thus can focus on other things. This just gives me one more thing to worry about and when I get tired, my butt starts dropping and I get slower. There are other things like size of your hand, length of arm, body proportions (ie. do your proportions look like Michael Phelps'?) that just make you more capable of swimming faster with more ease, rather than working at it.
3. There seems to be a upper bound to swim speed for most people. I think this has more to do with body shape and composition, but also there is a training component as well.
4. My ART doctor told me he works on this competitive swimmer. He's got this muscle in his armpit area that is as thick as my bicep. That comes from swimming 10,000m PER DAY, 5 days per week. It would be amazing if I crossed 10,000m in a week, which usually happens but depends on whether I make a 4000+ swim on Saturdays. To get there, this guy must have been swimming for years, if not a decade or two. I would not recommend doing this next week without proper preparation. So two things here:
a. You need to get to a certain level of volume which implies a certain level fitness and strength. That gives you strength and endurance to power through a race which is much shorter than your training regimen.
b. Where in the world do we working people find the time to swim 10K meters a day? We can barely get through two workouts of two disciplines each day. So just time limitations of life make it difficult to achieve such status. By the way, my coach once worked out with Chris McCormack, the pro Ironman guy. He said this guy's typical day is go to the pool and swim 7000m, then ride about 4 hours at pretty high speed, then run for about an hour, and then jump back in the pool for another 4000m. these pros have the time and motivation to get their bodies primed for such punishment, which equates to incredible excellence during a race.
5. Swimming is a highly technical sport, more so than biking or running. Maintaining strict form is really important for efficiency and speed. People tell me it takes years to do this through an entire workout. When you get tired, your form starts sucking and then you slow down. So here I thought that a video analysis of my swimming at Marc Evans' flume was really valuable in figuring out what I was doing wrong. One of my major focuses is to keep working on the form so that it is neuromuscularly burned into my brain and muscles and I don't have to concentrate on maintaining form. This may be something you'd want to work on in more detail.
6. Last year, I managed to swim 2000m straight at a less than 2:00 pace. It was an amazing thing for me. I even did IM NZ swim leg at 1:55 pace, although it was with a wetsuit. But then I had this nerve pinch thing and it atrophied my right tricep, so now im building my strength back up. I think that after a winter break, we tend to slow down anyways and then we speed up again with base building and moving into build phase of training.
7. To me, if I can sprint at a speed, at some point i can achieve something close to it for long distance. At least that's my goal. Of course I can't keep a threshold pace the whole way, but I should be able to get close to it.
8. I got see saw days too. It happens a lot with triathlon. Yesterday, I ran long and hard, about 12 miles in 1:49 which is very close to my race pace by about :30/mile. It wiped me out for today's workout and I really tanked on the 5x100 drafting round robin and I really died on the 800. So I think a previous day's workout can definitely affect your swim workout. And sometimes I jump in the pool and can't get a proper rhythm down so I'm slower. I suppose if you really wanted to get better at something, you'd want to focus solely on it and forget other sports. I find I like to run a marathon at the end of the season, after getting all the other triathlons out of the way. It allows me to focus solely on running faster, and it has really helped my marathon speed. I don't get drained by long/hard bike sessions as well as long swim sessions. My body can recover from damage better as well.
9. By the way, we're getting older. Perhaps we're past our prime on some kinds of sports. We get more prone to injury so we need to be careful. When i train for triathlon, I find I can only run 3x /week. When i marathon train alone, I run 4-5x /week. But I did manage to up my bike training to 5-6x /week by varying the duration and intensity of the workouts, and allowing for recovery. So we can still build some adaption to higher volumes even at our age! But since our growth hormone levels aren't anywhere near when we were in high school, can we build these massive swim muscles needed for fast, long distance swimming at lightspeed?
10. I think that swimming at Master's workouts is tough from the perspective of preparation for races. If I could, I would have an individual program setup to peak at my races, using periodization. For example, it was really hard to come off the winter break and jump into speed sets. That was definitely not the right thing. I should have had at least a month of endurance base building before really starting speed workouts. There is none of that with most Master's swim workouts. It seems very random. So I started doing some of my own planning around Master's workouts. I started adding 4000+ swims to build endurance. I also added one day of speed training on Mondays when I am down in LA - shorter total length, but lots of sprints. Then on Wednesdays, I usually go to Master's and swim whatever he gives us. On Saturdays I do the super long swim. definitely I think one way for you to improve is to get on a well developed progression versus swimming semi-random workouts. You might do better with stanford - they post the type of workouts for each day of the week ahead of time, and do a rough periodization. so if you could vary the days you go to hit the certain types of workouts, for a given periodization/peak you are trying to reach.
11. Btw, swimming is the least impt sport. Why worry about improving this for only a few minutes more off your total time?
12. You can also try weight lifting. I have found stretch cord workouts to be very beneficial. Lots of tricep work helps.
13. i have a great book called Swimming Fastest by Ernest W. Maglischo. $45 retail, $29 at amazon. Iit's a huge hardcover monstrosity but also has the latest in swimming research from a science point of view. Very cool stuff. explains a lot on how to get faster.
By the way, I have also read many books on swimming. No two coaches agree on anything. It's very confusing as coaches will say what they think is important, and also which tools help the most or least. My take on all that is that everybody needs to find what works for them, given their age, body composition, and fitness level.
Posted by dshen at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2005
CANCELLED!
UGH! The Waikiki Rough Water Swim this last Sunday in Honolulu got cancelled due to extremely rough conditions. Strong trade winds blew in and sent swells rising 10-15 feet. Wind whipped up the water and the surfers were lovin' it, but not enough to risk the non-experienced swimmers of our race.
2 years ago, conditions were not as bad as on Sunday, and they pulled over half the people from the water. Strong 8-10 knot current flowing the wrong way caused many people to tire out and actually get pushed backwards towards Diamond Head.
I suppose that wouldn't have been good, to actually been swimming slowly backward the whole way.
Time to get primed for next year - always a good thing to head to Oahu!
Posted by dshen at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Head Positioning
One more thing I neglected to mention about my head positioning. I try to look about a few degrees forward of the vertical, and press the head and chin down. In that way, I know the water is not flowing over the back of my head which creates drag. When the water hits my forehead, my head is cleanly cutting through the water which is optimal.
I also use my ears as feedback that my head is completely submerged in the water. If I hear water gurgling, then I am too much on the surface, or maybe even my ears are out of the water and then my butt is dragging. So I make sure that I hear no gurgling at all and then I know my head is deep enough.
Sprinted 1:40 for 100m today - got a sprinting test on Friday of 5x100m at 5 seconds rest...yikes!
Posted by dshen at 08:25 PM
January 15, 2005
Swim Secrets
These last two weeks I've been trying really hard to reinforce two things in my swimming.
1. The Catch
My coach tells me about 2 weeks ago that I drop my arm and I don't catch before I stroke. So I start really relaxing my upper arm and make sure I bend at the elbow before my upper arm moves, feel pressure against my hand, and then stroke strongly through the movement. What a difference it made! Now my strokes generate more power and create propulsion for a longer period of time, versus catching later in the stroke and only creating propulsion about half the stroke of the arm.
2. Body position
I am what you would call a "butt dragger". My body proportions don't let me easily rest horizontally on the water. I tend to droop towards my legs and this creates tons of drag. So I did two things.
The first thing was to really use my head as the body positioner. Most of the coaches tell you to "press the buoy" or "press the armpit". This didn't work for me. I still dragged my butt. But I tried something else. I instead press my chin and extend my head. This action enabled me to move my butt higher and be more needle like and horizontal on the water, thus minimizing my drag.
The second thing was to really relax my entire body, instead of tensing, and just roll it back and forth while keeping it needle like. This conserved energy and allowed me to focus on body roll to create power in my stroke. Thus, I did not waste energy feeling nervous about sinking or going faster. I was smoother and devoted all energy to catching the water, stroking while body the rolled to increase power.
Before I did this, I was hard put to sprint 100m at 1:55. This morning I sprinted 1:44!
Posted by dshen at 02:12 AM
