Posted by heathweaver

It is immensely frustrating to not see any progress on my personal best times. Ten weeks ago I had dropped below 17 seconds on 25 meters and below 38 seconds on my 50, but as the time has passed my times have gotten worse and worse. The funny thing is that I feel like I am improving my technique.

The disconnect between feeling more comfortable in the water and improving my swim time is connected the way I practice. When I practice by sprinting almost as fast as I can on every lap I saw a constant decrease of my swim time. What I notice is that when I swim around 24 seconds per lap (in 25 meter pool) my technique is, what I feel, quite correct. However, when I sprint I revert back to the technique that I had six months ago.

The ideal situation is where you swim very slowly to work the kinks out of your stroke, but then sprint enough to apply those to your sprint stroke. Within a workout I’d advise swimming a few 100s quite slowly, a few 50s slowly, and 2x25s on a Dolphin kicks and Sharks. Then once you are really focused begin swimming 25s and 50s as fast as you can. No need to use the blocks, just push yourself to swim your max, then rest.

If you feel your technique is slipping then do a couple of Superman drills (usually called side kick drills). Then go back to your sprints. Finish up with some sprints off the blocks and see where you end up.