Also in the belated happy wishes category: Belated happy inauguration day and welcome to the presidency, Barack Obama! In the spirit of keeping this blog mostly about triathlon and not about the powder keg that is politics, all I will say about it is: I totally watched the whole thing on CNN yesterday.
So to training we go.
I recently stumbled on some footage of a very great swimmer on a forum that I frequent that really made me step back and try to analyze my own stroke. Watch this clip and notice how long his hand rests when it lands on the water. Also notice how fluid the end of the pull phase of his stroke is and how fluidly it comes out of the water and around. He's really just starting his pull just slightly before his recovering hand comes down on the water, ensuring that his body is in the most streamlined position for the maximum amount of time that pull phase is going on.
I tried to replicate this in the pool to great success; well, the first time anyway. My 100m time were dropping and staying down the whole session by 2-3 seconds. This is definitely significant, but the real benefit came during longer repeats. The stroke is so much more efficient that it was saving me between ten and fifteen seconds over three hundred meters or so. However, even after viewing this footage over and over, it seems as though I have not been able to replicate the effects of the first time since. Sure, my swimming has been on the good side of average, often better, since then, but I cannot replicate the dramatic improvement, especially over any significant distance. This has been extremely disappointing, considering how I thought that I had found a major deficiency in my stroke and had corrected it as well.
My body used to be in so much less of an efficient position during the pull phase because my recovering hand wouldn't catch up until the pull was at least half way done or more. This means I had to start the pull of my other hand sooner, reducing the amount of time my body was well positioned. A few things I have noticed about swimming more efficiently like the Hackett video are: It takes so much more core strength to keep your hand stabilized at the front (i.e. keep it from sinking), while keeping your pulling hand fluid through the end of the pull to the beginning of its recovery. Also, the tricepts get a lot more action finishing the stoke well and coming around for the recovery in an efficient manner. I therefore have been putting in a lot of weight and core training at the gym after my swim sessions. It seems as though my times have been picking up again, though not to the extent that they had originally, and they are probably about the same as they were before I even changed my form over long distances. I'm sure that this is because my new set of mechanics are using slightly different muscle movements that are not as well-trained as my old ones. This results in fatiguing earlier and not being able to keep the form together for very long. For this reason, I have also shortened my sessions to about 2 kilometers; down from the 2.5 k average that I used to have. It's useless to keep swimming after I can no longer hold a good form because the muscles don't get trained properly that way.
Phew! Enough about swimming.
Running has been going just about as well as it had after the marathon, although I've been relegated to using the treadmill at the Y lately because of how cold it's been. My times are still definitely better than they used to be over the summer, but a few seconds per mile slower than they were during that period of overcompensation after Harrisburg.
Due to the weather, I also haven't been able to get out on the bike since the end of December, but trainer work has been going incredibly well and I'm confident that I'll be back this season as a strong cyclist as I was two years ago. During my post-swim weight sessions, I've been doing leg presses in a slightly different position that has been hitting my cycling muscles much much more. This has been very much evident lately when I hop on the trainer. I'm just dreading when it's warm enough to ride outside again and I actually have to ride up a hill. Climbing is always an incredibly difficult and uncomfortable thing to relearn after a couple of months not seeing a hill.
Lastly, I'll finish this post with a bit of good news. I'm now proudly sponsored by GU! To check them out, simply hit up www.guenergy.com. Have a great selection of energy gels and drinks to serve your every workout-fueling need.
P.S. If anyone out there feels like sending me a late Christmas present in the form of a new Hed Jet Disc, I'm all for it!
Cheers.
2 comments:
the GUenergy link doesn't work, homez
Phew, thanks for the heads-up. Works now!
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