Wednesday, November 16, 2011

You're the Best

Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Time: 5:40 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Meters
222 days to Olympic Trials

1900 warmup and main set prep

100 IM fast from push (1:03.2)

300 easy

100 back fast from push (1:02.5)

300 easy

100 free fast from push (59.8)

250 easy

50 breast fast from push (32.1)

200 easy

Total: 3,300 meters

Today's main set as written was 10 rounds of 100 fast/100 easy on 4:30. Before the start of the set, I had only done 1,100 meters of swimming, which is not enough for my body to wake up and start swimming fast. So, I used the first four rounds of the set to do some aerobic swimming and breakouts. I felt like my blood sugar was getting low after the first round, so I hopped out and took a few big chunks out of an apple I brought to the pool. After about five minutes, I felt better. I rarely eat before workout; the apple was to be post-workout fuel restoration. I believe swimming in the warm water had quickly burned up the fuel stores I had in my body, and I was in need of more quickly.

I was happy with my times today, as the 100s were within six seconds of my taper goal time (though I'm not swimming the 100 free in three weeks, I have long hoped to go 53 in short course meters). As for the 50 breast, I felt a little choppy in the first 25, but eased into the stroke off the turn.

Today, my left shoulder gave me some problems. It's the same shoulder that had tendonitis in 2009 -- and will always have issues for the rest of my life, since tendonitis never fully goes away without surgery. I've been negligent in maintaining strength in my shoulder muscles and tendons, and I realized that when doing exercises last week with JR Rosania. Tonight, I put a lot of focus on my shoulder work without overstressing my left shoulder. When I am not doing dryland, my goal is to do some shoulder stabilization exercises to keep my shoulder strong. I feel it mostly on backstroke and freestyle, mostly in posterior muscles (deltoid and rhomboid).

JR toldme that today was the best I've worked since starting with him. I kind of agree, but I still feel as sore as the first session. The difference, he said, is that my muscles have adapted to the stress of the exercises ot the point that I'm able to finish the exercises strongly. The hip extensions, where I lift my legs from perpendicular to parallel to the floor, is still the toughest exercise. My lower back is in knots for hours afterwards. A little Ben-Gay helps soothe the soreness. But that exercise has helped my butterfly, which is my worst stroke. I feel like I'm using my second kick more, which does originate in the lower back and travels down the leg. It helps with the finish of my breaststroke kick, too, but the biggest improvement has been in butterfly. I am anxious to see if it will provide any assistance in getting through the first quarter of the individual medley.

Wednesdays are awesome when I know I am swimming with Coley Stickels' group the next day. I get to sleep in until 6:30! You would think I would stay up later, but usually my body is ready for sleep at 9:00.

2 comments:

  1. Do you have any thoughts on how deep younshould be on breast pullouts. I grew up swimming at UT swim center with Longhorn. Deep pool as you know. After 21 years without swimming, im now a masters swimmer but obviously have some of the same techniques (good or bad). Now I train in a pool that is really shallow on one end -- waist high, maybe 3 feet. My hands hit the bottom on every pullout on the shallow end. Pullouts feel much faster and better on the deep end. Should I adapt to pushing off more shallow? What's faster?

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  2. I'm usually about four feet deep when I start my pullouts. Yes, I was lucky to have a deep pool at Texas, and very lucky to have one now. But, I grew up in shallow pools and adapted well. You'll have to adapt to the situation now, and have great pullouts at the deep end, and not-so-great ones at the shallow end.

    Just don't push off and have part of your body riding the surface. That's even worse. Just angle your arms so they don't scrape the bottom.

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