Manic Monday

Date: January 23, 2012
Time: 5:50 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Meters
154 days to Olympic Trials

300 warmup

6x50 breast pull on 1:00 with pull buoy

Four rounds:
200 IM drill on 4:00
8x25 on :30 (:35 for breaststroke)*
*On 25s:
Round 1 free with one breath per 25
Round 2 breast double pullouts
Round 3 back swim
Round 4 fly with one breath

8x25 on :35
Odd: free
Even: back

6x50 breast pull on 1:00 with pull buoy

100 easy

Total: 2,800 meters (70 minutes)

Yes, it is unusual that I am swimming on Monday. I had to take my partner, Geoff Glaser, to the airport very early this morning, and figured that I would switch my days off and swim today instead of tomorrow. I knew whatever the main set would be today would be too much of a distance set for me, so I decided to swim in the short course meters part of the pool instead of the yards side.

The main set was a 250 on 4:00, followed by 6x50s on :40. Not really my cup of tea, especially since I am now officially focusing on sprinting.

The water was too warm to do any major anaerobic work, as I had planned. I estimate the water was 82 degrees, so I kept everything aerobic. I'll do anaerobic sprint work on Wednesday and Friday. I plan on swimming with the age group team at Phoenix Swim Club Thursday, and their workout is not anaerobic on that day.

This evening, I worked out with JR Rosania, and we found a great exercise for breaststrokers. I found out that the teres minor muscle is largely responsible for the outsweep on the breaststroke pull, and we rigged two pieces of tubing and simulated the outsweep of the pull. It definitely worked the teres minor muscles, and a few others in the shoulder area. By the end of March, we hope to work up to doing 50 repetitions of that exercise, a little more than the number of strokes I will take in a 100-meter breast race. Today, I did two sets of 15, and I felt the exercise do its thing.