Trying new things in the pool this season

I've been working on some new things this season, though one that I started this week isn't really "new," per se, but I'll get to that in a bit.

I've posted about it on facebook, but as a backstroker, one of my key strategies for the 100 and 200 is maximizing my underwaters. I'm stronger underwater than I am on the surface, so the more I can feasibly push the underwaters, the better my overall race usually ends up going, barring any pacing issues.

The 200 back is one of my events at Nats in the spring for sure, with the 100 potentially on the list, too. As such, I'm changing up how I train for the underwaters this season. Historically, when I've trained for backstroke as a masters swimmer, I haven't focused specifically on the underwaters until February or so, spending the bulk of my backstroke training time prior to then just focused on the swimming and conditioning aspects. That strategy has worked out fairly well overall, but I have yet to hit my goal of 5 dolphin kicks off the wall on all the turns in the 200, even dating back to my best 200 back season all the way back in 2013. At Nats this past spring, I got my closest, with only one turn that didn't hit the 5 dolphin kick mark, but it's a renewed focus this season. My goal for Nats this time around is 5 off each wall on the conservative end, 6 as a stretch goal, and 7 as an ambitious goal.

I know that just focusing on the underwaters for the last couple of months in the leadup to Nats won't set me up for success for that goal, so I'm changing how I train underwaters this season. Rather than wait till February or so, I started working on them in October, when I started training again in earnest.

Every practice, I do the same set: 5 x 100 backstroke kick with fins on 1:30, starting with 5 dolphin kicks off each wall on #1 and adding 1 dolphin kick off each wall each 100, capping at 9 dolphin kicks on #5, while simultaneously descending the 100s 1-5. Wednesdays are my hard kick days, and I add a second set of 5 x 100, going in reverse (starting at 9 and going down to 5) and trying to hold the same time on each one. My dolphin kicks with fins are noticeably faster than my flutter kick, so to be able to hold the same time as the number of dolphin kicks goes down, I have to speed up both my dolphin and flutter kicks.

My goal is to repeat the 5-9 pattern until it doesn't hurt like a &$#*# by the last turn on #5, then increase it to 6-10, then 7-11, then 8-12. Once I hit that benchmark on the 8-12, then I'll turn them into 125s, and so on up to a cap of 200s. I expect it'll take me 3-4 weeks to make it through each phase, so just from a calendar timing perspective, I'm not sure I'll be able to make it all the way up to doing 200s, but that's my main underwater set and training plan. I figure even if I somehow fail at moving beyond doing 100s at the 8-12 level, that should set me up quite well for hitting a bare minimum of 5 dolphin kicks in the 200 at Nats.

The Wednesday set is a lung and leg buster. I do an easy 100 between the two rounds of 5 x 100, but the second half is hard. It should be, but it doesn't make it any conceptually easier knowing my legs and lungs are going to be burning. I did it the first time a few weeks ago and failed pretty badly on the second half. The next week I did better, but still failed. Last week I made it through the first 4 of the second set, then flopped on #5. Today, I finally made it! For the first set, I hit the kicks and descended 1:16 > 1:14 > 1:12 > 1:10 > 1:08. For the second set, I hit the kick targets and held 1:08-1:09 on all 5. I'm going to run through the cycle again next week, and presuming I hit it successfully again, the following week I'll advance to the next phase of 6-10 dolphin kicks and start all over again.

I won't start racing in earnest until after the holidays, but I figure by then I should be in the 7-11 or 8-12 phase for the 100s, or potentially even onto the 125s phase. I look forward to seeing how it pays off once I start doing the 100 and 200 back in meets. 

The second thing that I'm adding this season is cutting back on my breathing into the wall on freestyle. Back in the day as an age grouper, it was drilled into my head to not breathe the last 3 strokes into the wall and the first 3 strokes off the wall. As a masters swimmer, up till now I'd thrown the breathing into the wall portion out the window, and often breathe on my last stroke before the flip in both practice and races. I admittedly just started it this week, but I'm currently focused on not breathing on that last stroke into the turn. Once I can maintain that for an entire practice, then it'll be the last two strokes going into the turn, and then the last three. Regarding breathing off the turn, I've changed to a single side breather in races and breathe to my right (with either a 4-2 or 4-2-2 breathing pattern for the 100 and 200, respectively) as a masters swimmer, so since my breakout stroke is with my left arm, I breathe on my 2nd stroke. That's a fairly recent adaption, I think since 2023 (?), but I'm happy with how it's worked out. I think the heavy underwater work every single practice is going to give me the building blocks I need to be able to hit that target breathing going into the turns for my free events in the spring, so whether I swim the 100 or 200 free at Nats or not, I expect good things to come of it.