Best swim training options

[Matthieu O’Halloran - "M@"]

Hey dexter with your body you will benefit from the double pull/buoy.
Mighty bond they together - the bigger the better for you.
Even if Cebu is a non wet-suit, the salty water will give you extra lift!

Combined with the band, it allows you so focus on faster stroke rate.
And save your legs for bike/run sessions or let them rest when they smashed.
Like right after some hill reps

[doc]

they don't build a pull bouy commercially,  big enuff for you dexter , stop over thinking, and buy  2 pull bouts stick em together with sup a glue and get on with the real business
swim more

[Tommo]

While you guys on the subject of swimming....

I haven't done any swimming for at least 2 years, haven't swim trained properly for 4 years. Before then I had a pb in the swim of 65 mins for 3.8km but was getting progressively slower  How would you guys advise that I get back into it? Plan on doing an ironman in 2013.

Would you advise I get a big pull buoy and paddles and just get going or just ease myself in with drills and such like. Feel like I'm starting from scratch really.

Any advice appreciated (sorry to the original poster for hijacking)

Tommo

[Matthieu O’Halloran - "M@"]

Hey Tommo dont waste time with drills.
The way triathletes do them and how few they do is purely useless.
And then the fact that your not a kid anymore who easily learns new things.
As you already have bad habits - your attitude should be, get the best out of what you got.

To get back into it, I suggest you to vary the intensity's and focus of your workouts.
All the while increasing overall volume.
Then depending on your individuality/circumstance - cap the volume.
And focus on some real "meat and potatoes" triathlon swim training.

Definitively get some swim toys - which ones and what size?
Well, thats depends on your swim style and morphology

[dexter_ding]

i do already doc. M@ had me stick them both together. been using it for close to a month now. hurts the jewels but the most important thing there is that im learning more about listening carefully to my body and that I'm improving.

no complains here. just consistency and hard work.

[doc]

and dexter listen to matt , hard or ill kick u in the jewels personally , one of my coaching tools , others deem inappropriate
not me

[dexter_ding]

hehehe! where is the like button doc? 

[DamienC]

And what would you do with someone who says using pull bouys hurts their lower back?

[Fegan]

I had an issue last year where doing pull and band was causing some back ache. Scott told me to lay off the band and it helped but the pain came back when I started band-pull swimming again. So I decided to do what cured my knee pain when cycling in the hills - which was to push on through and adapt. Amazingly, no more pain.

Not sure I'd advocate this as advice to anyone else but I've found when things hurt but aren't acute pain then getting stronger and adapting seems to be the best cure, rather than avoiding the underlying weakness and just hitting the same problem time and time again. I suppose the "art" is knowing when you just need to HTFU and when there's actually an underlying issue that needs looking at.

[doc]

id say  you got the wrong clue, pull bouys are there for a number of reasons and one of them is to protect the back
we do not band pull dragging legs , all our group who use band are encouraged to fly kick .
if you want to get a sense of why pull bouys are  so important
take a look at the best swimmers underwater , and you can see , how far even the great ones sink in the lower 1/2 of the body
nobody is flat on the water , accept salnikov whose stroke had his arse popping out the water ever time he drove his breathing arm in
however one can think , that this floatation could have come about by the old east german trick of inflating rectum with bike pump and use vaseline
to keep it there .
i kid you not , and so , if you don't like pull bouy , i have given you another alternative and all triathletes already have a bike pump .

[terrence]

how many psi or should i use gas

[Fegan]

Curry a few beers and a butt plug should do it.


I'll stick to the buoy though