Disturbed275's Group - FULL!! (Page 11)

carrie639 - 2010-01-07 7:32 AM Swimming with a pull buoy is a NO, NO long term only because you are not using your legs and you should develop your full body.  I did it all summer long and for my races, but I had and was able to wear a wetsuit (very buoyant) for my races.  There may be races where you cannot wear a wetsuit because that water is too warm and if you don't at least have a little kick to keep your legs up, they will sink and you will be dragging yourself through the water.  Also, once you develop your swim muscles (just like I am trying to develop run muscless) kicking will help you and you should be able to go faster.

It is also a NO, NO because you can injure yourself if you don't take it too slow.  You will find when you use one that swimming will feel so much more effortless and you will want to push yourself and maybe injure or make your shoulders very sore.  I have a very strong upper body and got away with it over the summer, but not without my shoulder aches and pains.

Go for it and try it, just do it slow.  Focus on your breathing and getting comfortable and working on your arm stroke.  You should go slow anyhow working on technique to make sure you are doing it right.  Better to go slow and get technique down pat rather than going faster. 

Swimming at first is very intimidating.  My masters team has 35-45 people in 8 lanes on any given night.  I was totally intimidated the first night but everyone was really nice and great about me being slow and new and learning things.  Don't worry about the others in the pool, it will get easier swimming with them.  If there is a faster swimmer in your lane they will either pass you, of if you know they are on your heels, just wait at the turn around and let them pass.

Go for it and let me know how it goes.

Leegoocrap - 2010-01-07 1:25 PM

Mine came from swimming TI (total Immersion) style. Before that I had a pretty high stroke count.

Keep it mind having a higher stroke count is kind of like taking longer strides running... at some point your stride does have to lengthen for you to move faster (as opposed to us all running the same mph at 180 rpm)
When I have a low stroke count, I am much more in a TI style swim... which is NOT how somebody like Michael Phelps swims. His arms are constantly moving, not "spearing" through the water. TI is more of a mindset of "I need to swim... a long time... then do something else" as opposed to "I need to swim 50-400m... FAST." Most people run the 40 different than they do a marathon.

That's most people's biggest complaint with TI... at some point you cannot go any faster without adding strokes back in / moving back to a more traditional style of swimming.

1stTimeTri - 2010-01-07 8:15 PM

Neal, the quotes got all effed up, so I think this is how it was supposed to be.

carrie639 - 2010-01-06 10:52 PM

Had a moment tonight during my masters swim which I think can help you all that are trying to learn to swim and figuring out the breathing.

This is a total NO, NO , but for the sake of figuring out breathing try using a pull buoy.  If you don't know what a pull buoy is, most pools do have it and it basically looks like a foam dog bone.  Put it between your legs and trying swimming with this. 

What the pull buoy will do is take your legs out of the equation (it keeps your legs afloat) and allow you to focus on your arm stroke/technique so you can get the rotation in the water to get your head out.  Additionally, if you are learning how to swim kicking will take a ton out of you ( because of having to develop swim endurance) and it will allow you to get in some distance while working on your arms and breathing.

Don't do this forever, cuz pull buoys are a crutch if used 100% (but will also help you develop arm strength when you are ready).

PLEASE IF YOU DO THIS TAKE IT SLOW, because by using pull buoys you are pulling yourself through the water 100% using your arms and although you may not feel like you are overdoing it, you can injure your shoulders.

Take is slow and learn the breathing then toss the buoy.  Good luck and let me know how it goes.

fungi32 - 2010-01-07 8:45 PM Run this morning and signed up for a half marathon in March just to make me get it in gear a little and also need to work on my run. Just from my view the TI video worked wonders for me.

Leegoocrap - 2010-01-09 8:49 PM FTP test this morning. At the end it reminded me of when I used to do Crossfit hardcore... I just felt... strange. Anyways, my numbers certainly won't be breaking any records, but at least it's a baseline.

20minutes

Avg. Cadence: 93
Avg. Watts: 182
Max. Watts: 432
Avg. Heart Rate: 173

FTP: (Avg. Watts x .05) = 173

Now it's all about getting stronger

ncSwede - 2010-01-10 11:36 AM

Are you goig to use this number to determin at what level to train as a percentage of FTP? I assume this % will be different based on what distance you are training for. Or are you using this test to baseline where you are and then do it again in a few months to see if you have improved?

I like both of these ideas and I think that I will eventually get a power tap, as an engineer I like to get some numbers that I can analyze. But I e told myself I have to atleast train for one season first.

randomguymike - 2010-01-10 1:35 PM OK. So, what is FTP? I was glad to see the heart rate you posted. My average on my last ride was 172 for the first 5 miles. So, looks like I'm not as far off as I thought.

Another bike question:
Do you ride in both drop and the hoods (I think those are the terms). I never even realized people rode on the drops till seeing a couple of posts in biking forums pointing out proper body position. I tried it breifly on my last ride, but the gut felt like it was in the way. So, I just went back to normal position. Is this something I should save for after I suck less at riding, or should I learn to ride on them now? Also, is that a good intermediate step to riding aero, or should I go aero without worrying about riding on the drops first?

carrie639 - 2010-01-11 5:17 AM Queston your ride:  Is this basically a time trail to see where you are at?  What rules did you follow?  Did you set a specific time?  Were you supposed to ride as hard as you could?  Or were you supposed to ride in a specific zone?  at a specific HR?  Why 20 minutes?

I see your results, just trying to understand what your control parameters were.

I usually just ride a a specific course I have ridden in the past (I have a computrainer) just to see if any progress has been made. 

How often do you do time trials?  Would you do an easy week leading up to it?

Thanks

Carrie

michwea - 2010-01-10 7:19 PM While we are talking bike training...  I'm still riding my Trek mountain bike (I've been looking at and researching road bikes and am probably going to make a purchase in the next couple of weeks).   Anyway, my mountain bike has some pretty knobby tires which I know are creating a lot of resistance on the road. Still, I was supposed to do about a hour long aerobic ride today.  That should have been HRZ 2 right?  Granted there was a nice headwind going, but about 20 mins of the ride was in Zone 3 and 20 was in Zone 4!  And I only averaged 11.5 mph (although my max was 15.6 mph).  I guess I'm having a hard time knowing if I'm making progress on the bike with such low speeds.  The effort seemed fairly easy most of the time.  Seems like if I wanted to stay primarily in Zone 2, I would have had to ride somewhere under 10mph, and then what's the point?

I'd love to get a Power Tap someday as it would provide an objective measurement of effort, but right now, the heart rate monitor is going to have to do.  If I had a road bike that would offer less resistance, would I be seeing faster speeds at less effort?  I hate sucking this bad at something...