I'm alright at 50 fly but im terrible at 100 fly, what can i do?

Question

My best 50 fly time was a 28 in a relay

and about a 30 during an individual

I feel like fly is my strong suit... as long as if its short distance.

When i try the 100 fly in practice, during the third lap im gone.

See, I'm a jr and i want to actually make varsity SENIOR year, but my events are 50 fly and 100 IM (about a 1:09), and neither of those are varsity events. 200 IM sounds way too scary so maybe i should focus on the 100 fly.

So basicaly im asking, what can i do to make my 50 fly even faster, and what can i do to be ABLE to swim the 100 at all?

Any opinions/suggestians/comments?

Answer 1

You should for the 50 fly you should pretend like you're in a relay and your best friend is waiting to take off.  As for the 100 fly don't go super fast just feel your rhythm-get in to the motion.

Answer 2

First, get a lot of ab strength.  Core strength is very important when swimming the butterfly.  It will also help you to stay streamlining.

Now you need to learn how to swim the 100 butterfly.  Depending on how strong you are, this can differ a little from person to person.

I'm hoping that this is a 25 yard pool...:

First 25: Make it relaxed and try to set a pace and try to get ahead of the opponents in your heat.

Next 25:  Start breathing either every 2 or 3 strokes.  REMEMBER AT THIS POINT TO KEEP YOUR ARMS LONG WHEN YOU REACH.  If the strokes get too short, then you will end up going slower.

3rd 25:  SPRINT.  This is where a lot of other people die during this race.  This is the point where you can gain on others or even get a bigger lead.  Keep remembering to keep the strokes long.  And you should now be breathing every 2.

Last 25:  Give it everything that you have left in you.  When your shoulders are starting to hurt, make sure you are kicking.  Try to lift your butt up during the stroke to ensure this.  Now breathe around every 4 strokes if you can do that, as you have no need to save up any more energy.

Work on this in practice...

If you do this it should probably and hopefully bring your 100 yard fly time down to about a 1:00 by the end of the season.

Good luck!

P.s. I am a swimmer too and a butterflyer and breaststroker.  My 100 fly time is :58.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

You must make your upper body muscles stronger. Do lots of Butterfly in trainning. do heaps of butterfly kick

Answer 4

It sort of depends. 200 IM isn't bad at all, because you seem pretty good at 50 fly, and that will extend your lead, instead of only doing 25. If you're alright at the other strokes, I'd definitely aim for 200 IM.

As for 100 fly, I thought 'no way' at first, but I got entered by my parents anyway, and I swum it, and now it's my best event. I'd suggest practicing and just pacing yourself. Perhaps try doing 100m slow, but working on technique for one whole week, then add in maybe the last 25m at 70% week 2, then 12.5m 70%, 12.5m 90% week 3, 25m 90 % week 4 and keep on gradually adding in a faster pace for a longer length. I'm sure you'll get it!

Answer 5

I'm pretty sure you're good enough, you're faster than me when freestyling

Answer 6

in regards to what kenny said, you can be toned but not bulky. and also, trust me, the 200 IM is not way too scary. it's 8 laps! and if you're a junior you should be able to handle that. so try the 200 IM, and maybe that'll be your best event. now, for the 100 fly:

I personally consider the 100 fly harder than the 200 IM, but maybe not  for you. as far as the whole thing goes, it's easy to think about. first 50 build, second 50 sprint. butterfly (as you probably know) requires lots of upper body strength. so, try strengthening your core and upper body strength. also, be sure to find your rhythm in the race. i'm sure that in some of your fastest races, they felt smooth and well timed, so try and get used to that. also, it's okay to breathe a lot in the 100 fly. lastly, when you do sets in practice where you choose the stroke, always choose butterfly, regardless of how tired you are. it sounds like torture (unless you do easy sets) but it will definitely teach you how to maintain good technique when you're tired, as you undoubtedly will be if you really push yourself in the race. good luck!

Answer 7

Part of is physical and part of it is mental.

(1) Strengthen up. Do lots of core exercises. A strong core means you'll be able to do the whole stroke as one fluid motion -- not upper body and lower body working on their own.

(2) Work on technique. Your recovery should be very relaxed.

(3) You need to break through the mental barrier that you can't do an entire 100 fly holding your stroke together. Start doing entire sets of fly. No matter how badly you fall apart -- keep doing fly.  Within a two weeks, doing 100 fly will be easy.

Good luck!

Answer 8

Start doing 200 metres fly swims in training to help build up your stamina, I used to do sets of 10 x 200 metres fly

This will build your stamina for the 100 and probably give you the confidence to maybe do a 200 in the future.

As for sprinting the 50, its all about starts and turns, I am taking it that you have a decent stroke, practice doing your 15 allowable metres under water off your start and turn, much quicker swimming with your fly kick under water than above, so do some fly kick sets, say 10 x 100's, without a board and alternate 1 on your front, one on your back, just making sure you stay underwater for maybe 10 kicks when you push off the wall before you come up to breath

These are 2 sets I used to do and for example I was not that quick on 50 metres based on rankings, best time was 24.61, but I could carry this on for a 100 time of 52.65, then my 200 was 1:57.42

Answer 9

it's going to suck, but I have found through my own self-torture that the best way to get better at butterfly is to swim it more. When doing sets, try throwing in a lap or so of butterfly instead of freestyle.

Also, try to get there before or after and get time where you can work on your technique, especially if it's with a coach. Doing butterfly distance is no fun if your being inefficient.

I cut down my 100 fly time by about 3 seconds just by focusing on extending my arms and "lifting my butt". My timing was off too. So if I can shave off three seconds from one little fix, you should be fine being on varsity if you work hard.

In weight room focus on heavy shoulders - pull ups and swim bench.

Just remember you don't have to be super bulky shoulders like the status quo to be a good butterflyer. The best butterflyer on our HS team went 50 point in the 100 fly and he was a twig, but he had flawless smooth technique.