In fly my arms are spinning
In fly my arms are spinning
I feel pretty good swimming fly at a nice even pace. As soon as I try to sprint, I feel like my arms are spinning and I am not grabbing any water. The problem is, the nice smooth stroke works in a 200 fly, but my 100 fly is slower than the 50 freestylers. How do I sprint fly?
May seem obvious..
But you are spinning. When you do your stroke slowly notice that you are able to focus on catching the water. You want that same catch even when you sprint.... otherwise you are just slicing through the water. The person who recommended keeping a stroke count is right in... watch some of the clips on the site and or any meet and you will notice that the fastest swimmers likely have a slower stroke then you do. Its all about catch that water with you entire arm. Next step would be to have the good folks at The Athlete Village analyze a clip of you...
1. I'm curious, why you are
1. I'm curious, why you are comparing your 100 fly to 50 freestylers? 2. instead of focusing on increasing the tempo of your arms, try to increase the speed with which your body undulates. See if you can pick up the tempo from the body first and the arms second.
I train fly, and the freestylers beat me in the 100...
Thanks for the note Free-thinker. I mentioned the 50 freestylers because they drive me nuts. I train fly all the time, which is hard. The sprinters do stretchy cords and sprint...almost no fly in practice. Also, people always tell me how great my stroke is, and that my butterfly is great. I never hear this about the sprinters. Yet, at the end of the day they always beat me in the 100 Fly(I don't think they could finish the 200 fly). I will try increasing the speed of undulating. Trying to increase stroke rate does not seem to work.
LisaE
Hmmm
The training the free sprinters are doing is perfect for what you are trying to accomplish as well. You are talking about swimming the 100 fly, which is a sprint, so maybe joining the sprinters doing the stretch cords and sprinting in practice several times a week would be a good thing. Another idea to consider: take the focus off the fly for a bit! There is nothing wrong with working on the other three strokes.
Fly arms spinning
Two tips:1. Try and keep the same stroke count for each 25 whether you are swimming the 200 or the 50. This may not be too realistic, but practice around with it. If you are taking say 8 strokes a 25 for the 200, then try not to take more than 10 for the 50.2. Involve your kick more the shorter the race. In a 50 develop your speed and momentum from your legs and kick, rather than your arms. Hope this helps.
i have the same issue, help
i have the same issue, help please. i swim almost even splits in my 100 fly. my friends laugh at my 50 time, think my 100 time is ok, and think my 200 time is amazing. why cant i sprint fly?
Try stroke counting
I would guess that maybe you do more long slow yards verses sprints? You might be just better built for distance fly. Try swimming 25 fly and count your strokes. They are probably on the low side (8 or less?) and you glide quite a bit. If so, try adding 1-2 strokes to your next length, and keep doing that until you have increased it by up to 11-12 strokes (if possible).You probably wouldn't keep it there, but you can play around with increasing your turn-over rate.At this point you are moving your arms faster and basically sprinting. So, you need to increase your turnover to sprint. If you have a 200 fly to do, you want to lengthen your stroke. Also, to increase your second half of the 100 fly race, you may want to stretch out the first 50 and then add 1-2 strokes per length for the final 50. For example: 25 at 7 strokes, 25 at 7 strokes, 25 at 9 strokes and 25 at 10 strokes.