How to Swim Butterfly Forever
Friday, July 6, 2012 at 1:38PM I've been knocking out some epic swim sessions this week, doing 2600 meters of butterfly without stopping. I'm no butterfly phenom, so I thought I should share how I learned to do it for those of you that might want to try it.
First, I got used to swimming freestyle non-stop for 1 hour. I just pace myself and take two extremely short breaks at 20 and 40 minutes just to gulp a mouthful of gatorade and then keep going. If you don't refuel, then you aren't getting in the great workout that you should be. Running on fumes leads to bad form, bad attitude, and bad results. If you're going to be working out for an hour, don't waste your time by doing it half-assed. Yes, you don't get to stop during a swim race and drink, but you've also tapered, carb loaded, and have a ton of fuel in your belly. It's not the same thing, so we can all get over it already.
Once you learn the pacing to go for an hour on a regular basis, it gets pretty easy. Next, start your swim sessions with some 100s of fly on an interval instead. Swim 100 yards of it at a casual, very slow pace, and then add 30 seconds - That's your interval.
At the beginning of every swim practice, start by doing fly at the casual pace on that interval. Once you get up to being able to doing 10 in a row, you'll start being able to shrink the interval down. Shrink the interval some, and then try to do more than 10. 11, maybe 12?
After a few weeks of this, you will get the coordination down of how to swim fly at a sustainable pace (very slow!) and doing 200s instead of 100s. And doing 20 intervals instead of 10! Eventually, the whole stroke finally "clicks" and you find you can swim nonstop, just like freestyle.
It took me a couple of months, but I went from nearly dying when swimming 25+ yards of fly to being able to go 1.65 miles of it in an hour. The difficulty is easily outweighed by the feeling of accomplishment, so give it a fly try!
By the way, I wanted to mention that I just added my long audio interview with The Fruitarian Runner Guy in the ZenTri Masters Area. Check it out!
Reader Comments (4)
I also started enjoying fly and after 4 years build up, I got to doing 100 lengths 2500m in an hour. Later in 2011 I finished a half iron man using fly. It took me a15minute transition to get my legs ready to cycle as I got a bit crampy in the last 10 minutes of the swim! Anyway, pleased to have done it and a good experience. Due to a running related leg injury I've not swum fly for 6 months. I really miss it. Keep it going.
Hey, that's a really cool comment! How did people react to you swimming fly for the half?
Hey Brett, just logged in to the masters area for first time. How do i get to content? I just get the subscribe page when i click on the masters link.
Fly is a legal stroke in a triathlon, so as long as you stay well clear of other swimmers you should be allowed to continue. However, I did approach the organisers before hand to see if they would mind and they were not very encouraging. Anyway, I stayed wide and didn't interfere with anyone. I stopped every few minutes to recover, and enjoyed seeing others go by and chatted to the support kyakers - who thought I was mad, but impressed. I remember being in awe of a blind swimmer who overtook me, and was amazing to see him later running well ahead of me. Towards the end a kayak shadowed me as they were worried I might sink. (I wasn't). If I did it again, I may do it without a wetsuit, as the buoyancy makes swimming fly strange and changes the "feel"... Flying for 1 hour does take it out of you and my legs weren't as fresh as usual on the bike... Total time was about 7:30, as my running is slow ( 3hours) and I had an achillies problem. Swim 1 hour, Bike 3 hours, transition total 30mins!. The Dambuster Half was well organised and would do it again.
I was hoping to attempt a full Ironman using fly, but currently my training has gone down the pan.... I'm hoping to persuade others in my tri club to take up the guantlet... I have plans for a t-shirt something like: Fly-On-Man / FLIronman T shirt! Why crawl when you can fly!