Oct 20, 2012 – T2 Aquatics

Coach Yetter Answers Question on IM Training

PB means “Pull Buoy” and 5th means to “breathe every 5th”. I use “5th” quite a bit, simply to keep the athlete’s strokes looking good – they tend to get sloppy when they breathe every stroke, so I use it often on transition swims between sets. I also think they can get their freestyle timing down when they have a pattern they stick to (the head should turn for the breath when the hand enters the water, so by breathing in a certain rhythm the athletes can “plan” when the head will turn, thus the initiation of the breath will be consistently well-timed).

Free IM is a great way to train IM. Katie Hoff, for instance, did 75% of her “IM” work in practice Free IM. You have to do “Regular IM” too, but by training “Free IM” you get a few benefits:

1. The Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Freestyle tend to be a bit better technically and in terms of velocity when Freestyle precedes them instead of Fly. Over a 30-40 minute set, this improvement can have quite a positive effect. Most of my athletes tend to be able to transfer that improvement to “IM” sets, and in competition,

2. The amount of “tired” fly is decreased throughout the week/month/year of training. Certainly the 100 Fly on the 10th 400 IM in practice is going to be quite a bit different than the Fly used in a 400 IM race – so why train it? There are times to do it, for sure! The athlete has to be “used to it” … but there are sometimes when the Free IM will allow the athletes to train the IM without practicing sloppy Fly,

3. Training Free IM saves the Fly training for later in the day or week. Often I’ll do a Fly set after a Free IM set, or focus on Fly for the entire day following a Free IM day. The Fly is going to a little bit better during those times – and that “little bit” goes a long way!

Each athlete is different, and the key to coaching athletes is to figure out what type of training works for them. Some athletes need more real IM work than others! Free IM has worked for many of my athletes, and has not only benefit their IMs, but ALL of their strokes including Fly. The percentage of top-notch fly swum in practice is perhaps more important than the amount of fly (some top-notch and some sloppy) swum in practice.