Get Into the Groove

PHOENIX, Arizona, October 5. 264 days to Olympic Trials!

Journal by Jeff Commings, Swimming World associate producer

Jeff Commings, who will be the second-oldest man to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials next summer, is journaling his daily training regimen on his personal blog. We are reprinting those articles here:

Today's workout:
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Short Course Yards

300 warmup

6×50 on 1:00
(was supposed to do some breakouts and fast turns, but I wasn't ready to swim fast)

200 free aerobic on 4:00
(Went 2:18, was supposed to be fast but I wasn't fully warmed up)

2×100 IM aerobic on 2:00

4×50 on 1:00 (15y breakout/35y easy)

8×25 on :30
(1, 4, 6, 8 done with 15m breakouts)

200 free aerobic on 4:00 (2:20)

100 IM fast, followed by 100 easy on 4:00
(58.2 on fast 100 IM)

4×50 easy on 1:00

8×25 easy on :30

200 free aerobic on 4:00 (2:20)

2×100 back aerobic on 2:00

4×50 on 1:00
(1 and 3 fast breaststroke — 29.6, 30.0)

8×25 easy on :30

200 free aerobic on 4:00 (2:21)

2×100 back aerobic on 2:00

4×50 easy on 1:00

8×25 on :30
#1 fast breast from a dive: 11.8
2 and 3 easy
4 fast from push: 13.8
5-7 easy
8 from a push: 13.5

100 easy (with stretching)

Total: 3,900 yards

Today was a good example of how I amend the posted workout to do some race-pace training. As you can see, we did essentially four rounds of four 200s in broken fashion. The 200 was supposed to be fast on the first round, the 100s fast on the second round, etc. The workout called for both 100s to be fast, but I only did one fast. It also called for all four 50s to be fast, but I did two of them fast. I was not happy with the IM time, but everything else was good. I didn't feel like I was in my groove until the final 15 minutes of the workout, which was right about the time we were doing the 50s fast. My stroke felt pretty good, though my legs are a little achy from last night's body work. I had a hard time grabbing water with my feet on the breaststroke kick, and I wasn't sure if I was moving forward.

All in all, it was a good workout. I got lots of chances to concentrate on speed and technique. I wanted to keep my stroke count low while improving my stroke tempo. Not an easy thing to do. I was taking 7.5 to eight strokes per length on breaststroke, and there's nothing bad about that, but I would have been much happier to go those times with just seven strokes. The dive 25 breast was a welcome surprise. I don't usually break 12 seconds until I start tapering!

Back in June, as I was preparing to make my Trials cut in the 100 breast, I asked one of the Phoenix Swim Club coaches, Takahisa Ide, to film my start to see what can be improved. You see the above-water shot here and the underwater shot here. As you will see in the underwater shot, my head was not between my arms, but well outside the body line, which was slowing me down. This was also true on my turns. After a couple of weeks of work, I believe fixing this technique flaw is what helped get me that Trials cut, and what helped me get under 12 seconds this morning. Thanks again, Tako!

Reprinted from Jeff's personal blog at commings.blogspot.com.

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