Butterfly: The hard part is taking
it easy

By GARY SMALL

John Szabo posted the following on the TI Discussion Forum:

“I really enjoy swimming fly and have decent form and understand the mechanics. I can swim 25 yards in about 19 seconds with good form (no butterstruggle). After that I hit a wall and everything falls apart if I try to extend that distance. I do 25 yd repeats to try to build stamina but still hit that wall when I try to go further. My goal is to someday swim 200 fly but I am struggling with how to build the necessary stamina.

Studying TI Fly I have tried to slow down the stroke to concentrate on form and efficiency as described here and in Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body so I can go further. But when I slow the stroke I can't maintain form and sink! It seems I must maintain a certain speed to swim fly. This creates a catch 22 for me. So I started using fins and WOW what a difference! However, I feel guilty that I’m cheating and will depend too much on them and that I am not going to be able to wean off them. How do you get to 200 yds?”

This post intrigued me because it is an exact description of my own experiences. I enjoyed swimming butterfly, especially in Masters meets, where I would regularly compete in the 50m sprint and was a permanent fixture on the 50 Fly leg in 200m relays. But, at every meet I would watch with envy as other (to me superhuman) characters would effortlessly sail through the 200m butterfly, and exit the water still able to walk and even smile!

I devised a plan to tackle the 100m butterfly, and -- after a couple of hopefully successful races -- start on the 200m. Well, my first and only 100m race resulted in one of the most horrible experiences of my life: I not only hit the wall as John describes, but felt I had been launched into it from a cannon at close range! Nevertheless, every season I tried unsuccessfully to get into shape to race the 200m. My training was exactly what John describes -- a long series of laps in the 50m pool of either 25m butterfly 25m freestyle, or fins-assisted-butterfly. I could do 100m laps with fins and feel great, but as soon as I took off the fins, I was back to square one.

I had given up the idea of ever doing the 200m race until I was given the key to success by Terry Laughlin at the Kaizen Camp in Coral Springs last November (I have described this experience in another Total Swim article (“Fly” Like an Eagle), when I realized that I was retaining significant tension throughout my stroke. After releasing the tension in my arms and shoulders, the energy consumption in my stroke was radically reduced. Also, the relaxation of the kick (i.e. a toe-flick instead of a thigh-driven thump) has made a tremendous difference. My neck was also an area of tension: the strain of lifting of the head and looking forward to breathe may not be too significant over 25m, but after 50m you have wasted an enormous amount of energy in this little group of muscles. The solution here is the "sneaky" breath - keeping the head in a neutral position and the face as close to parallel with the water as possible while still getting air into the lungs (instead of water!).

This combined release in tension has halved my energy needs, and suddenly I can go much further. It has required a conscious release, though, and I notice that I still have a tendency to tense up the various muscles – arms, shoulders, neck, and legs – if I lose concentration. My old sprint-muscle-memory ghost has not passed over to the other side quite yet.

The points I mentioned in the “Fly” Like an Eagle article are also of significance, but focusing on relaxation is what has got me doing several hundred metres of fly at every practice with a real sense of pleasure. I could not previously sustain a high-energy sprint stroke over longer distances because I was depleting my energy stock way too early by staying constantly tense, even (and especially) during the phases of the stroke where there was no need to do so.

Regarding fins: I believe we sink in water because of tension. If you try balance drills while tense, you will sink; if you are relaxed, you’ll float. I've noticed with my TI students that even the slightest tension in the neck muscles will sink other parts of the body. It's really quite remarkable how profoundly such a small part can influence the whole. Fins will enable you to remain tense while you go further and faster; therefore, I see the use of them as an impediment to developing a long-distance stroke because they lull you into a false sense of success without ever addressing the key issue of eliminating tension.

There has been lively discussion on the forum about the kick in butterfly, and I've been experimenting since November with a one-kick and two-kick fly. I am able to consciously turn the second kick on or off, and I've discovered that if I introduce the second kick right at the end of the glide (to help power my arms out of the water in the sideways sweep), I can knock 3-4 seconds off my 25m. There is an energy cost with this, but it should not be too high if you keep the kick streamlined and more toe-flick than thigh-driven. My strategy for a 200m butterfly is to use the speedier two-kick butterfly in the first and last 50m laps, with the energy-conserving one-kick fly in the middle 100m.

Slowing down in butterfly and remaining tense will make you sink, but slowing down the movements and remaining relaxed will keep you floating. When I swim a slow butterfly, I do 5 strokes in a 25m pool and am totally focused on keeping relaxed, fluid and supported by the water. If I chose to swim at this slow pace over a 200m race, I would come in at about 3:36. This is not a sparkling time, but I WOULD come in – and smiling too! And, if I did a 200m race with the second kick engaged, I would have a higher stroke count and come in a little faster , at about 3:12. In most Masters meets I would probably get a medal for either of these times in the 50-54 age group as there are a lot of people out there who are trying to do what John is describing and what I unsuccessfully attempted and consequently few competing in this race!

My suggestion for training for the 200m fly is this: Relax. Lose the fins. Relax some more. 200m fly is actually relatively painless if you are only turning on specific muscles every few metres and just having a good time in-between. The really hard part is learning to take it easy.

Gary Small has been coaching Total Immersion since 2005, and is currently starting up Total Immersion in Spain. He lives in Mijas Costa on the Costa del Sol, where he swims Masters with the Club Natación de Mijas. When not swimming or spending time with his family, he works as a hydrogeologist.