The Race Club – Swimming Camps • Coaching • Competitive Training • Advanced Techniques

To race well, swimmers need to practice close to race pace. In this Race Club video, you will see one of the test set we use for butterfly, preparing our swimmers for the 100 meter butterfly. Doing repeat short swims with short rest, holding the target stroke rate and speed, while maintaining good technique is the key to a successful test set. Some of the swimmers do well in the set and others struggle during the set, which is an indicator of the need for more aerobic fitness. Use test sets like this butterfly set to help you know where you stand and to get ready for your fastest race of the season!

Mikita Tsmyh competed in the 2016 and 2021 Olympics for Belarus and has an outstanding backstroke swim technique. We had the opportunity to work with Mikita using our Smart Paddle and Velocity Meter technology.  While Mikita has a very good coupling motions, stroke rate, head and body position in his backstroke swim technique we found room for improvement in his pulling motion.

To improve your technique in swimming butterfly, learn to utilize two important coupling motions: the head snapping down after the breath and the arms swinging forward aggressively during the recovery. In this video we highlight these two techniques using the freestyle kick butterfly drill with fins on, a drill we often use in our swimming camps.

One of our favorite swim drills for Butterfly is the Left Right Front drill. At the Race Club we use this drill to correct several common mistakes that swimmers make during butterfly technique.

TRC Main Set – 100 Butterfly Stroke Rate

The ability to maintain a high stroke rate (SR) in butterfly is critical to being a successful 100 butterflyer. This main set is a perfect continuation of the set we highlighted in this week’s video release. If you haven’t watched it yet… check it out here to learn more about what you should focus on in terms of technique & breathing pattern in the 100 butterfly. Just like in the video, we’ll continue to focus on keeping the shoulders low during the breath & elevating the hands before they enter the water on each recovery.

Anaerobic Threshold Training: Race Pace Training

Anaerobic threshold training, also referred to as Lactate training, is a vital part of today’s swimming training. Let me explain what it is and why it is so important.

The human body has two systems for generating the energy required for human body functions: aerobic and anaerobic. They are very different. Besides the fact that one requires oxygen (aerobic) to function and the other does not (anaerobic), and that they both require glucose, they also have very different rates of energy production and different consequences from their use.

TRC Main Set – Erik Vendt

This week’s main set is inspired by one of the most challenging workouts I ever did in my swimming career. My coach called it the “Erik Vendt Set”. Erik Vendt is an American Olympian that specialized in the 400 IM & 1500 Freestyle. Legend is that he would do this set for 9 rounds and an interval under 5:00 mins (SCY) for both the 400 & 500.

Five Traditional Swimming Techniques we should abandon
There are certain swimming techniques which have been traditionally taught by many coaches for decades that we should seriously consider abandoning. These are not the controversial swimming techniques.