Main Set Thursday - May 3, 2012

 I was a little gun-shy about giving this workout to my Masters group this morning.  I handed it out with lots of warnings about not doing too much butterfly.  Three swimmers did the entire workout with no fins and all fly on the fly lengths.   It was cool to see how many of the swimmers tried a 400 IM at the end.  With or without fins, it's a challenging swim.   Personally, I substituted freestyle for all the butterfly, and did not use fins.  

WARMUP:  400

WARMUP SET:  300
Designed to open up the chest and shoulder area, and warm up your butterfly muscles.
Four times through the following:
25 dolphin kick on your back
25 double-arm backstroke
25 your choice of any single-arm butterfly drill

MAIN SET: 1800
It's perfectly fine (and even advisable) to swim each butterfly length as 3 strokes of fly, then finish the length with freestyle.  You can wear fins for a maximum of 400 yards (your choice of when).  Freestylers can substitute up to 100% freestyle on the 100s butterfly.  Don't worry too much about sendoffs on this set.  Just go when you're ready.   Focus on overall body position.  Staying horizontal, no matter what stroke you're swimming, will always reward you on the 400 IM.

50 fly
100 fly
100 fly + 50 back
100 fly + 100 back
100 fly + 100 back + 50 breast
100 fly + 100 back + 100 breast
100 fly + 100 back + 100 breast + 50 free
400 IM

WARMDOWN:  200
200, including kick and double-arm backstroke