COMPARISON OF SPLITS BY IDEAL AND ACTUAL PERCENTAGES.by Dr. Paul Hutinger
Question: What are your suggestions for improving my individual medley events?
Answer: You can achieve a better performance in your IM events by analyzing your splits from meets. All coaches have various methods of doing this. Counsilman, in The Science of Swimming, states, "In this, more than any other race, it is impossible to come up with a theoretical pace that is perfect for all swimmers, because each swimmer excels in one or more strokes over some other." One way to analyze the IM is by determining the percentage of each stroke to the total time. The ideal percent, computed from swimmers' times, is presented in the following table, accompanied by a comparison of my splits, done when I was much younger! This table demonstrates one way to analyze pace and the strength or weakness of strokes in the IM.
COMPARISON OF SPLITS BY IDEAL AND ACTUAL PERCENTAGES.
In comparing my splits to the ideal percentages, the fly is fast on the 200 IM, but slow on the 400 IM. I could take out the fly faster in the 400 IM, but I needed a higher training yardage than 2,500 a day to be able to do this. The back is my best stroke, and close to the ideal. The breast also matches the ideal as I improved my weakest stroke. The crawl stroke is slow in the 200 IM, due to going out faster in the fly, as compared to the 400 IM.
How to Arrive at Your Ideal Splits. Using split times is probably the most important technique for training for the IM in terms of doing broken swims. This consists of doing 4 x 25 for the 100 IM; 4 x 50 for the 200 IM and 4 x 100 for the 400 IM. The broken swims are started about eight weeks before a selected meet in which top performance is desired, like Nationals.
Training With Broken Swims. Now that you have figured your goal time for the 200 IM and splits for each stroke, you can put them together in broken swims. The first broken swim can be done on two minute intervals. If needed, add more rest. Do a dive-in start with fly and swim it the same way you plan to do in your race. The other strokes are timed from push-offs, leaving every two minutes, or more. Do not swim as fast as you can but try to stroke smoothly and efficiently. Work toward doing three or four sets of these broken swims in one workout with a shorter rest between each 50 yard swim. The ideal is to take only 5-10 seconds rest between each 50. These times will probably be faster than your actual times because the turns have not been included. To make the broken swim close to the actual swim, include turns with the broken swim.
Summary. Use the preceding analyses to gain a better understanding of your performance in the IM's. Begin by compiling your split times over several meets, then check the percentages to see if your pace is correct. Use these split times for your training, especially with broken swims.
Anyone wanting more info, please send a large SASE to: Dr. Paul Hutinger; 1755 Georgia Ave. NE; St. Petersburg, FL 33703.