Reply To: Help with training in super short pool
This is what I would do. I don’t know what your pool looks like so perform at your own risk.
Short Course swimming is all-about skills. If you miss your start, you are done. If you miss your turn, you lose. If you short stroke your finish, that might be enough to miss the time/place you want.
Mark up your pool, so that you can legitimately practice and time a proper turn without lifting your head and looking at the wall. Put cones or something that won’t move on the bottom to consistently signify when it is time to execute your turn. It is horrible crashing into a wall–either head-first or heals on top.
Then start your workout with 4x[4×12.5s] on 20sec. Within a month or two you should be doing 4x[6×12.5s]. One session, do them all freestyle. The next session, do them all butterfly. Get ample rest in between each round.
Then, since you have marked the bottom of the pool and learned how to do a turn without lifting your head, do 20-30 25s on 30-40s at your 100 freestyle/100 butterfly race pace. If you miss your pace, skip out one. If you miss on the 25 after you skipped out, you are done.
If you do not have a reliable clock, you could purchase a “GymBoss” and put it in a plastic bag. In the meantime, you will need to perform these by feel, which is kind of the point anyway.
These are the basics, unfortunately, your technique is the most important part of this training. To counteract not having a knowledgeable coach deck-side, I would set up my i-pad to a pool-side television and download a “video delay” app. This way, you can see what you look like after every repeat.
Hope this helps.
I'm proud of what we've done, but I know 5, 10, 20 years from now I'll wonder what we'd done had we done it 'right'
