Fins: how much is too much / too little?

[Radioactive Man]

In the winter, I only did an hour or so a week on the
stationary bikes, swam about 12,000 yds per week in a
master's program and ran usually a bit over 20 miles per
week in preparation for a half-marathon, without much speed
work. In the pool, I did lots of short, high-intensity
intervals, often spending 30 - 50% of the distance in fins,
sometimes on the kickboard. Over the last couple of months,
I've done more biking (30 - 90 miles per week), but only
running ~15 miles per week, and have cut back my use of fins
to 10 - 20% of swim distance (still about 12,000 per week)
and have also started doing longer intervals (200's and
500's instead of 100's).

Lately, my distance swimming has improved, but my running
has suffered. Today, I ran a 10k too slow - only about 10
seconds per mile faster than I'd run the half-marathon in
February (1:33:??). I believe the reason is that I have lost
the cross-training benefit of heavy training with fins.
Because I am a naturally poor kicker due to limited ankle
flexibility (180 degrees), I have come to believe that
kicking in fins actually does more to improve my running
than it does to improve my unaided swimming. I believe there
is great deal of overlap between muscle groups used for
kicking in fins and those used for running. If I am heavily
fatigued from running, I notice that my kick is very weak as
well. Anyone else notice similar effects?

I believe the answer to this problem is either to run more
or add back the fin yardage like I was doing in the winter,
but maintain the current yardage I'm already swimming
without fins. I know a lot of triathletes that don't use
fins at all, but if the cross-training effect is as strong
as I think it is, it only makes sense to put some time into
it, since I'd be training many of the same muscles, but
without all the impact.

I believe an ideal training regimen for me would be to swim
about 20,000 yds per week (8000 with fins / 12,000 without),
ride 70 miles, run 15.

 

[Tom Henderson]

Radioactive Man <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> I believe an ideal training regimen for me would be to
> swim about 20,000 yds per week (8000 with fins / 12,000
> without), ride 70 miles, run 15.
>

Not sure what the "ideal ratio" is, if there is such a
thing, but that sounds like you're training to swim an
IronMan (maybe even further), bike an olympic, and run a
sprint (or maybe an olympic). I just did a 3.6 mile open
water with much less weekly training yardage than that. Mind
you, my time was very average, but the really fast guys that
I swim with still didn't put in the yardage you're
describing here.

Given that you're unhappy with the run times you've had
lately, I'd focus on getting some speedwork mixed into your
run workouts. Since the bike is the component that makes the
most difference timewise, I'd keep up the miles there, as
well as mixing in speedwork. While you want to have a strong
swim, the difference between a really good swim and a world-
class swim is so minor over the distance swam in most tris,
I'd cut down some there if I needed more time to improve on
the others. If you've got plenty of time, keep the gung-ho
swim workouts.

There are far more experienced traithletes than me here, so
hopefully more will chime in....

Tom

 

[Bill Reese]

Radioactive Man wrote in message ...
>
>
>Lately, my distance swimming has improved, but my running
>has suffered. Today, I ran a 10k too slow - only about 10
>seconds per mile faster than I'd run the half-marathon in
>February (1:33:??).

The general rule of thumb is that you should slow something
like 8 to 16 sec per mile every time the distance doubles--
so, even though at only 20 miles per week, I suspect you
were undertrained for the half, your ten K time seems in
line to me.

>believe the reason is that I have lost the cross-training
>benefit of heavy training with fins

I am aware of no other claims of benefit from using fins.
>I believe the answer to this problem is either to run more
>or add back the fin yardage like I was doing in the winter,
>but maintain the current yardage I'm already swimming
>without fins. I believe an ideal training regimen for me
>would be to swim about 20,000 yds per week (8000 with fins
>/ 12,000 without), ride 70 miles, run 15.

From my perspective, you are way over on swimming, and way
light on running. The golden rule of training is sport specificity--
if you want to run faster, run more! Just for a comparison,
I am a fairly serious Olympic distance triathlete and
during race season, my bigger weeks are something like 100
+ miles riding, 25-30 miles running and maybe 8-9000 yards
swimming (despite the fact that I like swimming best, I
hold swim training to about 20% of my total training time
to reflect the approximate breakdown in the actual event
for which I train.

Bill

 

[Radioactive Man]

On Sun, 30 May 2004 16:34:24 -0700, "Bill Reese" <abuse@localhost>
wrote:

>
>Radioactive Man wrote in message ...
>>
>>
>>Lately, my distance swimming has improved, but my running
>>has suffered. Today, I ran a 10k too slow - only about 10
>>seconds per mile faster than I'd run the half-marathon in
>>February (1:33:??).
>
>The general rule of thumb is that you should slow something
>like 8 to 16 sec per mile every time the distance doubles--
>so, even though at only 20 miles per week, I suspect you
>were undertrained for the half, your ten K time seems in
>line to me.

I think that rule of thumbs varies greatly between
individuals. Ever since the days when I ran track in high
school, the rule of thumb as it applies to me has been about
25 - 30 seconds per mile slower each time the distance is
doubled. I've run several 5k's in the 6:00 per mile range,
the half-marathon in the 7:09 range, thus, by interpolation
I should run 10k's at 6:40 or better. That said, I believe
my biggest problem has been a lack of quality running the
last several months, not that it would hurt to bump the
mileage up to 20 a week. When I trained in the winter, my
longest runs ranged from 10 to
13.2 miles, often done as intervals of 1- 3 miles at 7:30 -
8:00 per mile with a couple of minutes of fast walking in
between. Lately, I have been doing much of my running at
a slower pace, in hot weather, and right after a swim or
bike ride.

>
>
>>believe the reason is that I have lost the cross-training
>>benefit of heavy training with fins
>
>I am aware of no other claims of benefit from using fins.
>>I believe the answer to this problem is either to run more
>>or add back the fin yardage like I was doing in the
>>winter, but maintain the current yardage I'm already
>>swimming without fins. I believe an ideal training regimen
>>for me would be to swim about 20,000 yds per week (8000
>>with fins / 12,000 without), ride 70 miles, run 15.
>
>From my perspective, you are way over on swimming, and way
>light on running. The golden rule of training is sport specificity--
>if you want to run faster, run more! Just for a comparison,
>I am a fairly serious Olympic distance triathlete and
>during race season, my bigger weeks are something like 100
>+ miles riding, 25-30 miles running and maybe 8-9000 yards
>swimming (despite the fact that I like swimming best, I
>hold swim training to about 20% of my total training time
>to reflect the approximate breakdown in the actual event
>for which I train.

I spend a lot of time swimming partly because that was my
initial weakness and also because I can recover from a hard
swim session much more quickly than anything else. I suspect
I am also biased by the fact that I swim beside kids as
young as pre-teens doing 5000+ yds per day 5 - 6 days per
week. Compared to that, 12,000 or even 20,000 yds doesn't
seem like a big deal. I spent several years on the track
team and rowing club in high school, but never swam on a
team. Thus, when I started doing triathlons several years
ago, swimming was my weak event. For the last several
triathlons I've done, my rankings have been fairly close in
all three events. If that changes, it will tell me I need to
focus more on the weak event.

>
>Bill