Wednesday Free IMs

It's a Free IM Wednesday!

(see comments below regarding WHY we do Free IMs)

I've been asked many times, why do we do so many Free IMs?  Isn't it better to train regular IMs instead of these Free IMs?

For those that are not aware, Free IM is: Free, Back, Breast, Free (no Fly)

A Regular IM is: Fly, Back, Breast, Free

I was brought up on Free IMs.  Personally I loved doing them as a High School-aged athlete, and I am certain that the first team to do Free IMs was my team!  I felt like I could sprint everything when I did Free IM practices.

Michael Phelps' and I competed for the same team in Baltimore, MD.  During the year I spent assisting Michael's coach Bob, I watched Michael and his teammates swim somewhere between 60-70% of his IM training either Free IM or Back-Breast-Free IM.  He definitely did some regular IMs.  Not too many400 IMs, less than 12…maybe just a handful.  Not too many 200 Flys, just a handful of those too.  Lots of 100s, 75s, and many 50s and 25s.   

The training of the Top 2 18 & Under 200 IMers in USA history was heavy on the non-Traditional IM; both Elizabeth Pelton and Katie Hoff's training has always been 75% Free IM or Back-Breast-Free and 25% Regular IM.

T2 Aquatics has had some great history in the IM, and we've been doing lots of Free IM too!  Emma F was ranked in the Top 16 last year, after a huge drop in time, and she did probably 85% non-traditional IMs in practice.  Same for Junior National IMers Rip L, Bean F, and Karen L as well as Flags Champ Cole G. 

So, why does Free IM affect performance like this?  Why is it  these kids, and the athletes like Phelps, Pelton, and Hoff are excelling in not only the IM but the Fly as well?

Here are some reasons:

1- *Addition by subtraction: less Fly means less slow, sloppy Fly for many people.  It may only be a 50 Fly at the beginning of a 200, but if you are doing 16 of them, the last 8 50s fly are 1600-3200 yards into the set.  The type of fly we want in the 400 and 200 IM is a light, quick fly; the fly we see two miles into the set is not the same thing!  It could be argued that "it's not really fly".

2- *The Backstroke and Breaststroke get a lot better.  And it's not just that they get better for a 50 Back and a 50 Breast in the middle of a 200 IM.  It's that over a 3200 yard set of 16x200 Free IM, half of the distance is an 800 of Back plus an 800 of Breast.  That's a lot of Back and Breast during the IM set, and if it's 10% worse than it could be because of an increasingly taxing Fly to start every IM than that's a big deal and in my mind ineffective training when compared to the alternative.

3- *The Freestyle at the end gets better.  Same idea as the Back-Breast concepts.

Keep in mind, it's still important to do Regular IM.  Don't let me sell the Free IM so well that one forgets that we do train IM and we do expect athletes swim Fly with strength, rhythm, and focus when starting IMs in practice.  But those practices are 1 out of every 3rd IM practice, or maybe 1 out of every 4th IM practice.