Michael Andrew continues to impress. 100 butterfly has become one of his swimfan favorites. Many in the swimming community love to pick apart his strokes in these NAG race videos, but butterfly has most remaining silent.
With 47.23 in the 100 yard butterfly, Michael pulls within .13 of the 15-16 National Age Group Record, a record he’ll have over two years to challenge. That one currently sits at 47.10, belonging to Michael-Phelps-nemesis Milorad Cavic.
Of the 5 fastest times by a 13-14 boy in the 100 yard fly, Andrew owns them all. The list:
1. Andrew 47.23
2. Andrew 47.40
3. Andrew – 47.47
4. Andrew – 48.40
5. Andrew – 48.78
The kid is quick, have to give credit where credit is due. My old brain doesn’t understand how he is able to race week in and week out and swim his best times. When does he have time to train?
Racing is training.
Hulk,
It is but he still needs to train so he can develop some sort of base, no?
There’s more than one way to build a base. Sprinting with low rest does the job just fine.
Sven
Thank you.
Even when he’s not at meets and back home ‘training’, I think you’d ask the same question. He trains twice a day for 60-90 minutes and maybe hits 1.5k-2k per session.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t training adaptations take time and repetition? I also don’t understand how he seems to get best times week after week.
http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/bullets/table.htm
Or buy the DVD.
I’ve read a good deal of Rushall’s work. I like a lot of it. He specifically calls for periods of time to adapt to new training stimulus and for periods of time were rest and recovery are important. You can’t just point at USRPT and claim that it’s magical and swimmers who do it improve every week.
I would be interested in seeing a improvement progression on MA. How quickly is he dropping time? Is it really every week or does it just appear to be?
Michael swam at our home meet, the DBS Open, which was a long course meet. It was a small meet. He only came to break some records before he ages up. He told us that he IS moving down to Florida within the next year.
Not sure if he broke any records but he and his father were a joy to talk too. Great family! And he did swim fast!!!
Thanks for the news.
So he really swam in long course last weekend. And not in yards. So he didn’t break NAG records in SCY.
Ok. That’s what I had understood first. 🙂
Didn’t he swim just this past weekend in an LCM meet in Florida? I haven’t heard of any results yet. So I am assuming nothing great happened? But I don’t want to assume because we know what assume means.
No he didn’t swim in long course.
He swam again in yards.
And next week he will swim at the NASA Elite Showcase Classic again in yards.
The week he turns 15.
It will be probably his last SCY meet of the season.
I don’t understand. I have read posts from other readers of Swim Swam noting that last weekend he swam in Daytona long course (and that his times were slow). Now you are saying that he swam short course, but where and when? the video above is dated March 2014.
He did swim long course and his times were very average
* slow by his standards, I guess.
Thanks, Triguy, for the clarification. I checked the Daytona Meet webpage but the results were not available.
He swam
200 fly-2:14
200 free-2:00
200 Im-2:00
100 free-53
400 im-4:45
If he swam 2:00 for 200 IM LC = NOT average!
Whoops, 2:14
He was circle swimming like crazy. Probably could have gone faster if he stayed on one side of the lane. Also, it looked like he died right before the turn at the 75. But still, out in a 21! Wow that is crazy fast!
3.75 fade is a little on the high side, but not tragic. If that’s the fastest he is ever been out in, the 2nd 50 should be coming along soon.
What I was more surprised to see was how wide a part his hands are underwater. Not arguing good or bad here… Clearly strong enough to hold the catch through that, just something I hadn’t seen before in any of his videos.
His circle swim looks to me like result from his more rounded turns, meaning throwing to the side versus straight back. If the athlete can control his body, its an incredibly fast turn, used by many BR at the upper level. His turns are fast, hard to argue… Read more »
I noticed his entry looks a bit wide, but I don’t think the entry itself necessarily has to be shoulder width, and I’d certainly prefer too wide an entry to too narrow.
In one of his seminars on butterfly technique and race trends, Russell Mark talks about the path the hands follow among national level butterfliers. Through his analysis of tons of footage, he said the only really significant correlation he could find between hand path and technique was the depth of the press during hand entry.
For example, Phelps’ press is crazy deep, and his fingertips almost touch under his body as he pulls. The swimmers with a more shallow press tended to pull straight back after the catch.… Read more »
http://swimswam.com/alex-valente-breaks-mike-cavics-15-16-national-age-group-record-100-fly/
Not that this affects MA’s accomplishments in any way, just clarifying. 47.23 would be 5th on the 15-16 list (Valente at 46.99, Cavic, Phelps, Bubolz)