It would be preferable to practice all the strokes because if you are only doing one stroke all the time, your body will get used to it and you will start losing the benefit and stop making gains. However, because of your injury, you are clearly not able to do all the strokes. So, I would suggest that you mix up your freestyle workouts. You need to search the Internet for freestyle workouts and try and do something different every time you get into the pool. Mix it up between sprint, middle distance, kick, drill/technique workouts. And time yourself so you can see if you are improving. If you wear your Apple Watch on your left hand, then stroke with your left hand first and when you touch the wall, touch with your left hand. So your watch hand has the first and last stroke. This should make it more accurate.
If you are really interested in getting back into drills and doing different types of competitive drills you might want to pit yourselves against the kids at ē¢§ęµ·éåä¼éęé¤Ø pool at Xinzhunag (address 242, New Taipei City, Xinzhuang District, é¾å®č·Æ249å··1č). Training usually starts at 5:30am Mon-Fri except for switch days when training starts at about 4:30 pm. The kids sessions are a full 2 hour stretch (sometimes longer). They have a number of high profile swimmers in their team including the current Taiwan Butterfly record holder Wang Kuan-hung.
Very cool. I think finally Taiwan might start producing some good swimmers. Iām seeing articles about Wang Kuan-hung lately (assuming heās the same guy who swims for that California team).
As far as pitting ourselves against the kids, I doubt they would let anybody swim with them, would they? Or do you mean swimming in an adjacent lane? (And by the way, Iāve seen swim teams with even very young swimmers- at Chongshan and Songshan pools- and I know I couldnāt keep up! Maybe for thirty minutes or so when only freestyle is involved but thatās about it.)
Adjacent lane. They split the pool. Reserve 4 lanes for the squad and the other lanes are open for the public. I swam next to them for about 18 months while the Xinzhuang pool was being renovated. Really upped my swim thatās for sure. Now I do an average 10Km swim in 3hrs. And switch between legs and strokes (lower back injuries). I liked how they switched between sets. Warm up with high elbow then mediums, then 25s, then 50s, then medley or into their sprint set. By the end of their sprint sets I was still on pace which was pretty cool. Theyād also choose days to focus on a certain stroke or to focus on legs. I mean an hour of legs while dragging a bucket through the pool. Heavy stuff. The coach speaks a bit of English too. The kids were always nice and polite as well. A lot of their parents were also very nice.
I was doing swims at ZhongZheng but that pool needs its own Grinder account. Absolutely ridiculous the amount of unwanted approaches and touchy feely men always trying to take a grope. The staff were pretty good but thereās only so much they can do.
And yes that appears to be the same Wang Kuan-hung. Heās a nice kid. Very determined. Loves to swim. He was out of balance for a bit. Dragging his left shoulder and arm on his butterfly stroke. This was after he broke the Butterfly record the first time so he was probably nursing an injury without knowing.
I found this to be a very good link for drill training.
https://www.saintsswimming.com.au/site/user-assets/docs/33-epic-swimming-workouts.pdf
You can pick and choose obviously. I just had a lady at one of the markets make some swimsox for me. I chose the 60cm and double wrapped. Cost me $300nt
Swimming for 3 hours is hard core no matter the time it takes. 
I tracked down the competitive swimmer. Still in Taiwan. Iāll pm you soon.
Oh wow, cool - um, donāt put too much effort into this, but itād definitely be fun / interesting to spend a bit of time trying to figure out how to improve my swimming.
(Just in case itās not clear, Iām posting about this mainly as a middle-aged person trying to slow down decline, rather than someone trying to get better and more competitive at sports!)
No problem! I already told them Iām old so donāt expect too much.
I did a couple of time 1000m swims in the last week or so and my times are terrible. Itās really making me angry. Iām at a few seconds above 18 minutes. Iām posting my time because I need motivation in the form of posting my times as they improve (well, at least thatās the hope). About a year ago, it was my goal to get under 17 minutes. I was far off that goal but this 18 minute stuff is just crap.
The little note while I was writing:
Let others join the conversation
This topic is clearly important to you ā youāve posted more than 38% of the replies here.
It could be even better if you gave other people space to share their points of view, too. Can you invite them over?
Yes, please others join the conversation! I definitely welcome it.
Iāll try to remember to do this later today! Not sure what my time will be - I suspect around 18 minutes - but weāll see.
Are you regularly doing flip turns? (Thatās probably addressed upthread, sorry.) That can make a big difference with times.
I can do flip turns but Iām sorry to report that my times get slower. Not by a lot but they start to wear me out in a long swim like 1000m. Not so much when I do 100m intervals, though, at a faster clip.
The biggest frustration is that Iām slower now doing the same style. I havenāt timed myself while trying to get a good time for a while and it was a bit shocking to see how bad the time is. I think itās time for 100m intervals at my goal pace but with a very short rest (like 20 seconds) between.
Yes, let us know! Maybe weāre around the same level. I know there are at least two swimmers in this forum who could blow us out of the water.
That was āfunā, in the sense of āOh, I havenāt done that in a while, and it was harder than I expected.ā
Looks like 17:37 for the 1000 meters - thatās in a 50m pool, using flip turns. At the moment I probably couldnāt do it much faster - I deliberately tried to go a touch slower at the start, because I havenāt done 1000m straight through in a long while, and my arms were close to wiped out at the end. Based on how tired I was, I paced it better than I would have expected. The Apple Watch tells me average 1m45s for 100m / 52s for 50m; the 100m splits ranged from 1:39 to 1:50, which I guess is moderately consistent. Those times are about typical for me: I find 55s for 50m is āIām exercising, but not pushing myselfā, and 50s is āI wonāt be able to do this for long!ā That range has been steady for many years for me.
Doing 1000m was an odd little cognitive flip. I usually put in kick lengths to make sure my legs are doing something - which means I forget how my arms are getting a break, apparently more significant of a break than I realized!
Gah, now Iām perhaps foolishly wondering how to improve that time, or if I want to try ā¦ I havenāt done training sets since I was on a team as a teen in the 80s; never on my own.
OK, you officially kicked my butt. I would guess 20s or so faster in a 25m pool. I will try again in a couple of weeks. I just want to get under 18 minutes for now because that used to be my deliberately slow time.
Good job!
Yes, you must! But my best times have been when challenged at the beginning, the guy then stops, and youāve still got 500m left. The point (well, one of them) is that weāre a lot stronger than we realize!
17:27 today. But in a 25m pool. I think your time is still far better than mine. After thinking about this, I believe my 50m pool time is at least 30s slower, maybe more. No flip turns on todayās swim. And breathing only to my dominant side.
I dunno, I think you should still be happy about that!
I wish I knew more about coaching ā¦ how much does breathing on your non-dominant side mess up your stroke? I can almost always sustain alternate-side breathing, up to the final sprint stage (or what passes as a sprint for me). Even when Iām tired enough to go same-side, I donāt even really have a dominant side - often itāll just be whichever side Iām on when I reach the level of gasping.
Arenāt there some sorts of drills where you force yourself to breathe only on your non-dominant side, maybe every 4th, maybe every 2nd stroke?
But again, I was on a swim team for a few years as a kid. I wasnāt all that good, but I assume I picked up habits and training thatāll forever give me a bit of an edge over those who didnāt have that experience when young. Thatās the flip side, I suppose, of very seldom riding a bicycle when I was a child - so I will never, ever feel comfortable drinking from a water bottle while riding (OK, thatās a crap sense of balance too). That feeling of complete comfort and knowing what Iām doing is there when Iām in the water (hell, perhaps more than on land!); but itās not there to the same degree in the saddle.
FWIW, MySwimPro is sort of a Strava + coaching app for swimming. The paid tier, which I havenāt used, seems to have lots of coaching and teaching videos - theyāre even more aggressive than Strava at trying to get you to sign up. You can also use it to set up timed sets on an Apple Watch ahead of time, and thatās on the free tier (as if an Apple Watch is free!). If youāre looking for ideas about how to improve, their app ecosystem may be worth a look. A lot of their services donāt seem to be specifically designed around using a device in the pool, so you wouldnāt need an Apple Watch for them.
Warning: finding the free tier may be tricky. I looked at their website many times before I finally found it!
EDIT: now that I think about it, if youāre not doing flip turns, your swim speed is quite likely faster than mine. Iād just be making up ground - er, water? - at the walls.
I really envy you for not really having a dominant side. I most definitely do. When I do intervals, breathing to both sides still results in about the same time, but when Iām trying to get a good 1000m or 1500m time, breathing to both sides will make for a bad swim.
Iām sure there are all kinds of drills. I just force myself to do some kind of bilateral breathing almost every swim now. Not the last few swims because I wanted to see if I could still swim a 17:30 or so 1000m, but I typically do some kind of breathing to both sides (usually every other lap).
I donāt know. I would guess that you could swim in under 17 minutes in a 25m pool. If not right now, after a few times trying.
FYI, I got my time down by doing 10x100m in 1ā40" with a 20" rest, and the same thing just recently using a 15 x 100m regimen (this one was seriously painful).