American sprinter Michael Andrew has posted his latest vlog to his YouTube channel, giving us a peek behind the scenes of his 2019 World Championships experience as well as some insight into the year to come.
The first portion of the video gives a look at Team USA’s arrival in Gwangju, South Korea. Andrew takes viewers from the airport on day one to the village, giving room tours, checking out the pool, and seeing the dining hall.
In the last few minutes of the vlog, he talks about how he was a bit disappointed with his times and his results from Worlds, which only included one medal from swimming in the prelims of a relay. He was excited about making the final in all four 50’s, though, and then he shares that he’s going to be turning his focus to the 200 IM going forward.
He noted his 1:57 from earlier this year, which was “off of very little training, just a lot of surfing and a few 100 pace sets here and there.”
This is a shift from Andrew’s focus on 50’s, especially since the upcoming Olympics only have the 50 free.
“The plan was never to be focused on those solely,” said Andrew about the 50s of stroke. He also said that he’ll still be getting back to his USRPT regimen, in addition to ‘pushing the distance quite a bit’ and ‘experimenting a bit with weights and making the body a little stronger.’
Since his family’s December move from Kansas to California, he has told SwimSwam that he’s been ‘experimenting with lifting,’ doing it in ‘unconventional’ ways that don’t break the body down too much.
With Olympic Trials less than 11 months away, we’re seeing Andrew fine-tune his training. The 200 IM is now looking like a primary event for him for 2020, along with (most likely) the 50 free, and then the 100’s of stroke. His endurance-building efforts may pay dividends in his 100’s of stroke, which have traditionally been slightly weaker than his 50’s.
Even post-Ryan Lochte‘s return, Andrew is still the #2 American swimmer this season.
| 200 IM | |
| Chase Kalisz | 1:56.78 |
| Michael Andrew | 1:57.49 |
| Abrahm DeVine | 1:57.66 |
| Ryan Lochte | 1:57.76 |
| Carson Foster | 1:58.69 |
| Shaine Casas | 1:58.83 |
My predictions for all of men’s events in ‘21 Omaha 🏊♂️🏊♂️🏊♂️
50 fr dressel,Andrew
100 fr dressel,apple,held,pieroni(Adrian and Tate Jackson prelims)
200 free seliskar,pieroni,haas,farris,(smith,levant,apple prelims)
4 free smith,grothe
8 free grothe,finke
1500 free finke Wilimovsky
1 fly dressel,rooney
2 fly,Urlando,(Albiero/harting)It will be close
1back Murphy,casas
2back murphy,Katz
1 breast wilson,fink
2 breast wilson,licon
2 IM kalisz,seliskar
4 IM kalisz,Litherland
Mark my words on this for Omaha 21
lifting in an unconventional way. i’d like to see what he is talking about.
At minute 11 he said he’s Katsuing. Is that something a lot of elite swimmers are doing?
Watch his blogs he does it in training
MA looks tired on my opinion.. Maybe a little less racing and traveling would do him good.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, just as an observation, but his trajectory as a swimmer has been so weird. It seems like every season he has new best events and therefore new training goals. Imagine if next year Regan Smith just suddenly became a breaststroker?
I think some of the sprint focus this year was based on money. Easy to do a ton of 50’s in world cup meets, pro series and stockpile the cash for this next year, when, if he’s really focusing on the 200 IM, he won’t be able to compete in as many events. Big difference between MA and Regan Smith is he’s great at all four strokes for short distances.
who doesn’t like a vlogger? i wish he could’ve vlogged more
He should name drop whoever didn’t like it.
If there is one Andrew who could make a name in 200 im, it will be Andrew Seliskar.
Surprised there aren’t more comment about the “experimenting with weights” idea. That could be high risk/high reward 10 months out from OTs. He’s not going to medal in the 50 free without them, and if he emphasizes that over in-water training ramp up for the 200 IM, that could be trouble. If he ditches the surfboard for a year, he could do it. Otherwise, no way.
You’re saying he looks like Haas if he stripped away the body fat?
Ridiculous! Look at his instagram photos. MA is ripped.
You could fit all of MA into one of Dean’s or Proud’s pecs.
And yet MA has been beating Ben Proud all summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMT-vPMAoIA Tom Jager world record. He is not Mr.Atlas. He might weigh 150 pounds. You don’t have to be muscle bound to swim fast.
Probably won’t stay the same weight/size lifting lots of weights. The swimmers that currently look like the Hulk have not had good swims this year.