Video analysis are great, various flaws are identified. But the hard part is fixing those flaws and teaching someone about all those little tiny nuances of the freestyle stroke e,g catch and pull. Seems to be very hard for people new to swimming to develop a powerful catch and pull. I suppose there are 50+ variables that need to be fixed, so many tiny little things like swimming with a popeye mouth or tensing your core or acceleration through the stroke. They all only make a minute amount of difference, but when combined create a decent stroke.

My $0.02 - if you want to fix your swimming, take time off run and bike and just swim for a year. It would be unlikely (not impossible) that someone could go from a 1.45min/100m swimmer to a 1.24min/100m (FOP) swimmer by just swimming 3 x 3km a week and running and biking at the same time. Those 50+ little variables take a long time to develop and incorporate into your stroke.

can you say what you mean by popeye mouth?

the fixing is harder for sure, but I made a bunch of progress today. We did
300 yd wu
no more than 200 yds of video (side, above, front views)
spent about an hour looking at it and doing stuff on the deck laying on a bleacher
I got in and did 1500 ish of trying to fix stuff, with my friend (who was happily chatting with other people... he's super generous w his time and likes to chat) occasionally saying yes this looks better, do more of this, etc
did a little more video

The corrected stroke - which still needs more work - is much slower right now (by 10-18 sec/100) but it'll get faster once my muscles get used to these motor patterns and I can actually use the high lung capacity.

The other corrections maybe won't be as immediate. The major change today was extending my arms more before the catch - think going high stroke rate / low DPS to lower stroke rate with more of a catch up stroke and higher DPS. The drill that really got it was "swim like you're almost but not quite doing catch up drill".
The things I need to work on are a L EVF and a "shinier power diamond" (this is my phrase, means decrease elbow angle through the pull phase).

so I think probably the ideal way to do it is what we did - video, swim, video.
I brought two suits; glad I did so did not have to put on wet one!

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I don't know anybody who could video my swim. But I can tell you, even from my last thread, the single biggest thing I could do to improve my swim is train myself to breathe over both shoulders.

Now, that might sound less like a performance gain but hear me out. One thing I've discovered is that when I breathe, I breathe over my right shoulder. The result is I get a "deeper dig" with my left arm on that stroke. Consequently, I end up pulling to the right.

I discovered a few weeks back that I can swim a sub 1:50/100m in a sprint and I can hold about a 2:10-2:15/100m for distance. Not bad, but my previous swim times have not reflected this. The reason is because of how much extra I end up swimming in a zig-zag pattern. I tend to swim about 50m, sight my buoy, correct, swim, sight, correct.

hand someone your phone for a 50; ask another swimmer and offer to do the same for him or her. Even video from "above" positions are informative. That is actually one of the most informative angles on mine.

Bilateral breathing is a HUGE performance helper! I needn't be convinced.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

If you have at least an iphone 12 or newer, you can video underwater. The phone is water resistant for 30 minutes at 6 meters. Doing a few minutes at 3 ft will not harm it.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

I agree that, if you can’t get a coach, video analysis is the next best thing. Without an external view of their stroke, most athletes can’t sense what they’re doing wrong.

The one thing I would add though is that it needs to be done regularly, and the more frequently the better. Once you find a mistake, chances are you will either under-correct or over-correct or both. In my experience, a one-off analysis can be very illuminating, but rarely leads to a long-term improvement without follow-up.

For a long time I tended to cross the midline with my left arm, an error easy to spot on camera but hard to eradicate permanently. My initial correction was usually insufficient, even though I exaggerated the movement and felt like my hand was entering the water at 10 o’clock. But I also found that over time I kept exaggerating the motion until I over-corrected and my hand was actually entering wide.

Once I started filming myself weekly, I was able to dial it in and now, fingers crossed, I think I have it right. FWIW, I have an old GoPro that I attach to the side of the pool with a clip so I can do film myself without assistance. I can’t get every angle, but enough to see the many flaws in my technique.

I think video is important even if you have a coach. Seeing my stroke was more useful to me than having someone tell me things. Additionally, video underwater is a view that a coach likely doesnt' see a lot.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Here's another perspective. Video review is highly over rated and much less effective than people imagine. Essentially you are describing a "corrective approach": I watch you, identify a flaw, tell you about it, and you try to internalize it and fix it either directly or through targeted drilling.

My general approach to coaching swimming technique improvements is more of a process-based approach than a corrective instruction approach. I have the belief that most athletes find it exceedingly difficult to internalize verbal corrections, or "active technique" instruction - and often those who do have this ability are so gifted as to need very little of it. Neither do I attempt to teach a “correct” style – there are as many variations of the basic Australian crawl as there are body types and performance goals.

That does not mean that there are not commonalities – techniques that optimize propulsion and minimize effort – there most certainly are, but rather than focusing on a single end-goal of precise form, I strive to develop the core competencies and develop the athletes’ ability to integrate multiple competencies into a stroke that works for them.

Technical improvements, therefore, must come from a systematic and integrated set of activities that builds the core competencies of a fast swimmer in a component fashion. Once these component skills are mastered, integration of these skills into the actual swimming stroke may occur spontaneously (in contrast to verbal corrections, mastered component skills are integrated quite readily, and often unconsciously, by a majority of athletes), as a result of specific targeted activities that work to integrate various component skills with one another (i.e., a multi-component set), or by activities that serve to stimulate the athlete to integrate skills directly into the swimming stroke.

The arrangement of these activities in a carefully orchestrated, but process-based manner is what I call "passive technique".

It's the FIST of swim development.

Half your mouth is in the water, so you dont have to turn your head as much.

Dr.

ah, thanks. I was delighted to discover on my video I keep 1 goggle in the water on one side while breathing. Still working on that on the other side, both come out

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

*shrugs* it was pretty darn effective for me yesterday in alleviating pain and my ability to make a change, but that was probably facilitated by a super good coach working w me on said video and my stroke.

Another benefit was seeing that my walls are getting better - I got positive reinforcement from a thing I've been working on, but didn't really have a good way to measure progress aside from "I think this is maybe better?"

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I've been wanting to do this for so long. I actually got a cheap used GOPRO to help. But, still have yet to get someone to video me. I feel like since I broke my collarbone in 3 places that I don't have the same stroke with my left side that I used to. I am still working on it. Sadly, I feel like I am still trying to find my "stroke" in the water. I have been swimming more and can't seem to settle on who I am in the pool. I hope I can get the video done sometime this month.

I know for sure that my left arm/stroke is much weaker than my right. I feel like my right side is much better and I don't feel symmetrical at all with my left stroke.

Agree 100%.
If you are an AOS (like me) whatever you think you are doing in the water is likely not what you are actually doing.
Being able to watch a video of my stroke was enlightening (and slightly alarming), but only the first part of the puzzle. The important second half is having someone that knows what they are looking at explain to you all the things you are doing wrong and the technique items to address. This is not a one time operation, as you probably (if I'm a typical example) have multiple technique flaws and you really need to work on these one at a time. Fix a flaw, then move on and fix the next flaw, etc. I've been lucky enough to attend a couple of clinics 6 months apart where I was able to see the (video) of improvement of my technique - and was then given direction on the next flaw(s) to fix.
Shout out to Tim Floyd @ Magnolia Masters.

I got quite the ego check yesterday

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Yeah, while I agree with the process approach espoused by FF above, I think there are many people on here who have the ability to make corrective changes just by watching a video. Our ability to perceive our movements in the water are imperfect so sometimes just seeing it is helpful.

I have noticed that my swim is far better in a pool than open water. My form is much better because I can use the lane markers to make corrections with each stroke and even in a busy pool the water is often calmer than just average open water swimming. In a pool, I'm very good about keeping a goggle at least partially in the water. My open water swims, not so much. In fact, I've noticed quite a few times when my down ear is out of the water. I chalk this up to just being overly cautious of not sucking in a mouth full of water as I roll to breathe.

While for sure there are people that can achieve this, I can guarantee that the vast majority of adults who have achieved around 1:45/100m won't be able to jump to 1:24/100m even by going pure swimmer. I'm very similar to those stats, and I've gone through injury periods where I swam a lot (north of 20k), videod myself every week, and did a wide variety of workout speeds, and still was barely faster than my original plateau speed. I've honestly never come across a perennial 1:45/100m adult swimmer who's been stuck there for like 2+ years, suddenly go swim a ton, and come back at 1:24ish pace for the same effort. Never. Whereas I've def seen kids and fairly new adults swimmer improve that much, with less training.

In contrast, when I do that kind of isolated training on bike or run, the results are much more noteable. I do think it has a ton to do with the high resistance of water, and the difficulty in improving technique/drag and even fighting against suboptimal body types (people can deny it all they want but having advantageous body types in swimming is absolutely enormous. Things like large hands, long arms, short legs, and even more body fat in women, help a ton.)

I do agree that video analysis is really important and helpful, and it's always shocking how your video does NOT look like the way you think you swim. For me, I feel mentally like I'm so smooth and non-jiggly in the water, and then on video, there's so much more extra motion than I realized. When I improved it I was amazed how still my entire body has to be in the water to just look like it's moving smoothly. Similarly, there seems to be almost no limit to how wide I can make my stroke - it never looks 'too wide' on video. Even when I'm splaying it to what feels like ridiculously wide (like farrrrr past my shoulder width), somehow on video, it looks fine, and even better than when I swim with what feels like a reach that's 'in-line with the shoulder' which invariably looks too narrow.

Sad part for me though, is that at my plateaud level, the video analysis hasn't led to meaningful speed increases. A lot of the stuff I do that looks better, either doesn't make me go faster anymore and in fact makes me go slower. (Like looking super-smooth and still in the water, or reducing the width of my 2-beat kick so it's nearly imperceptible, both of which slow me down a good deal, even after tons of practice - I STILL practice these things because they look so good in the water, but stopwatch don't lie!) And the things that I want to fix the most, particularly EVF and pull path, are the hardest to fix for me. I seriously strongly suspect without the physical hard training to be able to pull at FOP+ speeds, you can't get that pretty EVF.

The video helped me a ton with speed improvement though, in my beginner-intermediate phases of swimming. In those phases, the errors are so big but weirdly still so hard to realize until you see yourself doing it, that when you fix them, your speed goes up a lot.

This is me reviewing my last swim video session.

I desire the ankle flexibility of super good kickers

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

My kick is literally worthless. I took a boogie board to the pool one day to work on my kick. Held the boogie board with both hands to keep me balanced and just kicked. Spent about 30 seconds kicking and literally went nowhere. I mean I did not move from where I started. At all.

So I just stopped kicking all together. I just drag my legs. I figure, hell, it's a good rest anyway. Gonna need them for the ride and the run so why waste energy on the swim?

If you buy a clip you can film yourself. With mine, I can film myself above and below water from the end of the lane and from the side. I'd like a few more angles, but I see a lot of my flaws just from these four. Since I film myself at least once a week, I'll often just film from the end of the lane in a head-on view. It's enough to see if I'm crossing the midline, rotating properly, have the right arm angle on my catch, and am not splaying my legs on the kick. It takes just a couple of minutes, which makes it easy to do weekly.

I used to make it a big production and I'd film from all possible angles, which required external assistance. The problem with that approach is that I usually swim alone and so wouldn't film myself very often since no one was around to do the filming. The problems with my technique would persist or I'd end up overcompensating. I've really benefited from the more frequent approach.

I have a vacation coming up and am staying at a place with an outdoor pool. I'll have my wife film me from all angles. I'm sure she's looking forward to that. Analyzing your husband's freestyle = exciting vacation.

FWIW, I use the Ulanzi Jaws Flex Clamp Mount.

Oh my goodness, yes. It's quite shocking how slow and discombobulated I look even when I think I'm swimming smooth and fast. It's very humbling.

VERY effective for me as well

Great advice in my opinion

Even better when done by a coach. Seeing flaws and fixing them

Thank you!!

i only have 1.5 brain cells but even i can figure out how to put a phone at end of the pool, leaning on a drink bottle, and then just swim to the wall or past the phone if you put it on the side of the pool

don't need to part with $ ;)

Ha - the hard part actually isn't setting up the phone/camera. It's downloading and even cropping the video so you're only getting the parts you need, not the bad shots of nothing or shots of you swimming away.

I use a Gopro knockoff camera but found through experience and research that you should get the real GoPro suction mount, not a knockoff. It's wayyyyy better than the knockoffs, it's not even close, and will allow you to attach your camera to one of the wall tiles so you can get video. (Mine comes out upside-down as the camera is turned that way ith the mount, but you can flip it afterwards. Still kinda annoying.)

For sure, if you've never done or seen a video of yourself swimming, I'd consider that priority #1 in terms of technique improvement. Even a coach telling you that you do such and such wrong, doesn't hit the same until you see how badly you do it in real-time. But I still don't consider it a magic bullet - knowing what you do wrong is important, but fixing it can be really, really hard for non-beginners.

Can’t you just look at it on your phone and edit it on your phone and then send it off your phone?

???

Sorry I misread - I don’t use my phone I use a GoPro knockoff. It’s annoying to get the video off it not hard but annoying.

I don't have one :(

How do you get the underwater video please?

Just use an under water case and then put the phone and case under water

I tend to agree with you that video is a bit overrated; I mean, even when you can see what you're doing wrong you still have to make those corrections. Apparently this is very hard for many to do, particularly if you take the "fix one thing at a time" approach. Your description is diff from the way I think of stroke correction though, as I think of it as more like "watch lots of really good swimmers and try to imitate the swimmer whose form you think you could emulate". I think this sort of thing happens unconsciously in most swimming teams, which is why there is not a huge variation in their strokes. Some variation for sure as in the smaller, shorter people will tend to turn over faster vs the taller people turning over more slowly with more distance per stroke. But on the whole, the basic strokes are pretty similar. And I would say this is true even at the lower levels of swimming like summer league. After a kid has swum a few summers on a team, his/her stroke will look pretty similar to his peers.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

That hasn't been my experience with video analysis. I've been working with swimmers and triathletes for the past 20 years with video. I would agree that the triathlon community's view on video analysis doesn't work. That view is do one video analysis, identify as many issues with the stroke as possible and try to fix them all at once.

In reality, what works well is doing a session a week for a minimum of 5 weeks, focusing on a single aspect of the stroke you want to improve and then focusing in practice (where you are swimming a lot between sessions) to make that specific change while swimming hard.

I hope this helps,

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

OK but do you agree with my "learning by watching really good swimmers and trying to imitate their stroke"??? This is basically the way I improved my stroke. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Sure. If you are around really good swimmers on a regular basis. But it isn’t the most effective way to improve.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

I have an underwater case thank you

How do you set the camera when swimming by yourself?

Oh great. When you are just doing this by yourself you are limited in what angles you can take but I just do the front on swimming in and swimming away, and can do the side on from the lane at the edge of the pool. When above water, just put my phone up against my drink bottle and check the frame is right. When under water and I am swimming into it, I would just lean it up against the edge of the pool

That is why it is nice to get my personal videographer (aka better half) to do a few quick shots when she comes down to the pool sometimes. Works better on weekends when nothing happening and no work etc

Ah ok

I have a tripod I use. Luckily the 4 lane pool I usually have to myself. So above is easy

I was hoping you had a special underwater technique lol

I use a holder with a suction cup. But manage to have it pointed in the wrong direction 4 or 5 times before I can get it right

This. Do video.

More non-swim swim advice: start doing regular core strength exercises at home. If you are 2:00/100 or slower something is very very wrong with your body position or your kicks or both. Pause the stroke until you fix the body position and the kicking. At least 50% of your time in the pool should be drills. Deep end kicks. Swim with the ankles tied together. And yeah camera so you can see just how bad it is.

Good. I swam with 4 or 5 former D1 swimmers when I was first out of graduate school, i.e. 23-29 yrs old, and I just modeled my stroke on theirs. It seemed to work b/c after a year or so several of them remarked that my stroke now looked really good. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

suction cup is excellent idea!!!

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

This is the one I use


https://a.co/d/4vPSxJQ

<<My kick is literally worthless. I took a boogie board to the pool one day to work on my kick. Held the boogie board with both hands to keep me balanced and just kicked. Spent about 30 seconds kicking and literally went nowhere. I mean I did not move from where I started. At all. >>

that is why you need to work on your kick. Typically one of two (or both) things are going on. Very poor ankle flexibility and/or kicking like you are riding a bike, kicking from the knees. Really try to work on ankle flexibility by using zoomers/short fins and away from the pool spend time sitting on the ground, legs folded underneath so you are sitting on the soles of your feet (if you have good knees). You may think it's not worth time working on your kick but if you are swimming with feet not streamlined as much as possible it's really slowing you down regardless of how much or how little you kick. Also make sure you are kicking from the hips. You don't want a completely straight leg when you kick but you don't want all the kick movement coming from the knee down.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

I completely agree with you and want to say the same thing slightly differently, in case that helps with having the message sink in.

I have not seen anyone kick on the spot with a kick board, but hopefully I have enough days left on earth to see that and also to see someone go backwards on a kick board. I have seen quite old men go slowly on a kickboard, but at least they were going forward.

When Plumb says you need to work on your kick, what you need to work on is the technique of having a flat leg that is helping you float and also ankle flexibility.

Ankle flex first - Next time you are watching the TV try to get down on the carpet and start stretching out those ankles. If you cannot sit on the soles of your feet just yet, start on a kneeling position and then ease yourself down putting any excess weight on your arms behind your feet and just stretch them out. You may find this more comfortable to do on grass outside

Having a 'flat leg that helps you float' - spend a bit of time each time you get to the pool pushing off the wall, with your arms in a super man position, and see how far you can get quickly checking against a pool floor tile or a thing on the side of the pool. If you start pointing your toes as hard you can, you will hopefully get in to a better position and start moving further forward. Try to keep your arms in the same place to work on consistency. You also can then play around with noticing how having more air in your lungs makes you pop to the surface faster, compared with less air, and where you look with your eyes to imapct your head position. If you are eyes down you will go further than if you have eyes up looking where you are going

Don't know how you swim or kick, and what sort of kick timing you have - whether 2, 4 or 6 beat kick. But usually a kick should just be small and fast, and trying to keep your heels just at or below the surface. Try brushing your big toes together every so often when you are doing your kicking on the board (once you can move!). Also try putting on a snorkel and kicking, as that may help you flatten your body out and make it more parallel to the surface of the water.

I learned to not sink when 4-5 years old. Doggy paddle and breast stroke. Spent the next many years on a beach 'swimming' and feeling quite comfortable in the water. But I didn't learn crawl until age 30 and wanting to do tris. I was kicking in place, and yes even going backwards. It's definitely a problem for adult onset swimmers.