Congratulations. Not only are you splitting hairs, you are also wrong /pink. The average age grouper is only going to practice 5-6 times a week. Plenty of kids are going more often, but the typical young kid isn't hitting 60,000 yards a week. 60,000 still qualifies under 10,000+ so who cares anyway.

How many yards does the typical AOS tri-wannabe hit? Even if they get to the pool 3 times a week for an hour, its probably less than 10,000 and they're already a million yards behind.

Your original post says 10,000+ yd per week; did you mean per day??? Further, my understanding is that, in our local USA Swimming club team, swimmers in the highest level group, e.g. the one offered 10 workouts/wk, have to make at least 9 per week or else they get dropped back to the 6 workout/wk group.

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

Another endorsement of the guppy challenge. There's some good advice in there.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

still having trouble getting my lower half in a more streamline position like it should be:

What is your ankle flexibility? Like a 2 by 4? Are you also having trouble propelling yourself forward with a kickboard? If so, welcome to the club and there are many of us with this issue. It is a royal pain in the rear end with your ankles dragging the lower half of the body downward.

What is really needed is an Expert to guppy challenge using orthotic devices to lock the ankles (in 90 degrees) of these "master" swimmers. It would be real interesting to see what they say and do to overcome such a challenge.

90 degrees would be really uncomfortable, but I might be able to rig up something.
I don't think it is actually ankles that drag the lower body downward, but it would be an interesting test for sure....

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I did a 14k river swim this summer with another guy who is quite a bit slower than me. Late in the swim as he was getting more tired, rather than frequently stopping, I would deliberately point my toes straight down to the bottom. This was in a wetsuit so my legs were still floating but it was incredible how much speed that would bleed off just with the feet dragging.

oh it certainly does bleed off speed. the thing that I'm not sure about is that actively dorsiflexing the ankle is different than having ankles which are dorsiflexed in a relaxed state, since actively dorsiflexing is also going to limit the kick and put tension on the legs. How much of a difference I don't know, hence the need to test.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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Gotcha. I agree.

How do you plan to fix mobility and postural issues online? Two of the biggies imo.

I was watching beginner kids swimming with the most spastic strokes, yet they float level and move along very well. It's amazing.

Then I was looking at master's practice today and the kickboard is very demonstrative of how the spine is working. Hunched shoulders, sinking legs and inability to keep the head up are indicators. Bound-up adults look heavy in the water.

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I am an inexperienced swimmer and started doing his workout plans last week. I started by looking at swim smooth earlier this season but didn't have much for workout plan and couldn't feel progress. I am finding some of the drills get me to focus on doing a certain aspect correctly, and I become conscious of that and can try and be mindful of it during my regular freestyle. But I am an athletic young person with more than average shoulder mobility.

This photo is from someone trying to point/the foot/toes or plantarflex the ankle. Note the calf is also way off the ground. Makes swimming a challenge and kicking 25 yards just under 2 minutes!!

Actually, your ankle does not look all that bad and i don't you can blame all of your lower body drag on your ankle drag. The biggest thing about avoiding lower body drag and swimming relatively fast is to get your arm really out there, stretched straight out in front for just a split second, grab the water with your hand/forearm, then pull back really hard. You may have heard of "pull like you're reaching over a barrel", e.g. you stretch your upper arm out over the barrel, then pull back with your forearm pulling against the barrel. (Barrel is lying on its side.) Similarly, somewhere on youtube the coach jonnyo has a video that demo's same concept updated using an exercise ball. Anyway, the main point is that, if your pulling hard and getting a large part of your body out in front of you, then the rear end falls much less. You really just need a weak 2-beat kick to balance the stroke out. People with weak kicks have to put 99.5% of their energy into their pull, and just let the legs flow along straight behind them. FWIW, I can't kick anywhere close to fast but i can still swim pretty decently. STer klehner is very similar as he describes his kick as a "weak 1-beat kick", but yet he went 51.0 for 100 yd free and 5:17 for 500 free at age 29-ish after 2-3 yrs of Masters swimming, and he was an AOS.

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

When i watch the local squad traini find the girls are often faster when kicking without fins, the guys tend to be better at pull sets and regular swimming.
I kick around 2min or more for 50m and swim under 1:30s for 800m, so blaming the kick is a weak excuse.

I'm working with the OP, so we will see how it goes.

Without going into too much detail, swimming fundamentals work within a broad range of mobility (or lack of). Being super mobile in the shoulders is not necessary to "do things right". Ankle mobility helps obviously, and we can usually develop some with various forms of kicking, Funny that swimming a lot doesn't necessarily develop better swimming, but kicking a lot does, at least in terms of mobility. Still, there will be a limit to that effect, and again, good swimming can take place within a broad range of mobility.

Postural issues I am going to assume you mean like body position / low feet etc? I addressed this recently on these forums, so without copy and pasting or excessive verbosity... Body position is best considered an effect of proper fundamentals, not a fundamental itself. I do a lot of work on kick timing for instance, which not only provides a propulsive boost when done properly, but also has a seemingly magical effect on body position (if you don't understand the role of the kick).

Because I don't participate in 'active corrections', and because I do use a lot of video review of drills, working with swimmers online isn't really a hindrance at all.

That is SOO true, total crap and I fell into that same thinking when I started and feel I am now slow as a result.

My story is very similar to lightheir's except that I am still trying to figure it out. I have the same issue with dragging my ass around the pool and I have tried everything to figure it out. For me, I think it comes down to two things I need to do to get more horizontal. Better kick and increase my stroke rate. My legs are heavy and sink, no matter what I do I can not seem to get up. If I kick a ton I will streamline and go faster but it tires me out. So I am now working on trying to increase my stroke rate so I am not thrashing in the water. I have been working a lot with fins to do this. I am getting much faster with fins on but still slow without. We'll see, for me swimming has really been difficult but this off season is the first time I have been serious about fixing the issue.

Another "myth" about AOS; you have to swim a ton or swim as a kid to be fast. While I typically agree with this one, this was not the case for one of my best friends who got into tri's this year. In January I took him to the pool to show him a few things to get him started. He could barely swim across the pool. By April he was swimming sub 40 min 2k in the pool. In August he swam a 33 min HIM OWS. Now he is swimming 100's under 1:20. He swims three times a week 6-8k. I trained with him all summer too, I can't believe how fast he picked up swimming.

I can relate to your post because -for some reason I don't know- I am very weak in the bike. While I am still trying different recipes for the bike, I think I have some for swimming since I am front of pack swimmer. Yes, I've been a swimmer when I was a kid (I swam under 1 minute in the 100m), but if I stop swimming I'm going to lose my front of pack status for sure.

I've never been a fan of those who say that technique is important. I believe in the "just swim" theory. Water is not a natural element for us human beings. We're not fishes. To fight the water element you should get used to it as much as you can. I used to swim twice a day everyday when I was a kid. I was a beast. Now, it's a different story not only because I aged but because I don't swim often like before. To keep my swim to the level I want it to be, there is a huge difference between swimming 4 times a week and twice a week. It's not only about the volume as mentioned but also frequency. As for the technique, believe it or not , after more than 35 years not missing a week without swimming , I am still improving my freestyle. If I have some recommendations for the next six months :

- Learn the basics of the freestyle (don't overwhelm yourself with the details)
- Focus on arms and head in the beginning (You will be surprised how leg drag is in fact due to bad head posture and bad arm movement)
- Drills: yes sure but not many . One of the best is the catchup drill.
- Swim often (4 times/week) at least,
- Complete at least 7000 meters/week,
- Put varieties in your workouts (the objective is not to get bored). You can cheat by using enhancers (paddles and fins). But please don't use them during all the workout.

Read this post: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=6019291#p6019291

If it's tl;dr, then this is one excerpt from someone who watched the video: "Damn, that goofy dude's video saved my swim."

It's not that difficult a concept. I'm pretty sure that every single good swimmer keeps their legs horizontal by doing what is described in that video. Perhaps not consciously, but they all do it. Why am I sure? Because that is how you counteract gravity. Not kicking better (I keep my legs horizontal without *any* kicking) isn't the way.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Thanks excellent video, I saw that video earlier this year and have been doing the drills he suggests. I even thought about sending a video and donation to the Monteray swim team for an analysis.

I wasn't implying more kick as much as a BETTER kick with more hip and glut activation and better alignment which is what he is talking about. I also think my issue is with turnover and I still have a stall in my stroke that is slowing me down. IDK we'll see this spring hopefully.

Here is another set of very useful videos on this site I wish I would have watched when I first started.
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...orum_view_collapsed;

When i watch the local squad traini find the girls are often faster when kicking without fins, the guys tend to be better at pull sets and regular swimming.
I kick around 2min or more for 50m and swim under 1:30s for 800m, so blaming the kick is a weak excuse.

Ya, i think this is typically the way it goes, with girls generally kicking faster than boys. lots of guys don't kick very fast but swim plenty fast, though the very fastest freestylers are the fastest to some extent b/c their kick makes them a second or so per 100 faster than their competition. I think the kick is most important in breaststroke since if you can't kick breast fast, you're not going to swim it fast.

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

I agree that kicking does a LOT for great swimming. But my feeling that this is 50% body/spine and 50% actual kicking propulsion.

I'll do another post to explain some things I've been working with great results!

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If you kick with your toes pointing towards the bottom you actually go backwards. Learned this from the kids i coached on my summer league team. Kicking really hard like that and pulling very weakly allowed them to literally swim freestyle in place.

And bringing this thread back to the OP...8 weeks will not deliver huge gains in something that you are unfamiliar with. It will take time, how much, who knows? Take an Olympic athlete (runner, cyclist etc) who has never swam before and see how long it takes them to get comfortable in the water. I suspect longer than 8 weeks.

Triathlon is three sports smashed into one. Being good at one doesn't make you good at another.

Patience...

I swam with a pretty fast breaststroker (1:03-ish SCM...) back in the day who was like that. Could not point his toes doing flutter kick, at all. It was pretty funny.

I don't recall that actually bringing his legs downward in the water though.

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