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Drifting Hard Right in OW
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I have a very hard rightward drift in open water swimming. Any suggestions what I can be doing in the pool right now to hopefully address this for next season? Thank you!

Dimond Bikes Superfan
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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Practice swimming with your eyes closed.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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Do you bilaterally breath, or only on the left?

"...the street finds its own uses for things"
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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ericlambi wrote:
I have a very hard rightward drift in open water swimming. Any suggestions what I can be doing in the pool right now to hopefully address this for next season? Thank you!

check your arm entry, cross-over could be causing it, uneven kick or breathing.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [AutomaticJack] [ In reply to ]
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AutomaticJack wrote:
Do you bilaterally breath, or only on the left?

Only to the left.

Dimond Bikes Superfan
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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Single arm freestyle will help make sure both arms are doing the same thing. Keep your right arm out in front of you while swimming with the left arm. Switch arms going the other length of the pool. If you hit the wall or lane lines, then you're doing it wrong ;-)

DFL > DNF > DNS
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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ericlambi wrote:
AutomaticJack wrote:
Do you bilaterally breath, or only on the left?


Only to the left.

That is the root of your problem. The drills being suggested will help, but unless you are already a very good swimmer breathing to one side all the time will cause a stroke imbalance and manifest itself as turning away from the side you are breathing on.

Before I'm corrected, I realize that many high level swimmers breath to the same side every stroke with no issues. I do it myself at time with no issues and I am nowhere close to those swimmers, but for most adult onset swimmers always breathing to the same side is going to cause problem with stroke.

"...the street finds its own uses for things"
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [AutomaticJack] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for the replies all. I'll work on these things, especially the breathing to the right/bilateral breathing.

Dimond Bikes Superfan
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [mhepp] [ In reply to ]
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mhepp wrote:
Practice swimming with your eyes closed.

For what purpose? I pull left in OW. I've done your experiment in a pool and, guess what, I pull left.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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 The recs above are good, but also as good (if not better, imo) for ensuring you swim straight is swimming with the ankle band.

I know, sounds weird, but it makes sense if you think about it - the ankle band prevents you from using kicking to compensate for any stroke errors or imbalances, since you can't kick at all with it. (Note you HAVE to use the ankle band - everyone who hasn't thinks and says they can swim without kicking no problemo, but realy cheat so badly that the moment you band them, they can't even go 15 yards.)

You might find that with the band on, you'll be veering off a lot more in the pool until you fix the stroke imbalance. It's otherwise very, very hard to separate the arm problems from the legs as you will instinctively constantly try to counterkick to oppose the stroke error no matter how hard you try not to.


I'll also disagree with the poster above who says that you get this sort of veering by swimming with exclusively breathing to one side. I train now only breathing to one side and have for years now, and I swim straight. I do occasionally practice bilateral breathing in conjunction with sighting just to make sure I'm good to go in OW, but you shouldn't develop navigational problems solely because you breath only to one side in training
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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I find I pull to the right in OW. Mine is linked to sighting. I do a short pull with my left and over pull with my right after sighting. It gets better after a couple of sessions.
My goggles broke during a swim this year. Turns out I swim straighter when I don't sight as often. Weird.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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Could also be stroke timing after breathing. If you start pulling to early you can contort your body to keep breathing and pull hard right.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [HandHeartCrown] [ In reply to ]
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HandHeartCrown wrote:
For what purpose? I pull left in OW. I've done your experiment in a pool and, guess what, I pull left.

To remove the visual cue and feedback loop of having a line on the bottom of the pool to guide and correct off of - similar to swimming in murky open water. Closing your eyes isn't a fix; its a test. It tests to see if you can stay in a straight line. Whether we realize it or not we are probably constantly seeing the line, seeing if we are drifting, course correcting, wash and repeat. The idea is to change your stroke (or parts) until you can swim straight without looking; or to be able to feel that you are sliding off line and need to make a correction.

For example: Eyes closed, swim 25 yards or until you hit one of the ropes. Try again with breathing only right, only left, or bilateral. Does any of those help? Can you feel yourself drifting to one side? Try again, pulling extra hard with one arm. Does that help? Make it worse? Keep tweaking until you can get to a place where you can swim mostly straight. Or until you can feel yourself getting off your line; that would be time to sight in OW.

Hope that helps.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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There are a few things that can fix this, all need a lot of focus.

Try swimming with a snorkel and focus on symmetry.

Alternatively Do a lot of breathing to your weak side. Do sessions where you only breathe to your weak side, you should learn to do that anyway because some day you might do a swim where you have a decent chop coming in from one side vs the othr.

As someone else said you may be crossing over with your right arm. Keep your hand entry at 1:00 and 11:00, and focus on not crossing either edge of the black line through your catch and pull through. Keep your hand under your shoulder at the bottom of your catch.
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Re: Drifting Hard Right in OW [ericlambi] [ In reply to ]
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ericlambi wrote:
AutomaticJack wrote:
Do you bilaterally breath, or only on the left?


Only to the left.


Interesting you knew that the OP is only breathing to the left. My guess is the OP is crossing over more with their right arm (which acts like a brake) or not getting the same catch because they could be using it to lift their body to breath vs rolling to breath. Either way left arm is creating more propulsion, causing you to go right.

There is also the possibility that your kick could be part of the issue which you should rule out by using a pull bouy / band and turning your kick completely off just to check.
Last edited by: endosch2: Dec 21, 17 8:32
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