cowbell -- i'm confused about crossing over during recovery -- do you mean crossing over during extension out in front of yoru stroke?

Yes, during the extension. Thanks for the correction.

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Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME?

some visualization might help you - I used to bring my arms too far center on backstroke. Picture a line running all the way through from your feet to your outstreched arm, right through the center of your body, and keep your arms on either side of it. I don't know any drills to fix it, you just need to be concious not to do it :P

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Easy. Swim what feels really wide. Like a FOOT wide. It'll probably be 3". Finger tip drag and catchup drill will help. And perhaps try not reaching so far forward on your recovery (when I do, I indeed cross over).

I disagree about too much rotation being better than too little. It's easy to ADD rotation, hard to take it away. Too much creates ALL kinds of nasty habits like turning too far to breathe, crossing over UNDER your body, etc. Yuck. I know, because that's what I did for a long time.

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No real recommended drills that I can think of. Just be conscious of it. One thing that I liked to do was swim down the center of the lane with a black line in the middle. Then just make sure to try and keep your arm on the proper side of the middle line.

ok. try putting yoru hands in the water in front of your shoulders instead of in front of your head. this will widen your entry. the second thing is when reachign forward, when your hands are in the water, i try to enter with the ring finger/birdie finger and act like you are rolling yoru fingers, then your hand over a tennis ball, making sure to lead with ring/birdie finger. this should help you stay wide instead of slicing over in front. if you lead with these fingers, it should help angle your hand to reduce slicing across teh centerline on the pull. hope this helps,


also, i think that too many people start rotation with their shoulders. use the hips to start body rotation, and let teh shoulders rotate off of your hips instead of the other way around. this might help?

The best thing to do, is to have swim and have a coach watch you. Keep moving your hand out until the coach says that you are not crossing over anymore. As someone said earlier, it will feel like your hand is waaaay out there, but it will only be a couple of inches.



Also, you could try holding a kickboard in front of you and alternately pull with either hand, making sure that your hand returns to the outside edge of the board.



Another option is get about 12" of PVC pipe, cap and seal the ends, and swim holding that out in front of you. alternately grab the ends with your hand in front of you as you pull. If you are really tough, fill it with sand so that it doesn't float.



Ed

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from experience, you have to really make an effort to overcorrect as many people that cross over do not really realize to what extend. You can also swim a couple of strokes and then stop while your rt. or left hand is extended, leave the hand where it is and check where you enter the water.

Swim next to a wall. This way you have to swim with a high shoulders, otherwise you will hit it (ouch! :). That could help you as well.

god luck!

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�The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.� -Michelangelo

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My old swim coach's description of correcting overreaching on backstroke was to say it should feel like your hands are going into the water at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, and then body roll will put them straight in front of you as you extend to start the catch.

Freestyle, you're not quite that wide on entry, but same general principle.

I corrected this problem by swimming down the center of the lane directly over the black line. Try to keep your hands on one side or the other of the black line without crossing over as they pull underneath you. This gives you an immediate feedback as to crossing over or not. Good luck; correcting this problem will improve your swimming efficiency.