I disagree. Swimming 15kms a week, he will improve, but not significantly, at least not to the point where he's competitive, something exemplified by the general shit standard of swimming in triathlon. Lots of people out there flogging themselves in the pool and getting nowhere because they never address the flaws in their stroke. He might get down to 31/32, but unlikely someone can get to 26/27 without some semblance of a a good technique. He has some fundamental flaws in his freestyle, if no-one tells what he's doing wrong and how to fix it, he'll not improve a whole lot.

First of all, 31/32 would be a significant improvement and make him very competitive and would be a signficant . He runs sub 3 marathons. And a good FTP. I predict that if he swam 15K every week for a year, he would be sub 30 for a half. But 31/32: I'm sure he'd take that in a heartbeat. Second, he has fundamental "flaws" in his stoke precisely because he does not swim enough and is not swim fit. Slowtwitch loves to overanalyze swim stroke. There is no perfect stroke. Particularly for long distance and triathlon swimming. They come in a all shapes and sizes. Pace/100 in triathlon is slow. Swim 15K a week. Swim 3K straight 5 times a week. Use a pull buoy. As he swims more, some of those flaws will automatically be fixed. He'll be competitive. Simple as that.

If that's a 25 yd pool, you're a quite a bit faster than 2:00/100y...unless that was an unsustainable effort.

That scissor kick is huge and costing you a lot of speed. Someone suggested a buoy/band combo ... that will help but the scissor kick will return as soon as you get rid of the buoy/band if you don't fix your alignment issues. You're crossing over pretty severely and rotating way too much for your breath. Both of these issues create an alignment/balance problem that contributes to the scissor kick. If you want to get another toy, a center snorkel would be a good one. It combined with the buoy/band will allow you to focus on the front part of your stroke. Focus on getting your hand entry quite a bit wider (closer to the 11:00 and 2:00 positions). Breathing...one goggle in one goggle out. You should be able to see what's going on underwater in the lane next to you when you breathe.

Your kick could be serviceable...it actually looked pretty decent on the push-off (fairly tight kick with pointed toes). The problems started when you initiated your stroke. First things first though, get your posture in the water aligned. You won't get rid of the scissor until you do so.

1) kick to stabilize not to propel
2) swim 2x or more a week
3) get a coach

I disagree. If one ignores the video, I read this thread and all I see is consensus.

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Well, I disagree strongly with the advice to just swim a lot. Swimming is a technique sport - if not then why am I as a 6-month pregnant lady swimming so much faster than the 6'5" meathead in the lane next to me? I see people swimming with horrible technique day in, day out, and it makes me cringe. Get some lessons and then add volume.

Most of what is in this thread is about ways to focus on technique flaws. It's entirely reasonable for a person to go to the pool 4-5x a week, swim slowly, obsess over technique via the various recommendations here, and at the end of the week, they've "swam a lot".

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x1000

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Exactly.

You will get quicker swimming more, but the improvements will be severely hamstrung by the poor technique and swimming high volume doesn't magically fix all your flaws and turn you into an efficient swimmer with great technique. You need someone to tell identify your flaws and tell you how to fix them.

You don't need to have an amazing stroke to be competitive in triathlon, but it has to be half decent. OP has very little power with his catch and pull, swimming 15kms a week isn't going to fix that. Similarly with his kick, until someone actually tells him he's scissor kicking and shows him how to fix it, he could swim 20kms for a year, he will still have that scissor kick.

Jason is exactly right. Water is 800 times more dense than air, and drag is the biggest problem. Everything behind your shoulders creates drag, and your arms aren't giving you sufficient propulsion.

I'm going to throw more advice at you, and recommend that you follow Slowman's series on the front page for the rest of the year. I would start with the feet-together drill, but wouldn't even give you the luxury of a band or a bouy. Put the feet together, and try to swim in a straight line while remaining upright.


http://www.slowtwitch.com/Training/Swimming/

Once you've sorted that, you can move to a simple scissor kick and work on that. But one thing at a time.

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Unfortunately, for 99.9% of adults at least, this is incorrect.

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Yup, one thing at a time. It doesn't even need tobe perfect before moving onto the next, but just better.

Reason I like doing one at a time is that everything is connected. Fixing one thing may may the other thing better as well, or could make it worse, and while you can make some educated guesses, you don't truly know what will happen til it gets done.

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Can you please let us know what your annual swim volume has been for the last 5 years?

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5 (this year)

And if you can show weekly for the last two years that'd be great.

Lol.

If just swimming more automagically fixed technique, then I wouldn't have a wicked crossover on my breathing arm that I have to constantly remind myself not to do, and I wouldn't swim lopsided. And yet I do and have done for years. It's hard to break such habits.

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Precisely because as you say, you swim "day in day out"

Agreed. This is a smart approach.

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And yet notwithstanding your "flawed" stroke, you are I presume a fast swimmer (and dishing out swimming advice).

Irrelevant, imo.

That knowledge isn't going to substantially change what gets done going forward. A coach "might" care when deciding on an appropriate training volume, but even that will become time-limited rather than training-load limited pretty quickly.

Eg say he swam inconsistently in year one, very consistently in years 2 and 3, inconsistently in year 4, and extremely consistently in year 5. No matter what, coach is going to want him to swim consistently and up to a reasonable volume, which they will be able to assess within a couple of practices. He's not going to be doing 10 -12 swims per week like we did back in college, which is why I say he'll be time limited. He could do more if he had the time, which he won't.

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I'm reasonably quick (there are faster on this forum) but I would be faster if I could fix a few things.

My first coach as an AGer way back when would drill into us "practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent"

That applies equally to thoughtless thrashing through the pool as well as doing nothing but slow careful technique stuff.

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It's completely relevant because my guess is he has overstated the time he has spent in the pool. He claims to have been swimming for 5 years and not making any progress despite all the coaching and technique work he has done. He is looking for a magic pill, which doesn't exist. I think once he shows us - and himself - the actual numbers (and not what he remembers them to be or thinks they are), the problem and solution will become obvious. Let's see them. The numbers don't lie.

So essentially you've proved my point...

Re read the OP. He hasn't actually done any technique work. None that's worth anything, anyway.

A few TI sessions does not constitute technique work. It's only oretending to be. It's not consistent (plus it's terrible, the damage it's done is obvious to me.

In any case, if I were his coach I wouldn't care. I'm still going to completely break down and rebuild his stroke, starting with getting his legs out of the way

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I can contribute my story on improving swimming as it might be helpful. I was a BOP when I was doing tri - I am now a much better swimmer. My last race was IM Wisconsin 5 years ago and I am now one of those 'hidden' triathletes - I just swim and mountain bike these days. At some point I might get back to tri. For now I'm working on being a respectable masters swimmer - I still have bit to go, but I'm getting there.

- The best thing possible to do is swim with a masters group. period.

- About swim groups - while I was doing tri I signed up at various pools for lessons and what not, but honestly didn't get much out of them most of them. I know I just said you need a group, but not all groups are equal - keep looking until you find a good one. The first great group I found was the Sports med swim group in Madison WI. I got great instruction there and made it to 1:45/100 with them. But the point I want to make is you need to shop around for coaches and environment, not everything will work.

- I think the 10 x 100 type main set workouts are less productive for novice swimmers. I swam like this for years and was stuck at the 2:00 per 100. I bought the standard tri training books and then worked up to 10 x 400... still at 2:00/100 or slower - never got better. I now know this is a horrible way to swim for a novice. These types or work outs can still be done, but I think they are more effective for advanced swimmers looking to improve fitness/already know what they are doing. The reality for me is that I needed to address stroke issue first. I also need more variety in intensity and set type.

- Swimming more often (sounds like you do this) and with the best form possible for short distances is better when learning. When I started to achieve better form I found I could only really hold that form for a 25. Really. You can't get around needing to swim a ton to get better, so I think the best solution is to swim often - like the Barry P. plan for running. At least early on. The challenge is knowing what you need to do to swim better - hence the masters group, or slowtwich feedback.

- I don't suggest caring about how much yards you do in a week, but how much time. Some skills take time to refine and don't add up to maximizing yards (sculling, etc...), but really help in the long run. For example, if you want to learn to flip turn (you should) it's going to take away from your yards, but it's worth it. I've bounce off lane lines and the pool floor and I kept doing them. I now am OK at them, maybe even decent, but I took a hit in yards for some time to develop this skill.

- The type of set I found very useful is something like:

600 warm up (mix of swim/kick/drill) Should take at least 10 - 15 min.

4 x
50 drill (do what ever drill address your most significant stroke issue)
100 easy (you should be think about what issue you were trying to fix)
50 fast (to swim fast you have practice swimming fast - better be faster than 50 split in your 100!!!!)
50 kick (or stroke ,if you like, for recovery)
when I do this I have my intervals that work for me - start using the pace clock! I don't know what is good interval for you... swim with a masters group and you will know!

200 pull ( with a band, don't swim fast and work on minimizing the fish tailing)

6 x 50, odds fast as possible, evens easy ( you need to increase your variation in intensity... the fast 50s needs to be the fastest swimming of the workout, if they aren't barf at the side of the pool fast the previous work needs to be slower ), on a repeat like 1:30 or 1:45.

200 mixed cool down

- On variation and warm up - I discovered when I was swimming around 2:00/100 my fastest 100 was likely during my "warm up." This is horrible. You need variation. The warm up needs to be slow (actually it needs to be easy, but learning to judge what pace is "easy" takes time - it did for me anyhow). Try seeing how slow you can swim with good form - say swim a 25 on 45s and try and take the whole interval, if possible, during the warm up. Swimming the same pace for your warm up, for you main set, for your cool down is a carnal sin. Or worse, getting slower as you go through your workout. Now, the fastest swimming for me is often in the last half of my swim session. My best 50's tend to be after about 30 min of work.

- at some point to get better you need to work really hard in the pool. Barf in the gutters type work. But this CANNOT come until after a solid base of technique is established. For me, it took over a year (after many years of bad swimming on my own) of swimming with the careful eye of a great masters coach to get to that point. Maybe others could do this in less time.

- I now live in Nashville and swim at the NAC. The NAC is talked about from time to time on slowtwitch and you can't find a better place to swim. You need to find a great group as well. I have no idea what I swim in a tri now, but I have a 32.30 50fr (SCM) logged from this fall and I was really excited about this (even if it was last place at the meet in my AG). The point is, that I spent many years swimming and was stuck at 2:00 (SCY)/100 (over 5), then with the right coaching and effort I've now transitioned being a solid swimmer in the 'middle' skill level of the NAC workouts.

I don't know if that helps, but I was 2:00/100 swimmer for years with no improvement, and now I've completed hour workouts on the 1:40/100. For me it took time, good coaching, and doing the right workouts. Be careful of those 10 x whatever sets initially. I feel they just reinforce bad form for the novice. At some point, it seems, you need to swim your arms off, but not before a technical base develops. You don't have a good technical base at 2:00/100. That's my experience. I improved with 3 to 4 hours per week. Every week. Not much swimming, but consistent. I hope to swim more in the future.

Keenan

I'm not sure if I have proved your point or not. It's the same thing I've been saying for ages.

It's hard to make changes, but the only way they get made is to work on technique. That may include drills, but most of it is through awareness during the meat of the practice. And there isn't a magic bullet.

I've managed to fix a couple of things I was doing wrong by doing just that. The crossover is relatively minor compared to my other things. so I haven't been working on it much. I actually though I had fixed it but then I took a camera to the pool on Monday and noticed I was still doing it. Something to work on

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