Ky Hurst has a 'pretty' stroke and he's not bad at open water swimming. Some top ow swimmers seem to 'get away' with their 'pretty' 'pool' strokes in open water.

I agree with you.

I've been swimming all my live, nowadays I prefer OW swimming, and I have many friends that are beginning to do some triathlon and they've never swam before, so I thought I can help them with these sort of videos with little tips.

Of course you have to adapt your stroke depending on the conditions of the water.
We will do many other videos with technique exercises (mainly to be done in winter time) and we'll also do some in OW at the beach of Barcelona. In fact, I have some done already, but we thought that it should be better to fix the main issues before going out to open sea.

What do think about this? Could this help them?
Thanks for your comments, and please forget my missunderstanding. :-)

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

The second chapter's coming soon...

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

I think it's an excellent video, explaining the basics of proper freestyle swimming which is very well illustrated by this video footage!
Since most people learn to swim in a pool, it's quite obvious to demonstrate the technical aspects the way you did. Wether this style of swimming is suitable for open water swims, I don't know. That might depend of the type of ows (ocean vs lakes, whatever). But it's annoying that some people apparently feel the urge to give some totally irrelevant comments upon your video and probably like to show their superiority by 'name dropping'.
Anyway...I 'll put the link to the dutch triathlon forum, because to my opinion it answers a lot of the questions among those members about freestyle swimming.
So keep up the good work and I 'm looking forward to see the next video!

Thank you very much for your comments!!
:-)
Thank you so much for linking it to the Dutch forum!! Awesome!!

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

We will do at least 2 videos for OW swimming. ;-)

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

It is true... We just want to point out some little Key Points for beginners.

Soon we'll have the second video!!

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

Thanks for your comments.
We will do a video explaining what your coach suggests. ;-)
This was just a little chapter.

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

dogmile wrote:

Anyone want to point to a video of a good OW stroke?

Chris Lieto has a pretty "pool" stroke that works well in pool or OW, and he adapts it well. I've had a chance to see him race in person (Keauhou Lavaman last november) and his stroke was the prettiest of all, and he came out of the water 5 feet behind the leader, only because he overswam the last buoy over a course rope getting tangled up in it. I could watch Chris swim all day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF-861eqego


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDBQWbPlkrk

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Suzanne Atkinson, MD
Steel City Endurance Coaching

I think they "get away with it" because they also tend to have stronger kicks. For instance, if you watch ITU swims, a lot of the top male swimmers do swim with a front-quadrant stroke and a SR closer to what you'd expect out of a pool swimmer, but they also tend to kick 6bt and HARD. There has really been a shift in the last few years away from saving the legs during the swim, and using a strong kick. Rather than looking at WTS draft-legal racing as a waiting game wherein the swim is pass/fail, the bike is pass/fail and the run is where the grade is given, the swim is now looking more and more like an investment. Burning an extra match or two there in turn offers a faster bike pack, and the opportunity to start the run ahead.

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__________________________

I tweet!

Jodie Swallow has a wonderful open water-specific stroke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiNkAMU8syI

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

Of course to feel the water is also important for swimming.
This video just wanted to point out some concepts for beginners. It is quite a bit like driving, when you start driving at 16 you focus on the gas, brake and so one, and then you interiorize it and many months later you are able to drive without thinking.

Thank you so much for your comments.

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

Thank you!!
Next's coming soon!!

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

Just curious about you your own swimming background since brought it up.

I just put the high elbow technique to use this morning. I've always swum crawl like I was climbing a rope, hands close to the centerline with a cupping motion to grab the water during my catch. With my corrected stroke I shaved 7-10 seconds per 100m bringing my pace down to 1:50-53. My heart rate remained the same at about 118 bpm. It felt really awkward, but I'm sure that will pass with practice. Thanks for the vid!

One week for the second chapter!!

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

Next video's coming this week!!

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

My friend Damián Blaum (OW World Champion 2013) has a nice stroke also. I'm lucky because I swam with him and his wife Esther Nuñez (OW World Champion 2012) many times.

These people seem to fly!!

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

In very few weeks we'll post many other videos about swimming tips...

Subscrive to our channel: NOTEPARES TV

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JuanjoNTP (@JuanjoNTP)
http://www.ironman-finisher.com

based on the first 30 seconds it looks like a slow catch-up stroke?
I had major issues with the opposite- my breathing was late, thus when i turned to the right to breathe, my left arm was pushing water down and i would over-rotate. Since then i have learned to sort of 3/4 catch up which has removed my straight left arm pointing to the bottom of the pool. When i breathe to my right i now sort of follow my right arm moving back while leaving my left hand extended out front.
In the video it looks sort of similar but the swimmer tends to leave their opposite arm out for longer than i do. Again, more 'catch-up' than i do. Im guessing this is what is called front quadrant?
my pool times were 1:47 per 100 at best with my old stroke with the over-rotation, scissor kick, one arm pushing water down etc. With a sort of 3/4 catch up type of stroke (less 'vicious' than the swimmer in the video though) my times have gone down to low 1:40's with ease, less effort and 4 fewer strokes per pool length. I havent tested this in the ocean yet though!

Massive elbow drop
Catch up stroke

Get rid of both of those.

I'll chime in to disagree with your statement. There isn't a one size fits all stroke for open water. The winner of the 10k open water at the London Olympics, Ous Melloui, has what you would say is pool stroke that sucks for open water. He also won a bronze in the 1500m at the same Olympics and a gold in 2008 in the 1500m. The silver medal winner, Thomas Lutz, had a higher turnover, front quadrant stroke and does not compete in the pool. It takes an experienced coach to figure out which works best for each swimmer. Just a little FYI...

Best regards,

Tim

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

Great reference re: Mellouli. The stroke here is pretty darn solid, and better than what 90 percent of all triathletes bring to the water. This is clearly not race pace swimming/tempo, as is true of the demo swimming in nearly all instructional videos. As this swimmer picks up the tempo there will be a loss in the amount of overlap/catch up quality in the stroke (pretty much inevitable.) In the stable pool environment, where we can truly verify the effectiveness of stroke mechanics, the windmill swimmer is a dying breed in all but the shortest of evens (50, maybe 100 meters.) I suspect the "fact" that some believe abandoning proven effective mechanics for windmilling is more a "feeling" than quantifiable fact. I would develop your best swimming skills in the pool, where you can control far more variables and truly arrive at what is best, then adjust that as little as possible to navigate open water conditions. I prefer to think of open water swimming as playing tennis on various surfaces. Yes, you adjust your game, and some performers will handle some conditions better than others. But you don't use a "totally different" skill set. You use a slightly modified one, when called for. Maybe Melllouli won the London 10K swim because the water conditions were about as pool-like as you could get for open water competition. Had it been in swells he may not have been as successful. I would be interested in knowing if Mellouli would have altered his mechanics/strategy under harsher conditions. Mellouli. Not Rodrigues, or Laughlin, or Newsome.
In terms of selecting the appropriate balance of stroke length and tempo, there is really an inescapably simple math equation: Velocity = Distance X Rate. "Turning it over" is no better a strategy than "long strokes" when considered in isolation. It is the combination of the two that creates velocity. What makes swimming challenging is that adding more tempo generally means sacrificing distance per stroke. The key is to optimize their relationship in a way that is sustainable for long swims. In a pool that might mean 40 strokes per 50 meter pool at a frequency of 65 strokes per minute. That would give the swimmer a pure surface swimming time (not counting push off) of 36.9 seconds. If you increase the tempo to 70 strokes per minute but end up taking 43 strokes, you're essentially swimming at the same speed (36.8 seconds), but likely at a higher level of exertion. Wast that .1 of a second worth the additional heart beats? I know several triathletes who have bought into the "tempo is everything" philosophy who take upwards of 60-75 strokes per 50 meter pool length. They are spinning in an absurdly small gear. And they have essentially maxed out of "even more tempo" as a strategy to get faster. Their "R" is about as high as it can go. The only realistic strategy to swim fasters is develop better mechanics that support improved distance per stroke without catastrophically lowering their tempo. It never ceases to amaze me how developing distance per stroke is mocked as "gliding" in this forum. There are tons of things that allow a swimmer to travel farther on each stroke: reduced drag, better catch/leveraging positions, fully integrated and harmonious stroking/body/kicking movements, appropriately timed management of force. Passively jutting your arm out front is not what creates functional stroke length.
I would like to see the swimmer in your video do a set of 25s at progressively faster tempos, up to and beyond his race pace for a specific triathlon distance. That would be pretty interesting, and a better indicator of whether his mechanics hold up under the stress of higher cadence.
Pool swimmers tend to be better in the pool in part because we are so much better getting in and out of the walls--flip turns vs open turns, great streamlining vs poor. I easily gain 1-2 seconds per length over a triathlon swimmer who doesn't have those skills. In open water I lose that advantage, which partially explains why the gap in our performance narrows. It's not that my mechanics are ineffective in open water; it's that my pool specific skills end-to-end don't come into play.

Paragraphs are your friend.

It never ceases to amaze me how developing distance per stroke is mocked as "gliding" in this forum.

Not true. Gliding is mocked as gliding. DPS is good, none of the decent swimmers on here have ever said differently. But there are lots of people who think that gliding is synonymous with improving dps, and is somehow "free speed". It isn't.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you but if you feel the stroke in the latest link is good and to be used as an example then we have different opinions on a high elbow and dropped elbow.