I would appreciate your help in determining how to fix my swim stroke: - learned about 4 years ago - no real coaching, nor is there much available in my area -12 to 15K yards per week, trying to build a little more - swim around 1:35 per 100yd, in open water much slower
My problems (as far as I can tell) * Overgliding, dead spot in stroke * Scissor kick * Deep pull with almost straight arm **** More??
My problems (as far as I can tell) * Overgliding, dead spot in stroke - I don't think you are "overgliding" * Scissor kick - I don't really see it * Deep pull with almost straight arm - nope **** More?? yes - stiff dude, you look very stiff! relax and yeah relax some more... Try to get 2 more vids, under water sideways and from the deck sideways, the underwater front view is perfect to see if you are crossing over or not, and you are not crossing over. to be able to see how much you are dropping your elbow (if you are) it is very hard from the front view/angle when it is not that bad.
I would appreciate your help in determining how to fix my swim stroke: - learned about 4 years ago - no real coaching, nor is there much available in my area -12 to 15K yards per week, trying to build a little more - swim around 1:35 per 100yd, in open water much slower
My problems (as far as I can tell) * Overgliding, dead spot in stroke * Scissor kick * Deep pull with almost straight arm **** More??
First thing to fix is this...12 to 15K per week. To really fix a stroke, IMO you need to be doing a lot more than that.
you're doing a bit of a scissor, but the thing that stands out is that nothing "snaps". The kick is slow and lethargic, you would be better off not kicking at all. You are slowly rolling from side to side, instead of snapping yourself into position. To get that snap, you really want to feel your hands and forearm (they should be a unit, rather than flapping all over the place like yours) accelerate throughout the stroke, and also make the breath snappier as well. Instead of a slow roll to the side, and a slow roll back, you want your head to set the tone for the rest of your body and snap into place.
The snap is important because you want to spend as much of the stroke on your side as you can. Not overrotated, but 30-40 degrees of roll is plenty. The reason is that if you are on your side then you can take advantage of the large muscles in your back as well as your pecs.
As far as overgliding, yeah, you are doing that. A good tool that I've recently started using and love is the Finis Agility paddle, it is a strapless design that just stays on with a little hole for your thumb. They really force you to adopt a high elbow catch position and prevent you from overgliding (or they come off). I think it would be a really good tool for someone with your stroke issues on the pull. Not a panacea, but a good tool. I've been throwing mine on for every other pull set (I don't like to be overreliant on paddles, so don't overdo them).
This is me (lane 8, white cap). My stroke isn't perfection, by any means. In fact, I have a very long list of things I can improve upon, but one thing I do well is the kick. The 400 free is too long for me to hold a really strong 6 beat kick for the entire race, even the 200 is tough. You will notice in the 400 that I'm either kicking hard, or not at all (just a little bit of water pressure moving my legs, but they are relaxed during that pause). You, on the other hand, just gently move your legs, so you aren't getting lift, you aren't getting propulsion, but you are increasing drag...
ETA: you are also definitly overrotating on your breath, slowing everything down and contributing to the scissor kick... You want one goggle in, one out when you breathe... Swimming Workout of the Day:
Your pull is a little late so you are kind of rotating away from it. This makes the pull less effective because your arm doesn't really have as much to 'push against' if that makes sense. You should catch and initiate your pull while you are still rotating towards that arm, and your rotation in the other direction shouldn't start until you mid-way through your pull. I had the same problem (among others). To correct it, I had to increase my swim cadence by quite a bit. I don't know who said it, but some famous coach said something along the lines of, "if you are not pulling, you're slowing." So work on initiating your catch and pull immediately when that hand contacts water, and increasing your turnover. Keeping a high elbow will also help this.
I swim around 1:28/100 yards right now in open water, and when I lap swim, I get around 21-22 strokes per length (25 meters)
There are many issues...but if you fix a few, others may disappear. I'll say, this is what I've learned from a fantastic coach & plenty of video time. I'd suggest to start swimming flat.... and practice hand entry way wider than you think. My coach says to pretend you're paddling on a surf board. There are little tricks to help you learn this, like holding a thin, 6 inch long pvc pipe, and do a "hand-off" with every stroke. This is like "catchups" but ensures you have a wider hand entry, and you are swimming flatter... less over rotation. Breathe earlier in the stroke, thus allowing the breath to end sooner, and then get the face back in. Your arms are too straight through the stroke, keep elbow bent, until the finish. Practice kicking on your back with a kick board extended over your knees. Flatten out, and don't bash the board around. Work each one separately, and repeat. I'm not a huge fan of putting in volume when the stroke is bad--it can lead to injury and just simply reiterates poor form. Drills are still conditioning and the pay off is substantial.
You drive a bit too much with your shoulders. If you rotate your shoulders less and your hips more, that should help.
I'd tilt my head up a little more. I can't see from above, but it looks pretty low. Conversely, when you breathe, you're pulling your head too far up and to the side, so you've got a nice little zig-zag going every time you breathe. Work on gauging whether or not each breath slows you down. They shouldn't.
I'll repeat the high-elbow pull that others are saying. It's way more powerful. It may also help the hip/shoulder problem. (See picture)
First thing to fix is this...12 to 15K per week. To really fix a stroke, IMO you need to be doing a lot more than that.
I am not trying to hijack the thread, but what is the consensus on this? 15k a week over 5 workouts is 3k a day. That eats up a lot of time that people with kids and jobs could be using to train the run and bike. Does this mean that swimmers who didn't do the swim club thing as kids are screwed, unless they want to dedicate themselves to swimming in a way that takes significant time away from the run and bike?
I would prefer to avoid having a thread telling me how it is possible to fit it all in with more HTFU, I just find it daunting to think that I need to be in the pool ten hours a week just to fix my stroke, so I am wondering if others agree with this. Please don't dash my fantasy that all I need is a few tips to correct some obvious errors and I will then magically get faster.
If you really want to fix the issues and fix them quickly, I don't think you can get there on just 12k per week. By "fix", I mean that you do enough volume that it becomes automatic and you no longer think about how far to roll your head to breathe, you just do it.... Well, maybe you can, but it will take a lot longer. Better IMO to just bite the bullet and do a big swim block, same as if you are trying to improve on the run.
That's not to say that you cannot improve on less than that. People can and do. But more pool training is better if you want to really fix the stroke, there are aspects to technique that require a ton of swim-specific fitness. You cannot expect to become the best swimmer you can be while still doing all of the bike and run, so yeah, if you are serious about improving on the swim, then you do have to take time away from the bike and/or run.
The good thing is that once the technique improvements are locked in, they tend to stay with you regardless of what your swim fitness is doing, so you can back off the swim as race season gets closer. Swimming Workout of the Day:
First thing to fix is this...12 to 15K per week. To really fix a stroke, IMO you need to be doing a lot more than that.
I am not trying to hijack the thread, but what is the consensus on this? 15k a week over 5 workouts is 3k a day. That eats up a lot of time that people with kids and jobs could be using to train the run and bike. Does this mean that swimmers who didn't do the swim club thing as kids are screwed, unless they want to dedicate themselves to swimming in a way that takes significant time away from the run and bike?
I would prefer to avoid having a thread telling me how it is possible to fit it all in with more HTFU, I just find it daunting to think that I need to be in the pool ten hours a week just to fix my stroke, so I am wondering if others agree with this. Please don't dash my fantasy that all I need is a few tips to correct some obvious errors and I will then magically get faster.
There was another thread where some guy was saying he got faster just by swimming more. Many ways to skin a......
I will say I wonder about this lots of small workouts thing. (Lots of coaches seem to recommend this). This seems very inconvenient. Let's just say a "real swimmer" does 9 x 6000 yd workouts per week. As a triathlete, maybe I would only do 1/3 third that. Wouldn't 3 x 6000 yds be way more convenient than 9 x 2000? Just my 2 cents.
Ralph 20- Your stroke does not look that bad. One would think you could be moving faster. Yes ... the shoulders and the kick.... But the biggest problem, probably has to do with when, where and how hard you are pushing with your arms during the stroke.
Do you maintain a picture of yourself while you swim? It seems like most people try to use their arms to move through the water in much the same way that a dog uses their front legs to swim. (Granted the recovery is different but the propulsion part is the same). This is not it! One is not simply dragging ones arm through the water. NOT like the hand of a clock going from 3 to 9.
The classic mental image is to imagine you are using each hand to lift yourself up a shoulder height wall. (Several videos on YouTube show this image). I think this is a great image. Not just because it gives you a better idea how to move your arm and how to keep your body positioned. But it also provides a good idea as to where the most force is to be applied on the stroke and how force should build going into that moment and how momentum will carry out the back.
I appreciate everyone's input. This is probably the first step for me as I do feel that my shoulders are driving the swim. I get the "lifting myself over a wall" routine, but I have a difficult time actually executing that in the pool. So how do you go about engaging your back/hips to do the work?
First thing to fix is this...12 to 15K per week. To really fix a stroke, IMO you need to be doing a lot more than that.
I am not trying to hijack the thread, but what is the consensus on this? 15k a week over 5 workouts is 3k a day. That eats up a lot of time that people with kids and jobs could be using to train the run and bike. Does this mean that swimmers who didn't do the swim club thing as kids are screwed, unless they want to dedicate themselves to swimming in a way that takes significant time away from the run and bike?
I would prefer to avoid having a thread telling me how it is possible to fit it all in with more HTFU, I just find it daunting to think that I need to be in the pool ten hours a week just to fix my stroke, so I am wondering if others agree with this. Please don't dash my fantasy that all I need is a few tips to correct some obvious errors and I will then magically get faster.
You can probably fix the stroke issues if you are doing 3k a day of drills. Or you can do 3k a day of fitness. Hard to do both and be effective. That's what Jason is getting at. There is some improvement with just "more" on the swimming, but to really fix it you need a coach, review, drills and more drills.
dirtymangos wrote:
There was another thread where some guy was saying he got faster just by swimming more. Many ways to skin a......
I will say I wonder about this lots of small workouts thing. (Lots of coaches seem to recommend this). This seems very inconvenient. Let's just say a "real swimmer" does 9 x 6000 yd workouts per week. As a triathlete, maybe I would only do 1/3 third that. Wouldn't 3 x 6000 yds be way more convenient than 9 x 2000? Just my 2 cents.
More convenient, but not necessarily more effective. Can you guarantee that your form will hold together for a 6000 yd workout? 6000 yards would be a decent sized workout for a college swimmer.
Ralph 20- Your stroke does not look that bad. One would think you could be moving faster. Yes ... the shoulders and the kick.... But the biggest problem, probably has to do with when, where and how hard you are pushing with your arms during the stroke.
Do you maintain a picture of yourself while you swim? It seems like most people try to use their arms to move through the water in much the same way that a dog uses their front legs to swim. (Granted the recovery is different but the propulsion part is the same). This is not it! One is not simply dragging ones arm through the water. NOT like the hand of a clock going from 3 to 9.
The classic mental image is to imagine you are using each hand to lift yourself up a shoulder height wall. (Several videos on YouTube show this image). I think this is a great image. Not just because it gives you a better idea how to move your arm and how to keep your body positioned. But it also provides a good idea as to where the most force is to be applied on the stroke and how force should build going into that moment and how momentum will carry out the back.
I was thinking this as I wrote my original response, but forgot to type it out, but it goes along with that slow roll from side to side and lack of snap. The op doesn't accelerate the arm throughout the pull, it's just a steady, one speed pull. I think that's what you are alluding to as well. Swimming Workout of the Day:
I appreciate everyone's input. This is probably the first step for me as I do feel that my shoulders are driving the swim. I get the "lifting myself over a wall" routine, but I have a difficult time actually executing that in the pool. So how do you go about engaging your back/hips to do the work?
Once the off-season hits. Do what this book says. And do it right. It may take weeks or over a month. Patience is essential. But if you do this right, and this will fix the hip/shoulder problem, and add free speed to your stroke. I speak from first-hand experience.
I agree with critics that the TI doesn't properly teach how to swim FAST. So use this for body positioning, but get your speed training from somewhere else.
Oh... and ignore the jibber-jabber about volume. "Garbage yardage" is worthless. Yes, to do a quality sessions, you'll inevitably be swimming around 15k or so. But the lap count is not as important as the quality. Each workout is for the training benefit. NOT checking a box. (My 2c). Quality. Quality. Quality.
The op is way past anything that TI will provide. TI is fine for new swimmers wanting to get comfortable in the water. The OP is considerably more advanced than that. Swimming Workout of the Day:
No he isn't. The OP would benefit hugely from some basic TI balance drills. ------------------------------- ´Get the most aero and light bike you can get. With the aero advantage you can be saving minutes and with the weight advantage you can be saving seconds. In a race against the clock both matter.´
Afraid not. Barchettaman is right. Just watch the bending going on in the torso, and zig-zag that occurs with each breath. I recognize those things because that's exactly what I was doing a few years ago.
This isn't a problem with fitness, which I'm sure the OP has plenty of. It's a problem with form fundamentals. When a swimmer is bending in the middle so much, it takes more than just a few tweaks with entry and some kicking drills to fix it. He needs to spend some good off-season time taking it back to the basics.
Afraid not. Barchettaman is right. Just watch the bending going on in the torso, and zig-zag that occurs with each breath. I recognize those things because that's exactly what I was doing a few years ago.
This isn't a problem with fitness, which I'm sure the OP has plenty of. It's a problem with form fundamentals. When a swimmer is bending in the middle so much, it takes more than just a few tweaks with entry and some kicking drills to fix it. He needs to spend some good off-season time taking it back to the basics.
TI works for a small subset of the population. In general it's not a great system unless you are coming from zero. I would recommend swimsmooth and a healthy dose of some of the drills available through youtube LONG before I'd work with TI.
Like others have mentioned, your main issue is dropping your elbow. This is inhibiting any sort of leverage you can apply to the water. So your arms are essentially "going through the motions" instead of engaging your lats to apply force. Think of it like this; your elbow should not be below your hand at any point during the pull.
While it's not really a drill per se, you'll know your elbows are high if you're swimming close to the lane line or the wall and your elbow hits it once in a while.
I don't see a major scissor kick but your legs are a little wide and your kick amplitude is a little too big. Maybe try swimming with a bouy on but still kick. Bouy falls out then kick is too wide.
Agree you are gliding (a little) too much but if you were getting more power from your lats I'd say it isn't a big deal. You're also over-rotating and I think this has to do with a very low-in-the-water body position which is forcing you to turn your head too far to breath.
I've never done Total Immersion but I'm familiar with the concepts and I generally agree with JasoninHallifax that TI may not get you where you want to go. Whereas more training and harder efforts and constantly trying to "feel" your stroke, and make minor adjustments, will.
Afraid not. Barchettaman is right. Just watch the bending going on in the torso, and zig-zag that occurs with each breath. I recognize those things because that's exactly what I was doing a few years ago.
This isn't a problem with fitness, which I'm sure the OP has plenty of. It's a problem with form fundamentals. When a swimmer is bending in the middle so much, it takes more than just a few tweaks with entry and some kicking drills to fix it. He needs to spend some good off-season time taking it back to the basics.
He's doing those things because his pull is not what it should be and he is over rotating, esp on the breath. Fix those, and maintaining alignment gets a lot easier. You fix those bh eliminating that glide at the front and maintaining high elbow, and working on breath timing. To fix the first 2 things, you need yardage to imprint the new motor patterns into your brain. The Finis paddles I mentioned are also great.
I've mentioned before that I do very few drills. Catch up and one arm swimming. For the OP, I'd stay away from catch up and work on regular pull sets, and really work on the velocity of the recovery and accelerating the hand and forearm through the stroke, maintaining the high elbow and pulling straight back.
Do those things, and his supposed balance problems wil go away. Fish tailing and scissor kicking are symptoms, not causes. Swimming Workout of the Day:
I am totally with JasoninHalifax here. OP just looks weak in the water. Sloppy kick, weak core, dropped elbow and no oompfh in the pull. Of course it will be slow and cause rhytm issues. Sure, one might think that some TI-drills with focus on how to just lie straight in the water will fix these issues and maybe they will make OP be able to look a bit better but I would bet that OP would not become faster from this.
I for one do not believe that OP need to swim more. Maybe some extra, like 300 yard per workout maybe, but whats most important is making great use of the pool time. Short warmup, a really tough pre-set with fly swimming (one arm of you cant do it yet) or sprint free, and then a longer set like 10x300(275free+25fly) on a solid start time, forcing you to keep a high pace but not blasting yourself in the first few intervals (like in all training really). With a 400 yard warmup, 400 yard preset (each taking 7,5 minutes) and a start time on that main set of 4:45 will do 4000 yards (200 cd) like 1:10. That is a solid workout. 4 workouts like these a week should yield some sweet improvements. Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede
