Well I can tell you one easy thing to go a lot faster, breath more!!!

Maybe reach out longer on the catch and angle you hand towards the surface a bit more. You seem to be strong, but muscling a stroke only goes so far...

That was just a quickie, you will get more from the experts here.

Before reading Monty's comment I thought extend the arm further upon entry to the water. Rotate your shoulders a bit more to increase the extension. When you breath it helps you rotate and extend so breath more Maybe someone can suggest a drill to help you with that.

I hate micro management, but I'll try a little. Deep hands are good, but I think you might be going a bit too deep. So you never really get the power of EVF and those deep hands at the end of your almost fully extended arms while in the front (quadrant) are really hard to pull through, so they go a little slower, and make your kick timing just a touch early.

You're creating a lot of force, but not necessarily propulsion, at the front of your stroke, which delays getting to the finish, where you really could create a lot of propulsion from your force.

One arm drill* and Pulling without a buoy could help with this, as could simply being aware of it. You've got some decent fundamentals so you should be a able to tweak some specifics without throwing yourself out of whack too badly.

*I prefer one arm with the non pulling arm at the side, and breathing away from the puling arm, not the guppy challenge arm out front version.

I agree with FF re: micro managing ... my first hits are similar to those mentioned PLUS
1) Considering changing your swim prescription ... volume(?) technique (minor), load application (?) etc.
2) One nobody mentioned is your kick ... not how many beats BUT quite often the kick comes from the knee (knee bent, heal high) creates drag and takes you out of alignment
3) Head position ... could go down slightly (micromanaging BUT slightly better alignment)
4) Agree with extension / depth of front end too ... BUT someone mentioned rotate the shoulders, I say NO ... extend the shoulder forward and down (drive the hand forward and down with the shoulder) and that facilitates the hips to do the same thing (rotate) ...which of course makes breathing easier

... all these work well in the kinetic chain of the movement(s) you are trying to refine ... so much good stuff going on we should not be overly critical

Keep it rolling ...

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Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

Thanks for this, everyone.

2/3) I didn't grow up swimming so didn't learn this, was really self taught. I do notice that my alignment/back does bend and i wasn't sure if that was coming from my breathing/head position or kicking... good points there.

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Inside The Big Ring: Podcast & Coaching

Right hand sinking probably about 25% of your stroke before you start to catch. You are losing a lot at the front end there. The other thing is how hard are you hitting the water on entry? Sounds a lot like your are throwing your arms with too much force. Could just be the acoustics of the pool. Also, was this filmed at the start, middle or end of a training session? The reason you are swimming 65 rather than 55 could be as much to do with you losing the form of your stroke as you fatigue than the actual stroke itself.

This is interesting and makes alot of sense when i look at it. I don't see the connection from the catch translating to my body rotating forward. Thats a nice way of putting it.

What do you think about my left arm under the water?

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Inside The Big Ring: Podcast & Coaching

Excited to hear more on this topic.

Do you see the slight pausing thats happening after my right arm enters the water?

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Inside The Big Ring: Podcast & Coaching

Looked to me like you were dropping your left elbow a little. But I'm not a coach, so take that with a grain of salt unless and until confirmed by one or more persons more versed in diagnosing mechanics.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

What distance per week are you swimming? I'm mapping your standard onto being able to do 800m in under 12 mins, as we don't really have any yards pools left in the UK. That's faster than I can manage if I get in the pool without having swum for a year, I'd need to swim once a week for a few weeks to get down to that sort of time. So I know that the difference between that speed and sub 9:30 for 800m can just be a matter of training volume, as that's the difference training makes for me.

While it's clear from your video that you haven't got an elite level of feel for the water, it's also good enough that I'm not seeing any obvious changes you could consciously make that I'd expect to make a big difference. I think it might well be worth your while to spend a period of time doing a higher volume of swimming training, even if it means cutting back on cycling and running to make the time for it. I think that simply spending more time per week swimming, provided you're mentally focused on trying to feel your way to better technique rather than mindlessly swimming up and down, could give you a greater overall fluency of movement. My experience is that once you acquire this, it persists to a large extent after reducing swimming volume, so you can then return to your current level of cycling and running training, cut back the swimming, but hopefully have a permanent boost in swimming performance.

So seems like my initial assessment has been validated by most the experts here, so I think you really have one thing to work on at the moment. Stretch out your catch while bringing up your hands to towards the surface(especially right arm). This one change should help your EVF, your rotation down lower, and possible even your kick. I find it is almost always best to just be thinking about one thing at a time when making stroke changes, the brain only seems able to focus like that when you are in an aquatic environment.

Something is definitely wrong too, if you can do a 1000 in 1;20 pace or so, a 1;05 Ironman is really slow, especially if that was a wetsuit swim( presuming it was as almost all Ironmans are). You should be around a 56/58 wetsuit swimmer at the least. And if you hold your breath like you did in that video, then I can see one big problem right there....

I was thinking the same thing. I typically do 1000m time trials around 1:30-1:35 pace and would say I'm a 1:03-1:05 IM swimmer. Regardless, definitely breath much more often. If you breath efficiently then there is little to no penalty and more oxygen is always a good thing. You don't hold your breath when you bike and run do you?

X2. I call this stroke the "sloppy slappy" (and I see and hear it regularly). Listen to your swim video from stroke one and try to glide through the water instead of "parting the waters" like Moses.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

Good thing Janet Evans never got that advice

And the stroke of a 5'7" female and a 6'4" guy don't look the same because they're not made the same shape and power through the water. This is a guy in the water;what's your point?

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DFL > DNF > DNS

There is obviously a lot of things to work on but the most noticeable thing to me is you left hand enters the water too far forward hence the slap and pushes straight out effectively creating force in the wrong direction and affecting your catch. I find it best to work on one thing at a time so I would suggest left hand entry earlier. I have worked with Brent and check out the link below that is an easy drill to use to work on hand entry.

https://effortlessswimming.com/swimming-tips/how-to-get-your-hand-entry-right/


PS He's a swimmer that dabbles in AG IM and swum 47.01 fresh water in NZ 2016

While I certainly believe that the type of stroke one develops is dictated by their own intrinsic physical properties, my point is still that that advice could be equally bad for both of them, morphological differences and all.

As much as I hate corrective micro management (even though I participated), micro management of the recovery is a particular pet peeve.There is a pervasive mistaken belief that what happens over the water has a large effect on what happens under the water, ie - fingertip drag drill can help with EVF. Not saying you are saying that, but I think the quick 'fast and furious' style recovery is maybe a good thing here, and I would hate to see this swimmer try to modify the look or style of the recovery into something more aesthetically or acoustically pleasing.

Placing, shaping, and "beautifying" of the recovery arm have been the path to the dark side for many.

I'd be happy to swim this fast and I'm swimming IMs in under an hour... 58:30 at my best. The critique of your stroke has been good so far but from my point of view I think you're losing a ton going to open water... based on a 1:05 I'd say you need to start better, follow faster feet, and swim straighter.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

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I wouldn't differentiate between arms, though we can see the left arm more clearly. You have a nice little obvious elbow drop which is causing you to go very deep with a nearly fully extended arm, searching for the power that you could have sooner and a bit shallower. You have so much other good stuff going on that isolating that motion in something like this Statue of Liberty 1-6 drill could be useful. If you try this, make sure you have the head back down in the water after finishing the breath before you initiate each pull. This will help with spinal alignment, which will help with effective pulling.

One of the good things about SoL 1-6 is you can literally hang out kicking on your side until the stars align and you are completely read to rip the pull. Get the body angle just right, get the hand right where you want it, align the spine, and even manage at what point in the kick cycle you initiate the pull to effect proper finish timing at the finish of the pull.

Indeed, that swim stroke doesn't look like a 1:05 IM swimmer. So either losing it in the open water or losing it after 100 yards.

Well, a 1:21/100 pace for a 1000 yard time trial is ~1:30/100 pace for a 1000 meter time trial so you're close to the same speed in both the 1000TT and the IM swim.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

That pool looks like a dungeon.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Kick looks too deep and aggressive. Lately I have been using fins more often during distance sets to set up a smaller more compact kick ( arena Powerfin pro).

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Too much bend on left knee? Seems like it's causing some of the other issues.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)