Yeah, her kicking was minimal. Also, her form seems clunky. She's got a lopsided stroke and kick, perhaps related to her breathing on every stroke. But it works, obviously!

Well, i wouldn't say clunky but rather she's using the "gallop stroke" that has become popular in the last 10 yrs or so. Phelps, Lochte, and most of the big dogs use it. And of course she's breathing on every stroke cycle, since it is a 15:XX race:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

What's really crazy is Sun Yang, who breathes two out of every three strokes. Ledecky really breathes every OTHER stroke. Sun Yang probably needs to breathe 2 out of 3 because his strokes are so long and stroke count is so low that he breathes 2 out of 3 to get roughly the same breaths/50m as the other guys. Bottom line, more O2 is more better for endurance... ;)

The lopsided stroke is funny too. Asymmetry is pretty much a given at high level. Andy Roddick was a great example, because he had a one handed backhand. So his right arm was like three times the size of his left. Given that we know pretty well that cervical mechanics influence a lot, I'd actually be way more surprised if swimmers didn't have an asymmetrical stroke. It's illogical that they'd be symmetrical when their breathing clearly isn't.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Ya, you're exactly right, she's breathing every stroke cycle, not ever single stroke. And Sun Yang, ya, he really breathes a lot but as you say, such a long stroke prob requires it. IIRC he was only taking something like 28 strokes per 50 meter length in his 1500 WR swim; given he was getting out about say 8 meters on each turn, then at 28 spl he was going about 1.5 meters/stroke, or about 5 feet/stroke and 10 feet/cycle, which is about as long a stroke as i've ever heard of:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Yeah, my swim coach tells me to take observations of what seems to work for somebody else with a grain of salt. In other words, our bodies have enough differences that what seems to work to make somebody else faster may not necessarily work to me faster.

Nevertheless, I'm still going to experiment with a gallop stroke, a minimal kick, and breathing on at least every other stroke!

Maybe my eyes are bad (they are) but ithought I saw her double breath into some of the walls. IIRC yang would double breath in and out of the walls and once midway.

Maurice

https://www.youtube.com/...6O3Ltz44&t=4m54s

Gary Hall Sr. refers to it as a "hybrid" stroke: hip driven on one side and shoulder driven on the other. To my (amateur) eye it appears there's also a little bit of a dolphin kick-like movement along her spine after she breathes similar to Janet Evans.

Classic D-swimmer form, light kick. Heavy kicking is mainly associated with sprint swimming, e.g. 50/100 events, although certainly there are exceptions to this general rule.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Our club distance all star - freshman at NC State next year, 12th today in the 1500 at Jr. Nats - is actually SLOWER with a 6-beat kick than 2-beat. She's a helluva open water swimmer. I think that's her real calling. She raced both the 5k and 10k this year. Her first time, and bounced back from a rough 10k to crush it in the 5. But she's not much of a kicker, that's for sure. With a kickboard, we're actually pretty close. Relatively, I kick way more than she does...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

I can def relate to that as i'm the same way: the extra energy that goes into kicking makes my pull slower and my overall speed slower. The faster i can turnover my arms, the faster i can swim, and the legs are just along for the ride with a light 2 to 4 beat kick. The only stroke i kick hard on is breaststroke, since breast is a kick-dominant stroke:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Ya, i guess "hybrid" would be another way to describe it. I knew you were going to bring Gary Hall Sr. into this discuss since you went to his clinic:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Ledecky actually has a kick, a pretty good one too. The last couple of years she was actually bringing in her legs more and more, but for the 15 heats the idea was just to save energy, since she was in no danger of "not" qualifying for finals. She wasn't actually planning on swimming that fast. Scary!

I don't know if she'll be doing the same thing for finals or not, with the 200 semis coming 20 minutes after the 1500 final she may save her energy again. You'll probably see her back to a 6 beat kick for the 800 though, just a guess.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

What's funny is that she laps a couple of girls who are swimming sub 17min LCM and when she passes them and you compare styles, you think, what are these girls doing in the pool, they can't swim for crap. Then realize that they swim much better than anyone on the forum save maybe 3-4 guys here (and that may be optimistic).

Oh man, I wish I hadn't read this. Now I can rationalize my lazy ass kick!

The loping style free can be fantastic and rhythmical. I found it b/c of my shoulder injury. I have insane flexibility in my shoulder complex on my left, but limited on right. Maximizing the earliest catch and pull on both sides led me to different timing on each side. Hip and shoulder driven mixed was a sweet recipe for my rhythm more than anything and that is always my over bearing thought when I swim. I think a lot of people could use this well, but they get so focused on words like symmetry they never let themselves experiment.

Nothing wrong with a lopsided stroke, as long as it doesn't disrupt streamline. I agree that symmetry is way overrated (unless you are talking about fly or breast, which need to be pretty symmetrical (ignoring side breathers for the time being).

For me, sometimes I have a bit of a lope, and sometimes I don't. On days when my catch is really good, then I have a pretty decent lope going at 100 and 200 pace. the lope disappears when I swim a 50 though (completely different type of swimming), and at the 400 and up I back off with the legs and don't pull quite as hard (obviously), so it tends to smooth out a bit at those distances.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I've tried doing that loping style, it feels like it's easier to breathe but after 2-3 hundred meters by left shoulder starts to bother me. I also feel that I don't get as good of a catch with my right arm so overall I'm just a little slower in long distance pool swims.

In shorter swims I don't have as fast of a turn over as I do by being a little more symetrical so for training it seems faster, but in a swim meet it isn't (for me).

Disclaimer: I'm just a middle of the road (lane) swimmer

Having just started swimming at a 50lcm pool this week, these times make me feel like I want to throw my goggles and swim cap away. I miss my 25scy confidence.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

I'm pretty much a loper all the time due to the shoulder, but it works for me. I can get completely shoulder driven, no breath when I bomb the kick for a 50, but even at a 100 I gotta get some rhythm into the equation. If I hadn't torn this shoulder up in a bike crash in '92 I suspect I'd have similar flexibility to the other shoulder and maybe I don't lope? Who knows, whatever the case I found it and it stuck. I don't do distance by choice, but when I have to do something gross like a 500 in practice the lope works really well I suspect I'd of used this in distance/tri swimming too. I even roll my eyes at a 200 these days unless it's mixed up like 50 easy/build/sprint/swim down I'm a hater!

Dude you just gotta accept the swim world is hilariously fast. The elite club kids were doing a warm up set 2 weeks ago b/f leaving for Junior Nats and some to an LSC meet. These are little twerps, 80-100 pounds. They were 'warming up' on a set of 100's maybe leaving on 1:30 all touching the wall from 1:05-1:10 100 scy. Laughing, teasing, giggling with HR's probably at 100. It's just the way it is! The more time you spend around swimmers vs 'good' triathlon swimmers the more you will laugh.....maybe you already do I dunno. I know what I used to think was a fast swimmer at a triathlon, now I just giggle at how much I suck bottom debris I'm a toilet bug.

I was thinking about you as I was doing this workout the other day.

http://swimswam.com/...-lap-swimmers-crazy/

I didn't do the whole thing, just the first 60 25's, but I did do 2 sets of them as fly. I think I might go for the whole shebang this week.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

That looks like fun! On my to do list for today!

Will be doing well if I get to round 6!

Two observations:

1. Like Yang, her hands go in an absolutely straight line during the entire pull.
2. I'd be really annoyed to have been in lane 5: not only getting crushed by Ledecky, but having a camera stuck in *my* lane to record Ledecky?!?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Damn dude, good memory!