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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Well that worked nicely. Hopefully you are willing to provide some stroke analysis?

Your left ankle is 4 degrees to supinated.

Just watched it once, but what's immediately apparent is that you are way too slow on the entry. Trying too hard to be clean, it's pretty and splash free,but slow. Loosen up on the recovery and accelerate all the way through the recovery motion. This will also affect breath timing.

Pull doesn't look too bad. A bit of dropped elbow, but not too bad.

Kick goes too deep for no propulsion. Smaller quicker kicks.

Your turns are also ugly as hell, but at least you're doing them. So props for that.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I assume you mean "too supinated"? You can't be clever and F-up the grammar. It just messes with your snark...

I'm a busy man! I don't have time to type both "o's" in the word "too". I barely had time for the "snark-by".

General critique:
You're a poster child for kick timing not coming naturally to adult onset swimmers. You're so out of phase, your equally way early and way late with it. That and you are thinking (or have previously thought) waaayyyy too much about hand placement. Your hands are so slow and beautiful, it's no wonder your kick is out of sync.

Something(s) helpful:
1. Kick Timing Step 1
2. Kick Timing Step 2
3. Kick Timing Step 3
4. Leading with the Head

well thanks for making the effort. You may now return to the lavender room.

Regarding the pull and kick: I think Guppy week 2 or 3 we start using the ankle band. Should I trust the program and specifically target these when it's over?

I don't actually speak "swimmer", so let me tell you what I think you're saying. Once my hand comes out of the water, it takes too long to re-enter? Are you talking about my over-all stroke rate too? Or do I need to "catch-up" to my extended arm?
Is the rotation for my breathing okay and maybe just needs to be a bit faster? One I get a little tired, I tend to only breathe left side, but I do practice some lengths on the right too.

Turns. Sorry. Never seen them until today. I'm not going to make a douche-y triathlete comment like 'there are no turns in open water'. I want to be a better swimmer, so I'll watch some YouTube and work on it. Today, I did 100 turns. That's 300 for the week. Lots of practice doing it wrong.

I will definitely check these out. So thanks. Yes, I've seen so many articles about hand placement, not crossing over etc. that I did focus on it for a long time. I never thought about my feet except to not let them drag (pressing the T, 20 years ago when I was watching TI videos) and 2 years ago when I thought they were splaying way too wide.
Bottom line, is there hope for me to move over a few lanes? Or are we talking a few years to gain a few seconds?

I wasn't paying much attention to the overall stroke rate, I think that comes with improved fitness and learning to relax in the water while still maintaining alignment and form.

I'm specifically talking about your hand speed on the recovery. You seem to slow your recovering arm down as your hand approaches the entry point, presumably so you don't get a splash on the entry. you want to maintain that velocity and get your arm out to full extension quickly.

See finding freestyles comments on timing.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I would guess more like a few months. You're not bad at all. Didn't mean to sound like your swimming was horrible, just that there are some very obvious things going on.

I think what Jason is saying is that it appears that you're intentionally slowing down your arms to avoid splashing, and this is slowing down your stroke rate and affecting the flow of your stroke. Coincidentally, after I watched your video, the next video to come up on youtube was of Janet Evans at the '88 Oly. Janet's style of swimming is more or less the polar opposite of yours as she does not care how much she splashes but rather focuses mostly on turning over her arms as fast as possible (AFAP) with an absolutely fierce determination. She'd be a good role model to help get you out of your current overly cautious style. You don't have to windmill your arms the way she does but rather just imitate her fast and furious turnover rate as best you can. She's doing somewhere around 110 spm which is a stroke rate almost no one can hold, even for just a 25 but, in trying to turn over AFAP, you'll be forced to lose the cautious style.

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

Why do you breath every 3 stokes?

Primarily because I wanted to show/see if I bend at the waist or other glaring issue from either side. Also, it was early in the workout and was all the air I needed.

I took it as constructive, so that’s awesome that you were helpful. Thanks. I’ll be looking into your links. I’m actually glad there was something obvious. It would be frustrating to hear that I was terrible and genetically incapable of improving.

Hmmm. Why? Because I’m trying to extend and glide a little, staying long for a bit. Sure didn’t realize the negative effect. Looking at my Garmin data from today, it says I took 78-80 strokes for each of my 200s. Since I was finishing in about 3:30, isn’t that a stroke rate of about 22.5? Yeah, that’s way different. Should I try some thrashing and see if I’m faster, but winded?

Garmin counts strokes differently than most swimmers do. Double the garmin count to get your "real" stroke count.

Glide is bad. Extend yes, glide no. "Glide is a dirty word.

It's ok to hang out for a short tick once you are at full extension while your pulling arm finishes the stroke. What you don't want is your recovering arm to be in the air or a non streamlined position for any longer than it has to be. Get it out front fast.

That will also keep your centre of mass forward, relative to your centre of buoyancy, which will make it easier to keep your legs up.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

To compare oranges to oranges, your Garmin measures stroke cycles, not strokes per se, since AFAIK the Garmin records each time your left arm enters the water; in sum then, your stroke rate is really 45, but still way slower than her 110. But yeah, you should try to turn over AFAP and see if you go faster. Have someone film you when you think you're really killing it, and I'll bet you really aren't turning over all that fast but rather it just feels that way to you b/c you're used to your slower spm. :)

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

A visualization/ mental cue that can help is to really try to "snap" your roll onto the extending arm to set up the pull.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Not bad at all! Good posture and rotation! Some thoughts:

1/
Your breathing looks good but not perfect, it influences your position. Basically, your forehead is too high and your chin is too low (in relation to each other). Don't "lift" your head out of the water, rotate your mouth out of it. Your mouth is attached to the lower (rear in this case) part of your head. Practice leaving one eye beneth the surface while rotating the mouth out of the water. This might require "mentally" pushing your forehead down.

Stand up straight, look 90° to your rght. This is how you should breathe.

Do the same thing but lift your head ut like you would do in a pool if you wanted your forehead to come outof the water... Where does your chest go due to limitations of flexibility in your spine? What direction is that in the pool? Where does the rest of your body follow if you push your chest down towards the bottom? In a pool you are not standing with your feet on solid ground, the feet will follow in to the deep... ;)

2/
Higher elbow. I think your arms are too straight during the first half of the stroke. I believe the result is pushing down more than needed. Pushing down brings you up, pushing back brings you forward. Don't push down, your're in the water, accept it. During the catch (the initial phase where you find grip and initiate the pull) bend your elbow by pushing it sideways, leaving the upper arm in a more horizontal position, while letting the forearm (and hand) drop in to a vertical position. This is not a powerful phase. Build speed (accelerate) during the entire pull (from when your hand passes your head to when it leaves the water)!

This is a good video of what I think is a "high elbow":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQqNk5dZEPA

3/
Your feets are too low, they prevent you from maintaining a flat(er) position thus creating drag. Don't focus too much on the kick, focus on the "in between". That means trying to lift the heel out of the water between every kick. This while maintaining "smallest possible" bend of the knee. Your toes should point backwards. Practice on not bending your knees (in a controlled manner, not too forced). Driving this lift with your glutes. It's common (I think) to use the legs for balance, but if your knee is relaxed, your lever is only half of what it could be, which requires larger movements that doesn't help in regards to drag.

During this you could experiment a little with lifting your ass and rotating your hip to get your legs even higher, this may cause a small "bend" to your core, and your stomach to fall a little, but shouldn't be a huge problem. Feel your way - what position creates the least amount of resistance in the water?

4/
Keep your fingers together (left hand).


Only meant as constructive critisism. We all have our ways of expressing it. =)

Not to in any way disparage the messenger, but this is a textbook example of what I call "corrective coaching". I developed an alternative approach when I realized that internalizing and implementing this type of advice is extremely difficult.

I agree. I don't think he says anything that is incorrect, but damn that's a lot of things to think about at once. (and I'm sure he isn't expecting the OP to think about all that and implement it all at once, but that is how it comes across to me)

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I think all the points make sense, especially the way he explained them. Yeah, lots to think about, but I could, maybe, think about the high elbow thing for a day durning the main set, then my breathing the next day etc.
I want to try the kicking stuff lol step above. Lots to read and digest, but the layout seems clear. I don’t want to derail my Guppy training, since there’s a progression there, but maybe I can’t get a 4th day or use it was part of my warm up for now.
Last question: since posting the video was so easy, and I got really fast and helpful insights, for free, why don’t more people post thermswim form? They ask about super-expensive trivia that can save seconds instead. Am I the only one that just doesn’t have a swim coach?