Yes, I agree that my left arm crosses over a bit. The other thing I am noticing, and especially on the front facing videos, is that my kick is so wide, and I'm pressing down on the water with my left hand.

Hi, quick bit of background.

I'm an AOS, and always come out the water too far down to be competitive. I'm a decent cyclist/runner, so have been focusing on swimming more the last year.

For the last manage 3-4 swim workouts per week, and average about 2,500m per session,.

I have taken my 1,500m open water time down from around 27/28 mins 2-3 years ago to around 23-24 mins today. I did the Guppy challenge which took my pool 1,500m time (SCM) from around 25:30 at the start to just under 24:00 by the end, however have plateaued over the last 4 months.

I typically do my 100m repeats (now in a 20m pool), in around 1:25-1:28, and leave on 1:50.

Would love to get my 1.9km time to comfortably under 30 mins and my 1,500m time to closer to 21 mins ultimately.

Video is of a 100m repeat late in a set. Apologies for video rotation and lack of underwater view. Appreciate any advice!

Me:
Lousy swimmer
Male, 47 years
Swim 4 x 3-4000M a week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiIfiiR-OVY

Let me have some feedback, thanks

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If you really want to do something, you'll find a way.
If you don't, you'll find an excuse.

Nice cadence. Pretty good speed too.

You're crossing over on your stroke which is causing you to "snake" down the lane. You need to enter your hands wider...that will be easier if you rotate just enough to keep one goggle in/one goggle out when you breathe.

Your kick doesn't look like it's helping to drive core rotation. In a 2 beat kick there should be a definite "snap" to the kick.

If you clean up those 2 items, you'll definitely save some time.

About 24/25 strokes per length...that's a bit high. The back end of your stroke is really short...basically stopping at your waist, if not shorter. To work on that, I would initially slow my tempo down and try to extend the stroke to the top of your thigh. Some catch-up drill work with a pull buoy might help you focus on a full finish with each stroke.

The catch-up drill or Slowman's 3/4 catch-up drill will help eliminate some of the extra drag I see at the front of your stroke. It looks like your lead arm drifts down to about a 45 degree angle while you're other arm is recovering....that's creating drag with no propulsive offset.

Oh, and work on your streamlines off the wall (hands locked on top of one another and arms tight against the ears). :)

Hey- you are starting your pull too early. Your pull should start from your hips. How to fix- swim freestyle with a dolphin kick. Instead of doing flutter kick, do the smallest dolphin kick. SMALL. Play with the timing of it. When you get it right, you will get the feeling of your pull being driving from your core, and not your shoulder.

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Your eyes are too high- look down a little more. Your hands are entering at 12 o'clock, they should be entering at 11 and 1.

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http://www.savagesentiments.blogspot.com/
http://www.tricoachmartin.com/
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Thanks - I will try that tomorrow in the pool :)

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If you really want to do something, you'll find a way.
If you don't, you'll find an excuse.

One of my issues is that my left arm (non-breathing) drops and the catch and pull is subsequently late, similar to the photo below (that's not me). Would the fix be to hold the arm/hand near the surface? Does this mean there is a bit of a glide? TIA

Posting for help

She is a self-taught AOS swimmer who has been swimming 2-3 years. Her 1500m time is around 26 minutes, usually the weakest leg in a triathlon. Any advice is welcome -- critique, drills, training, etc.

Thanks in advance!



Slow motion starts at 0:51.

Appreciate any feedback!

Note - head is coming up as I'm looking where to stop!

i might be wrong, but i think that's something like an 8-beat kick. or more. i think it's going to be hard to disrupt an ingrained kicking pattern. but i would break the stroke down into discrete segments, one-arm pulls, things like that, where she focus on counting her kicks and make sure she's kicking 3x for every arm pull.

i would also have her then focus on her pull underwater. there's not much form to it. there doesn't seem to be much reasoning or thought behind it. i suspect there's plenty of drills talked about in this thread higher up designed to get her to form a pulling surface from her elbow to fingertip, keep the elbow high in the water, and pull.

and as noted just above, head is a little high which sinks the feet.

otherwise, she's strong. if she was raised by wolves and got this far, she's going to be a good swimmer.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

To add on to what Dan said...that looks like a sprinters kick. If she can kick like that for a 1500, I'm impressed.

That being said, her kick is somewhat masking a pretty weak pull. Her hand is almost right under her head before she starts pulling. She needs to initiate the catch further out in front. Two drills I like to do to work on the forward catch...1.Tarzan drill- you swim with your head up out of the water...it requires you to set the catch early and with a high elbow 2. Catch-up drill- you don't start the catch and pull until the recovering hand "catches up" to your other hand that's out in front. This drill helps to focus your attention on setting the catch out in front.

The other thing to be aware of is your elbow. You want to keep it up and you don't want to be leading with it in your pull. You're slipping water if that elbow leads the hand.

And yes, her head is a bit high.

She looks great for someone new to the sport...lots of upside.

Damn, I wish I could kick like that.

I'd put some work into the kick. I know Dan said an ingrained kick can be hard to work out because it is something you do all the time but I would do some vertical kick sets in the deep end with your hands out of the water. From the video I get the sense that you are kicking a lot more from the knee than using your whole leg and driving from the hip. The kick just strikes me as imbalanced and I have found that with vertical kick people tend towards a much more natural kick because it forces you to do it properly to keep afloat. Get a feeling for how a more proper kick feels when doing vertical kick and try and transfer that to your normal stroke (but in a 2,4, or6 beat kick style). There is a point in your kick where it appears as though you have 2-3 left leg kicks for 1 right. Breaking down the stroke into discrete segments is really a good idea. Throw the drills into warmup and some at the end as long as you can maintain proper form for them (no sense in enforcing bad habits if you are too tired to hold form for drills).

Lots of crossover in the front of your stroke. Imagine your hand coming straight out from your shoulder like they are connected by a pole that goes straight out from your shoulder and enter the water there. If you're doing catch up drill, don't do the whole finger tap thing where your hands touch at the front end. This just reinforces poor hand entry and crossover.

Everyone keeps saying this, but I just don't see the physics behind it. Unless you mean that raising the head sinks the entire body (a fraction of an inch, maybe).

How does that work, exactly?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I'm not really seeing this in the stroke either. The waterline is between her hairline and the centre of her head. This is a pretty reasonable head position. You don't want to start pushing your head too far into the water and start having water go over the back of your head in an extreme case. If the water line was between her eyes and forehead I would advice her to straighten out her head position... The legs being a bit low? I would more likely attribute to a weaker kick and pull.

If you watch your video on youtube, you can stop it and then progress frame by frame by just pushing the period (.) button. When you do that you can see that your right arm -- the near arm -- kinda gets to the 5 o'clock position before you get any torque on that elbow and start really pushing yourself forward.
When you do that, and you open up your entire shoulder and upper arm, they become a drag force slowing you down. You also are not getting much out of what could be the the most propulsive parts of the pull. It's very difficult for that hand to produce consistent force when it is that far beneath your body -- you get to almost 6 o'clock with a completely straight arm. You're going to be stronger -- especially for triathlon distances -- with that hand and elbow more shallow in the water.

I like to watch this 200 freestyle video. The Japanese guy they film is 5'9" tall, and he basically has a bad touch to get 2nd place. He's going faster than any of us here ever will, and it looks like he's gliding too much when you see his underwater film footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9usmHbuYWc

Ok thanks for that. I think my left is OK though? So I just need to mirror that?

I am an AOS swimmer, 1500m open water time is 30-31 minutes. This video looks moderately awful to me, but it's hard for me to see what needs to be fixed. My speed in kick drills is really slow, so I assume the kick needs work in addition to better ankle flexibility. It looks like my whole upper body is moving around too much, which cannot be good. Any suggestions, criticism, and areas to work on would be greatly appreciated! I intend to do some serious work on my stroke between now and next Spring.

here is grant hackett:



here you are:



play both videos simultaneously, and slow them both down to half speed (using the "gear" icon which designates youtube settings).

the big difference between the two of you is what happens immediately after the catch:

1. your hand drifts down during the glide or extend phase after the catch; his stays near the surface of the water during the extend phase.
2. there is very little extend phase after your catch; you're extended hand should remain near the surface and your pull shouldn't commence until your recovering hand is at about ear level. by the time your recovering hand is ear level your pulling hand is already partway through its cycle. especially your right hand, which is halfway through its pull cycling before your left hand is even out of the water.
3. once the extend phase is concluded, hackett bends at the elbow (not at the shoulder, not at the wrist). you don't really ever bend your elbow.

what's this all about? what's the point? i've been looking at videos where dragonboat and outrigger paddlers explain proper technique, and they stress the angle of attack of the paddle. rather than rotating the paddle throughout a cycle in the water like a paddlewheel, they reach forward, drop the paddle in vertically, and pull straight back. same thing. you're a paddlewheel, hackett is forming a paddle, which extends from the elbow to the fingertip. he's anchoring himself to the water with that paddle, and pulling his body past it.

you'll use different muscles doing this than you're using now. it's going to take awhile. but you look young and strong and i don't see why you can't eventually morph your technique toward pulling more water, and pulling it in the proper direction (straight back).

you are going to be so much faster if you can generate a reasonable facsimile of a proper extend phase, and if you can reorient the timing of your arm action, where both hands are in front of your head at the same time instead of both hands being behind your head at the same time.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thank you for your help!

Your left arm is better I think, but it still shows signs of the arm sinking down to begin the pull. Also, it's tough to tell from that angle but it may be that your hand is going side to side in some kind of S motion instead of just pulling straight back. The S motion tends to keep the focus on pulling with just your hand instead of the whole forearm+hand.

What I try to concentrate on sometimes is starting my pull with that elbow kept up on the surface above my head for as long as possible. That does three things:
1.) It keeps me streamline and gliding as I start the pull (by pushing my hand down as my elbow stays near the surface).
2.) It keeps the pull long as I start the grab with my entire hand and forearm.
3.) Hmmm... I forgot the third thing right now.

I don't want to overwhelm you with advice, but you put a lot of pressure on me by threatening to just copy your left arm. =)

That sounds like a generalization that is not applicable to all swimmers. It certainly isn't applicable to me. A longer extension is counterproductive if the swimmer is not very hydrodynamic or does not have any kick propulsion: there's no thrust going on and lots of drag. If you aren't pulling or kicking, you are slowing down. Every good swimmer I've seen with a catch-up stroke (which is what you advocate) has outstanding body position during the glide phase. I regularly swim with a guy who had the fastest amateur (and second fastest overall by :05) swim split at Lake Placid one year, and he swims nothing like that (he's also somewhat short).

You never did respond to why your legs necessarily sink (as opposed to your whole body) when you raise your head.

While you are educating me, perhaps you can explain how using ankle bands helps a swimmer whose legs sink.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

appreciate any feedback