Are you joking? The answer to those questions is so obvious, that I certainly hope you're joking.

But just in the off-chance you're not trolling and actually don't know the answer to those questions (hard for me to believe given your swim speed, but then again, you were one of those folks for whom fast AOS swimming came to in <1yr of effort):

- Swim a 1000m Tarzan/Weismuller style head-full out of the water, and get back to us as to how much harder you had to kick to maintain a flat body position because your legs were sinking.

- If you're a 'leg sinker', and are using kicking to keep your legs up (instead of properly using good body position), the ankle band will expose that weakness (no kicking), and then you can go about fixing it. And I'm one of those quad-heavy guys (I seriously look like T-rex genetically; legpress 1000+lbs on a leg press machine with no weight training at 145 bodyweight) so if I can do the ankle band swim even with quads like mine, anyone can do it.

i think that's fair, and gerry rodrigues told me he feels that whole theme is not worth pursuing for adult onset swimmers. however, this particular swimmer is an example of not simply a failure to exhibit a catch-uppy stroke, he's the opposite. i wouldn't harp on this with him except he's got one arm past his midpoint before the recovering arm reaches his ear. he's acutely devoid of anything like the stroke exhibited by fast swimmers. therefore, in my opinion, if he could be brought just partway toward orthodoxy i think that would be a benefit.


you're right, if you're not propelling you're stalling during the extend phase. but the stalling is much worse when you have two arms behind the head concurrently. there is no propulsion motif, body position, that's going to do you much good.


it isn't because i didn't see it. i just don't think there is too much you can load on one swimmer at one time.


fine. just, what is the point of the snark? you seem to have some heartburn over something, so can we clear that up first?

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

whatever it is that's wrong with your stroke is beyond my capacity to fix, not because it's that bad, but because it's that good. i'd like to see what it looks like head on, and also above the water, but i don't see anything from this angle to fix.

that doesn't mean there aren't things to fix. just that i'm not good enough to pick anything out that obviously needs fixing. maybe you can show me how you ride or run and i'll find something wrong ;-)

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not joking. Explain the physics of how raising your head sinks your legs. Not just your whole body (which physics would explain), but just your legs. In a weightless/bouyant environment, raising your head will cause your feet to *rise* from a purely action/reaction point of view: you aren't pivoting around some fixed point. And, yeah, lifting your head into a Tarzan position takes a lot of energy, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a position where you are looking forward more than down (which necessitates a more "heads-up" position).

Clarification: explain to me how using ankle bands will help a swimmer *who already knows* his/her legs are not at the surface. I've seen multiple videos posted here to which the response was "your legs are sinking: use ankle bands to fix that."

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Go back and look at the video in question, and look at the hand at *the end of the pull*. While this swimmer could use some more extension in front, the big issue is that there is a huge delay in beginning the recovery: the swimmer basically pauses with his hand, underwater, next to his hip. Finishing the pull and starting the recovery more rapidly will bring the recovering hand further forward relative to the pulling of the opposite arm. This swimmer has two arms in the wrong position because of that, not mainly because of the lack of extension.

Re snark: people here, while honestly and earnestly trying to help, say things that just don't match with reality. A number of people keep saying that raising your head lowers your legs, and nobody can explain the physics behind it. A number of people claim that ankle bands will *help* keep your legs from sinking, or from crossing over, but nobody will back it up with *why* that might help (probably because it won't).

I'm quite willing to be educated.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Uhh, I think you're making this leg sinking way more complicated and theoretical for the sake of argument and not focusing on reality.

You pop your head out of the water, and what's the first thing that sinks, and fast - your legs. The whole reason the Tarzan swim takes so much energy is that you have to kick so hard to keep those sinking legs up, not because the head creates so much more resistance out of the water. No physics necessary - just reality.

And with the ankle bands - could I tell you IN WORDS how I learned to swim with ankle bands without sinking? Answer is NO, but that's not the point - you just do it over and over, first with a buoy and loose band, then with buoy+tight band, then band only, and let your nervous system unconsciously figure out the details. You actually do often leg sinkers a disservice by trying to dissect the reasons their legs are sinking by focusing on one communicable thing - it's usually a combination of many things (arm stroke imbalance, head position, overrotation,etc), all of which are improved simultaneously with drilling with the ankle band.

i'm going to dispense with the quotes because i think we both know the issues we're talking about.

extend, glide, whatever you want to call that phase: i don't think there's any particular merit to gliding. the truest thing you can say about the actual mechanics of the pull - whether you want to call it high elbow anchor, swimming over a barrel, is that there's a bend at the elbow. you either do or don't bend at the elbow. the reason for it, the power of it, is that you can create a pulling surface from the elbow to the fingertip that is perpendicular to the medium (the water). the earlier you make that pulling surface the better, so that you can pull yourself through the water further with each stroke.

what i see with this swimmer is the same thing you see, more or less. i think there's always going to be a delay, because i think the recovery just takes longer than the pull, if you're going to get a full pull, and you're going to pull the way i describe above. i think it's better to have that delay occur at the front of the stroke rather than at the rear. even drop dead sprinters have the recovering hand ready to hit the water by the time the pulling hand is directly underneath the head.

if there is a better way to express that both hands should routinely be in front of the head, but both hands should never be behind the head, i'm eager to hear it.

as for banding the feet, my major interest here is when feet splay. i think that's a vestige of adult onset swimmers bending their waists to breathe, and it's very hard to break swimmers of that. if you don't let the feet splay - which is a natural counterbalance to torquing at the waist - then the swimmer becomes the wriggling eel. i always float the legs when i bind the ankles. i'm not trying - in this case - to get the swimmer to fix the head position, bringing the legs up. i'm interested in working on a different plane. if i can stop the swimmer from torquing at the waist during breathing, i can stop a number of bad things:

1. i can stop a crossover during the catch. why is it that swimmers don't think they're crossing over when they are? i think it's often because they're not crossing over relative to their bodies, but they are relative to the pool. if you keep their bodies from torquing and bending while taking a breath, that crossover will largely go away.

2. you stop the leg splay during breathing, because the swimmer no longer needs that counterbalancing technique.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You have a disconnect between what your legs and arms are doing. There isn't much of a discernible pattern to your kick. As one hand is entering the water, you should have the opposite leg initiating a solid kick at the same time. This is true for 2-4-6 beat kick. What is happening is that there is a moment when your hands are not contributing to any propulsion (this is true for all) when they enter the water and the kick that is being initiated at this moment helps to compensate for this lack of propulsion and helps to balance you out in the water.

You need to become more aware of what all your body parts are doing at any given moment when you are swimming. A lot of becoming fast in swimming is technique. You can't beat the water into making you go faster, you will always lose that fight. Swimming is not a forgiving sport and you need to always pay attention to the small details. If you want to work on your coordination, 6-kick switch drill will be your friend. The idea is just to become keenly aware of exactly what your limbs are doing and being in control of them. Then, transfer this awareness to every single time you kick in your normal freestyle swim sets.

have been working to stop supporting myself out front and get into my catch sooner.... but still doing it, but definitely less so. rip away!

---

wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

I'm not the least bit qualified to critique your stroke, but damn, whoever you have filming you has some ankle flexibility I'd kill for.

---

@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

cloy wrote:

I'm not the least bit qualified to critique your stroke, but damn, whoever you have filming you has some ankle flexibility I'd kill for.

instagram.com/andrelopes.v yeah, and note that he's only kicking, underwater, while filming and staying ahead of me!

---

wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

Watched his vid just to see what you were talking about. Agreed.

---

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

I’m no expert at all, but your elbows are dropping and your feet are way wide. I’m sure other more expert than I will do better than me, but that’s what I see.

---

Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

i love your right arm. to my marginally trained eye, it's perfect. it's pro. left arm is not at that leel. i'd like to see it all on top of the water as well.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I was going to say the same thing. The left are is all over the place. Entry looks like it's slightly too far inward (the above straight on video would help ID this further). Then, the hand flares out really wide before coming back in. I'd focus on trying to pull straight back after the catch with the left hand and keeping the left hand under the shoulder (or at least inside the elbow). Would like to see more bend in the elbow during the early stages of the pull to accomplish that.

Some screen shots

Crossed over entry.


Left arm wide


Legs splayed open during breath.

This is probably the best explanation of one of the many form issues I have seen yet. And I have watched a lot of video. Until reading this, I had absolutely no idea that my arms are supposed to form a vertical paddle that translates through the water versus rotating through the water. The phrase "high elbow" only confused me until now.

I am super interested to try to figure out in my next swim if I am doing straight arm. I would bet anything that I am.

I just ordered some stuff to help film my swims. I look forward to getting way faster!

I'm the second person in the video with the killer crossover stroke.

Cant believe Im posting this but I can use all the help I can get.

Thank you

I appreciate the feedback!
The videos help me a ton and something about putting out there for others to see provides extra motivation

from above:

---

wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

i will be interested to see what monty says, if he sees and replies to this, but i would say the following: you are a very good learner. while i could get picky about certain aspects of what's in the video, the impression i get is that you've spent a lot of time trying to absorb and apply a lot of what you read, and see, and what really good swimmers do. your stroke looks like stroke drill. at a certain point, you have to take all you've learned out for a spin. your stroke looks like the gimp in the basement, all bound up, with an orange ball in his mouth. the gimp needs to be let out of the basement, out in the sunlight, to terrorize the neighborhood. how do we translate that analogy to swimming?

i'm kind of like this. i've got this stroke that looks like i mainlined a syringe full of swimsmooth. you can never tell that i'm working when i'm swimming, even when i'm sprinting all out. which is fine, as far as it goes, but one thing that makes a big difference, with me, is when monty and i swim repeat 50s, on the minute, and i go pretty much all out. my turnover (cadence, stroke rate) really has to increase. i kind of have to just grip it and rip it, as fast as i can turn my arms over. this is the gimp (that is my stroke) getting let out of the basement. basically, i'm doing whatever i can to keep up with monty. which i can't do. but after a few workouts that include those repeat 50s, i'm swimming 35s and 36s instead of 39s and 40s.

i would recommend that to you. now, for you, i think another thing would be helpful, and that is binding your ankles together, along with floating your lower body. so, something like a pull buoy, with velcro around your ankles. or, an inflated wheelbarrow tube. there is no good product made for this. unfortunately. but if you swam repeat 50s, with a lot of rest, as fast as you can, and with bound ankles, i'd like to see what that would do for your gimp stroke.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Much appreciated and hilarious analogies. Yes, it's trying to incorporate so much. thing is, I'm a 50sec 100y, 1:52 200y, 4:13 400IM, sub 25min 1.2mi swimmer! but my freestyle sucks. will work on tuning up that left arm, not using legs for support when breathing, getting into a more relaxed stroke (taking the ball out of mouth...)

---

wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

well, then, you don't need any help from me, for sure! when i saw your first video, and i saw that right arm, i thought, why is this guy asking for help? there's no olympic swimmer i could point to who's got a better looking pull. the left arm, not as refined. the leg splay, it's not that bad, but still, i can't explain that in the context of a swimmer who swims that fast.

if you swim 1:52 for 200 scy, i would expect more like 22min for 1.2mi. i guess i'd like to see a video of your freestyle at full speed. it seems to me the last video you sent is you swimming as slow as you can go and still keep afloat.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Agreed - have never transitioned that sprint stroke to distance free, so still need help. much appreciated

---

wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

Finis makes an ankle band.

My .02 on the video is to kick smaller. Your legs look like they are almost 18” apart they should me much closer 9”-12”.

Here are some regular speed and slow motion videos of different angles of my swim stroke. Any help with my technique is greatly appreciated!!!