Can you tell us how do you see breathing while you are swimming...

One common issue that I often see with new swimmers is they try to exhale and inhale through the mouth...

If you can post a video of you while swimming this would help us trying to figuring out what you are doing incorrectly.
Get some footage underwater and from outside... Doesn't need to be a long video.

Not a fish here, but when I swim 1:20/100 pace, it is WAY easier to do the 'bow wave' breath than at 1:55/100.

At the same time, I will add that the small head position differences change your net speed very little.

A lot of things just happen so much more smoothly and easily at faster swim paces, honestly.

What I REALLY want to see, but have never, ever seen it, is a swimmer with outstanding form, do a video of their form when forcing themselves to slow down to 2:00-2:20/100yards. I honestly don't think a lot of them have any clue of the challenges that true noob swimmers face at those slow speeds, and they keep giving advice that's really much more applicable to significantly faster swimmers.

I know when I slow myself down to those recovery speeds, it would be hard to distinguish me from some of the rank beginners in the other lanes in the YMCA, despite the fact that I can lap them once I start swimming at my workout pace.

I can't swim that slow with good form. I can swim that slowly, but it requires that I swim with poor form to do it... No point in showing a video of someone swimming poorly.

If I'm so tired that I can't hold semi decent technique, I'll usually grab a kick board until I'm sufficiently recovered enough to swim properly.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I'll go as slow as 1:45/100 scy when I'm very, very tired, but I would not want to even try to go 2:00, much less 2:20/100 scy. I would have to slow my stroke down so much that I would be in the "over-glider" category, and def no point in swimming with bad form:)

Changing subjects back to your Q about why you're 10 sec/100 scy slower with the buoy than when swimming full stroke, it seems like I recall from another thread that you have a bit of a scissors kick when swimming full stroke. Am I remembering correctly, and/or have you managed to stop the scissor??? Some of the guys I see swimming with scissor kicks at the pool literally can not swim with the buoy, since their whole form is dependent on that scissor kick on every stroke cycle, but I would not think that a 1:20/100 scy pace would be compatible with the scissor, i.e., I've never seen anyone swim 1:20/100 scy with a scissor kick.

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

You're saying that eventually we develop gills? Awesome!

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Less is more.

I'd love to hit the water more than twice a week, but life just doesn't allow for it. 50+ hours a week in the office, trying to finish my masters degree, a wife, and two kids require a big chunk of my time. Once spring gets back here and the water temps warm up, I can hit the lake 7 days a week no problem. During the winter, most of my training needs to be completed before the kids get up or after they go to bed. During those times, the only pool near me that is open is the one at LifeTime Fitness and I refuse to pay what they charge for a monthly membership.
I'm always trying to get the absolute most out of each training session and just looking for advice on what I can do this winter with the limited time I'll have in the water.

So, JOOSC, what is the monthly fee at this fitness center??? I'm about as frugal a guy as you'll ever find but because swimming, running, and workouts in general are such a huge part of my life, i belong to 2 fitness centers with pools and pay $56 + $24 = $80/mon so that i can workout any time, any day, 24/7/365, excepting Christmas and occasional snow days when both clubs are closed and i must fall back on outside training and/or the wind trainer. This $80/mon is out of typical total expenses of about $1200/mon, so about 6.7% for pool/fitness center memberships.

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

You yanks have it good. Here (Aust) I pay $90/month for pool-gym for me, but circa$5k pa for two kids to do squads. The land of the (nearly) free indeed!

Isn't that one of the fun wonders of swimming? Once you get the basic fundamentals in place you wonder how on earth you went that slow to begin with. If I swim as slow as I can with no pauses or gaps in my stroke 1:45 scy is about as slow as I can move. I have been out of the pool most of the past 3 months, but finally got back in yesterday and flopped a 500 warm up as slow as I could and it was at the approximate pace of an all out effort from 4 years ago in my best shape. I have maybe a dozen swims the past 3 months for fitness sakes. I wish the same could be said for the other end of the spectrum with speed:/ I goosed the throttle a bit on some 100's and wanted to cry.

As much as I despise LTF I still say that sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get better.

I've still got a small scissor, but in retrospect it's probably as small as it gets when you're doing a 2-beat kick, There' definitely no flopping around, and as I mentioned, I can turn it off completely with an ankle band and still swim. At the least, it's MUCH better than the very same people in that masters group who go so much faster with the buoy but then get smoked by me without it.

so whatever possible technique flaws people suggest (and Eric known a thing or two about swimming) are obviously wrong in your eyes.

for me it seems that you might be a bit disillusioned between what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing...

I think you have two options now:
- post a video
or
- refuse to swim with the buoy in training (as all other people "get smoked" by you so hard anyway it won't matter when they go a bit faster during the pull-sets)

Big fish little pond syndrome.

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Formerly TriBrad02

I think anybody who's read more than a few of my posts knows pretty well that I'm the last person who has a high opinion of their own swimming ability.

Ericmulk and Jasonhalifax have given me lots of excellent advice in the past and they know I always listen to their stuff closely; doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions on the subject, which are even occasionally correct. (a la my Vasa experiment)

I'm truly interested to know how a pb can slow down a swimmer by 2.5 seconds per length especially when they don't already possess a strong kick. Is there anyone anywhere who can video this for you? At the end of the day I'd like to think none of us are 'special snowflakes' when it comes to swimming as long as there are not unique physical limiters. For instance a buddy has had spinal fusion on about 3-4 vertebrae and he cannot do a flip turn....so he is an open turn guy forever. Or another guy who has barely overcome frozen shoulder from a car wreck, horrible dropped elbow, but it is what it is.....not going to catch early on his right side.

I just can't wrap my head around how a person who has mastered band swimming and has no appreciable kick loses 10 seconds per 100 with a buoy. Dying to see it if you can get a clip. If you really want to get to the bottom of it I'm sure someone here like SnappingT or the other really knowledgeable coaches here could sort it out quite easily with a video. This is one instance where a great set of eyes could rid you of the issue most likely. I have been swimming for coming up on 26 years and have yet to encounter anyone who slows down 10 seconds with a pb. The mystery has some of us more interested that maybe even you.

hey, I remember being taught that.. and in breaststroke, it was illegal to put your head underwater..
that's an interesting point, had to unlearn quite a few things to get to a more efficient technique.. maybe all those childhood swim years weren't so helpful ?

+1 on the video...

You won't believe how much this can value, to see what you are really doing above and underwater. If you are affraid to post it because you wonder what others are going to say, well that's your decision. Personally, I think you will find more people willing to help than the opposite. I was once that swimmer that could barelly make to end of next wall...

And no swimmer worth their salt is going to fault someone for their video b/c almost every one of them was at that point somewhere in their career. One of the reasons it took me over 20 years to finally submit to a coach was pure ego and what others would think. And trust me I looked like a freaking goob the first couple of months with him!

Any other Vasa success stories? I just got one and have been on it almost everyday for 6 weeks. No actual swimming during this time. Going to wait and go to pool after 8 weeks to see if there is gains without swimming.

no i think they are, because the 3 most important things haven't really changed since the days of Johnny Weismuller. hips up, strong catch / pull, and the importance of a good rhythm. everything else is relatively minor.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Do a search under Vasa there are a couple of threads by lightheir on the Vasa with a ton of people chiming in.

Requesting that this get added to the video as well. :-)

Sorry, I value my privacy too much to post videos of myself online. Just my personal decision. (That and the fact that you're asking for a flamefest the minute you post any self-video of swimming that's not sub 1:10/100yd pace or if you're not a sub55min IM swimmer.)

My ankle band video is admittedly pretty ugly and choppy, but that tends to be what happens when my speed drops to the 1:45-50 pace with the band. You ain't gonna see it! =)

If you want, feel free to send me a PM. I've looked at videos for a few other folks who didn't want to share their videos publicly. youtube has privacy settings so that noone can browse to it.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

OK, a small scissor kick and a 2-beat kick but it must be providing some propulsion since you're 10 sec/100 scy slower with the buoy and then 20 to 30 sec/100 scy slower with the band without the buoy. So, it would seem, just based on these numbers, that your kick may be contributing more than you think. Probably though, this amount will go down as you continue to get stronger through your Vasa workouts:)

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

While I agree that's the most logical conclusion, I can assure you that the kick is NOT why I'm slower with a buoy.

In every kick set we do in the masters group, I am near absolute dead last. I can barely even do the drill where you tread water by vertically kicking, and give up before all those folks who are significantly faster with the buoy. This is why I suspect it's something about the angle of my stroke - I actually do feel a lot flatter on the water with less rotation with the buoy.

I wish I could say my kick was that good, but it really, really is not. In fact, it's so bad that I've committed to working on it whenever I'm in the pool (just a tiny bit at a time for now). At least I don't go backwards!

When I actually try to swim freestyle while actively trying to 4-6 beat kick to get some propulsion, I actually get totally gassed and can't swim as fast on longer sets, it's pretty sad. (I'm sure I'm also lacking the necessary coordination to effectively propulse with 4-6beat kick since I actively trained myself to minimize the kick, so it feels really weird for me to 4-6 beat it.)