Oh my goodness. Well if it's on the internets, it can't be a lie.

I kid you not he is maybe 50% of the reason I come on ST it's an absolute hoot to banter with him.

i don't know if it made a difference in time, but I've had 2 moments.

the high elbow refers to the elbow position during the pull and not on recovery.

the barrel catch refers to the time period at the very end of recovery and the start of putting your hand in the water.

oh, one more: to keep elbow high, focus on keeping the pointed bone of you elbow on the top of your extended arm and not on the bottom. ie rotate your bony elbow to teh top of your extended arm. JUST found this one out.

Could you explain this last one. I'm not sure if I can even do that, and doing it with what I think is good hand position is impossible.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT OF ALL SHITS

You DONT kick to keep your ass/legs from dragging? SERIOUSLY?

I'm not even being sarcastic (maybe it comes off like this) - but that's what I've been doing the entire time.

Fuck, I really just need to get lessons. But I'm going to start these little drills.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT OF ALL SHITS

You DONT kick to keep your ass/legs from dragging? SERIOUSLY?

I'm not even being sarcastic (maybe it comes off like this) - but that's what I've been doing the entire time.

Fuck, I really just need to get lessons. But I'm going to start these little drills.

I have experimented with the drill where you float on your stomach engaging my back, hams, butt muscles. I will do this drill and then swim a couple of 50s trying to contract said mucles...my 50 times are faster by 5 seconds just because my legs are up higher. As of now I can't hold the form...I am doing a half ironman in 4 weeks so probably will not really improve until after the event. But it feels like a possible ha-ha moment.

One of the aspects of swimming which has really sunk it's claws into me the past few years is the seemingly endless progression of skill acquisition which I had been reluctant to tackle for decades. I was first in line when Nerd Cards were handed out so the cerebral aspects of swimming really speak to me as much as the brutal physical demands....I thoroughly enjoy all of it. Recently I had a big bump in fly performance from something so small it was comical, but the net effect was the difference in finishing a 100 strong or riding home the last 25 with a piano on my back. Now I'm entertaining tackling the 200 at some point simply b/c of a tiny thought that triggers an entire chain of events. One goofy thought took 2.6 seconds off my 50fly pr!

So, with the endless thoughts and threads on swimming I thought it might be fun or a good idea to start a thread that has nothing but collections of 'a ha' moments that took you to the next level. I think we can safely assume swimming really really hard is a given. The effort level and consistency has to be there for performance so 'increasing from 1 1,000 yard swim a week to 3 2,000 yard swims really helped!' is kind of obvious;)

Looking forward to learning some cool stuff from some of our fishbeasts on ST. I think sometimes there are some really awesome nuggets that get lost in unrelated threads. That's my hope here is to maybe create a neat repository of tweaks that took you to the next level. Maybe this thread is a big flop, maybe it's a hit. If it helps one person say 'a ha' it's a win in my book!

Fly, back, breast, free and dolphin....let 'er rip!

I'd love it if you shared a couple of those 'fly tips!

I've got from no fly to can fly but not far and not well, so just about anything is probably going to help.. (provided it's not so advanced or subtle that it's beyond my rudimentary state)

Thanks to a cognizant coach, one of my most helpful freestyle a-ha's came when I was thinking about hand position during the entry and reach. I focus on keeping my hand angled down slightly instead of allowing the fingers to lift upwards. This has really helped prevent rotator cuff pain, and maybe helps prevent some drag.

Here's one that works for longer distance swimming, IMO.

This is an idea for kick development. The a-ha part is that you never kick when you swim like you end up kicking with a kick board. So the board may be keeping you from learning all you need with regards to the kick. You need to isolate the swim style kick and get better at it.

Keys: one-legged kick drills, ankle flexibility, and kicking more pigeon toed than with your foot straight up and down.

Do kicking drills without a board and using only one leg. Keep your left hand extended and your right hand down your side and kick with your left foot only for 8-10 reps. Then take a stroke and switch hands for 8-10 reps. That kick will end up setting up the stroke for that arm, so it's good practice. This drill, if done right will do a lot of dynamic stretching of your ankles. Also, it will show where lack of uniformity may be letting one leg kick well and the other kick like crap. Finally, this drill will enable you to better feel that kick (or lack of it during your stroke). You will be better able to include a more powerful two beat kick into your stroke. It will propel you better and create the body tension for a better catch. This drill is slow, but be patient. You should be able to judge which types and amplitudes of kicks propel you better than others. Go watch some distance swimmer underwater footage if you aren't sure how much to move your knee versus hip.

A pigeon toed kick is going to let your ankles be more flexible and provide more foot surface area to propel you forward.

Finally, you need to do drills to flex those ankles. Dynamic stretches are best. Stretches that mimic your new "more pigeon toed" kick are the best. Ankle flexibility is crucial for kick power and speed.