jonnyo, is Baby Jonnyo getting swim lessons yet? Can't start them too early :-)
My advice is to give small children a donut hole when they do a good job at swim lessons. This is what my parents did and it seemed to have worked rather well.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

hi Jonnyo - question re:band.

As said above, I can definitely swim lengths without cheating with the band (a tight one).

I have noticed though that my swim speed is a good 20sec/100 slower with the band than without. I am NOT a kicker (I use a minimal 2-beat, have never trained my kick ever) so that is definitely not the reason I am so much slower.

I feel that with the band though, it's just much harder for me to fully engage all my swim-specific power. My stroke gets weaker, shorter, and perhaps most importantly, my turnover drops a lot, as I think my puny kick helps a lot in keeping the rotation going at faster speeds.

How do you feel when you're swimming hard with band? Is it similar to your regular swimming, or are you also encountering difficulties that cost you similar amounts of speed? I'm willing to work hard with the band if it'll give me more free speed, but I'm not sure if I'm already at the point of very diminishing returns with the band since I can already swim with it.

In my experiment today, I timed a single 50, just to see what my pace was, I swam 0:40, which is about the same pace as I would pull it with a buoy for the same effort, and about 3-4sec slower than my swim time for that effort.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I agree. It always surprises me when people argue that a light efficient kick is not beneficial to body position. The fact that no one has a body position as good with a band as without should be enough proof of that.

I did quite a bit of band only training a while ago and managed to get my times down to a decent level after a while. Funny thing is it did nothing to improve my normal freestyle. I just got faster at swimming with a band...

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

good question. I dont necessarly use the Band as a training device to gain fitness but more to raise awarness of what you are doing wrong.

1. your 20sec slower: definitly normal. I m much slower also.
2. It feel harder: absolutly, that is why i recommend doing short set of repeats and put enough rest. when you get better, you might be able to swim longer and with less rest but for now, i strongly recommend simply keeping it to 25s or 50s.

Now, i havent seen your swimming so it s difficulte to give you proper advice. But most of the time, i use the drill to show someone how to properly balance themself in the water...how to apply pressure with the chest and head...so they can lift the butt hips legs. I also like the drill as it really put a big focus on a good catch with no pause or glide.

So in a session, i will use it as (exemple)

800m warm up choice

3X (6X50m band on 15 sec rest, 300m race pace on 20 sec rest)

sometimes like this where the band is a reality check...then you switch to real swimming and focus on swimming fast . I dont do any hard swimming with the band... it s more a technical aspect.

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

i agree one all points: a light kick is good to the position. and no one here suggest you swim with a band in races ;)

and there is nothing in the world that will help your swimming at your age/and level. you have reach a point of diminishing return so i dont think a drill like this would adress anyting for you....you already have great body position/ctch/strokes and a lifetime background of swimming.

now, how do you teach that 40 year old guy that started swimming/ wants to do a ironman this summer and will give you 2 or 3 swim a week for 30-60min?

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

Great answer, jonnyo - that's pretty much what I've been doing. I put a lot of effort over a 3 week period to learn how to do it comfortably, but now only use it very sparingly, mainly if I need to swim slower on purpose in a slow circle swim, or if I feel that I need a technique check once in awhile.

Keep up the great videos and advice, though - at least I'm finding them very helpful even if they're mostly familiar to me in terms of content, and wish I had them when I started triathlon.

I think the key is that all it should take to get body position in an optimal place is a light, efficient kick. I see a bunch of "critique my swim" videos, coupled with observations from my pool deck, and often people are kicking like crazy and their hips are STILL low in the water. The way to rectify that isn't really to make the kick stronger, it's to improve body line and head position generally. That way the kick is just used to bring up the legs a little bit, and hopefully contribute to moving forwards.

Also, as a tangential matter, most triathletes don't do enough non-freestyle in training. The general body awareness that comes from learning backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly does translate into faster freestyle swimming, as these strokes present different challenges for getting in a good streamline.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Honestly, I'd have them work on just swim fitness primarily. If kicking is a severe limiter in keeping their legs up I'd have them work on that in addition to maybe some band or band + buoy. Sometimes the band is too tough for beginners before they develop decent swim fitness imo though.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

I agree with that observation but I think part of the reason they kick like crazy and tire out quickly is that they don't have an efficient enough kick to maintain body position with only light kicking. Instead the legs sink and they try to kick harder and harder to keep them up. Imo part of the solution to that is working on kicking mechanics and conditioning isolated from the rest of the stroke initially.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

Agree, but I have to say as an ex-beginner not too long ago, the band is one of the most eye-opening experiences for beginners to convince them that they are making some serious body position and stroke errors.

Just look at all the slow swimmers at your local YMCA and all the horrendous errors you see, with the most common being a big scissor kick used to offset an errant pull. You can talk their ear off about how they should fix their pull, body position, and they'll look at you doubtfully, like "I work on that all the time, and I'm mostly fine."

You put the band on them though, and it's like 'woah, there's a LOT of room for improvement there', especially after you show them that it's not impossible to swim with a band. I'd actually say that even the vast majority of folks who are turtling away at 2:00+/100 would have huge benefits from doing buoy+band, just to clean up their stroke, even if it's not as hard on the body position.

For myself and a lot of other intermediate & beginner swimmers, getting rid of the scissor kick was a bigger issue, and that's something you can't fix just by doing kick drills. (Gotta fix the pull.)

Zoe as started swim lesson tuesday at 4.5months old. that said, she as been in the water twice daily with me. She did not like the swim lesson as there was lots of singing and game play and she has no time for that.

when with daddy, she gets to kick, swim on her belly and put in face in the water. She just doesn't like the fluffy stuff and wants to get the work done!!!

we will see how the next swim lesson will go but i m not very confident...she just wasn't impress with the teachers philosophy and qualifications!

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

doubles - nice!

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Make sure she works on her streamlining off the walls. What tech suit did you get her?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I feel you man I do I spent a good while doing the same thing. An idea that finally helped me lock into balance was when I was told to simply forget about how much different everything else felt, especially my catch and pull. When you shift that CG forward every single aspect of what you knew in your stroke will probably feel different. Don't fight that as there is some re-learning that has to take place. Your head/upper thoracic region will feel too deep, shoulders might too. This isn't a small change you are making to your body position, it's huge so expect there to be new sensations all over. If you get this down you have a chance to be as good as your potential will let you get, without it no chance. Rock on!

Knowing what you actually do compared to what you think you do is the most important thing. Most of us have a really lousy perception of what we look like in the water.

keep getting the feedback and it will get easier.

The only time I really feel like my legs and hips are on top of the water is when I am sprinting.

You need to get your head down and keep your core tight at the same time. Easier said than done, but you'll get there.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Wow, a serious swimmer already at 4.5 months, she sounds like national team material!!!

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

OMG! Put on the band today...I sucked at it, could not make it across the entire length of the pool...I will say I didn't do the first drill I just tried to swim with it on. I did it at the end of the work out, gonna try in tomorrow after warming up.

It may be a technical problem but it sure felt physical in the middle of the drill. Carry on.

+1! I unlocked the secret of the band when I learned to relax in the water. When I put the band on initially, I thrashed and struggled to get from one end of the pool to the other. I slowed it down (seems counterintuitive) and did a good, relaxed catch up stroke, breathed....and presto...the CofG moved forward, and I could swim band continuously. This happened in a very short time. So, I was successful in learning to band swim really well. Did it make a big diff in my non-band swimming? Not as much as I would have thought, but it definitely made me a better swimmer, conscious of my body position. And that....is a big thing if you want to become a better swimmer. I am getting faster...slowly...and more efficient...slowly and that is a great motivator in this elusive pursuit! Thanks to Jonnyo for putting this out there for us to think about.

I did a bunch of band work today. I'm not a particularly good swimmer, but I can do the band pretty well having done it a lot before.

I think the 'secret' to the band is to move minimal extra body parts. For real. The harder you try to compensate for any imbalance, the worse it gets. So if your legs drop, and you instinctively press down with your arm to 'lift' the body, it'll work for half a second, but the counterbounce will sink you straight to the bottom.

I find the band an invaluable tool for acquiring smoothness and helping eliminate most of those errant body motions. I'm still working on getting the breath right without disrupting my bodyflow, but aside from breathing, the ability to swim with a band no problem definitely helps cut out all the unnecessary motions in your swim, making you more like a 'real' swimmer.

I can barely use the band while swimming with a maximum buoyancy allowed wet suit. I should probably practice with it a lot more. Without a pull buoy I can't swim 5 strokes.

Yup, then you would DEF benefit from it. Use that as your motivation to get down there and learn it - I almost wish I didn't know how to use it because that's free speed once you do learn it!