tigerpaws wrote:
runner66 wrote:
I'm looking to sell mine if any of you are interested in saving 500-700 bucks. Mine is three years old but barely used, in perfect condition. I joined a great masters group shortly after I bought it and have not used it much. I'm in Connecticut though so not sure about shipping.
Hi runner 66 have a question for you since you have used one. How does the Vasa account for body rotation in the stroke? It seems to me one would be ingraining a totally flat body by practicing the catch/pull on a level body surface? That or one is forced to internally rotate the humerus to accommodate the lack of rotation? I guess my question is: do you swim with some amount of body rotation in the water and if so, how did you adapt to the Vasa in that event given that you are laying on a flat surface? Curious to know how/if you were able to rectify this if it was an issue. Were you able to get from the Vasa to water and have the stroke feel the same? I'm sure there is a trick to it, but I would feel lost trying to swim flat as weight shift provides a good deal of my propulsive power when timed with the recovering arm accelerating down into the catch.
I'll toss myself into the conversation - I've been a Vasa user since around 2007. Thing is freaking awesome. But, it does come with a few things to know, kind of related to what you're talking about above. It doesn't account for body rotation; I do tend to roll SLIGHTLY on the board, but it's not close to the water. I think the thing to remember with the Vasa Erg is that it's not a machine to perfectly replicate your stroke, but a machine designed to perfect the catch/pull arm movement - essentially, it's a "pulling machine". When I use it, I'm only focusing on the catch and early vertical forearm portion of the stroke, as well as full effort through the stroke. I don't even do a proper recovery portion of the stroke, because THAT is very uncomfortable on a flat surface - I just swing my arms forward under the machine.
That being said, I think you'd find you don't miss much of the rest of your stroke - despite not having a good way to replicate the roll, kick, etc., I found I didn't lose any of it going into the water. When I got my Erg, it was when I was just out of college, fairly broke and living in Boston - I couldn't afford a membership to any of the pools there. I got the erg via some barter with my coach, and for a year and a half only used only the Erg for training (with a few open water swims at Walden Pond on the weekends). While I wasn't a good swimmer before, and I'm not now, I actually improved a lot over that 1.5 years - went from a 38 min half IM swim to a 30 min, which isn't bad for a year's work.
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MS: Exercise Science
Your speed matters a lot, sometimes you need to be very fast, where sometimes you need to breakdown your speed.