What they're saying is just not true. There is a power and fitness component to swimming, but growing up I swam with plenty of very fast kids who were otherwise not particularly strong. Technique is more than just how you move through the water, it's also how you apply force to the water.

There is a correlation between those two things you noticed. Once you start your pull, you need to pull hard, your hand should be accelerating all the way until it exits the water. You may try doing some sets with fins to let you feel this without tiring yourself out. Another place to work on it is by doing some fast lengths. Important to give yourself plenty of rest when working on swimming fast or it'll be counterproductive.

Hah I'm still here. My old post look 'ancient' to me now on this thread, but I still stand by what I said before!

Not a fish myself (more like a log) but I've found the only way for me to improve my engine is to swim more volume, and harder. It's hard, and it takes a shockingly long time for me to amp it up, for small gains. But for sure, the stronger the engine (arms/lungs), the easier it is to make technical gains.

No magic advice here - swim as much as possible (it takes me literally 15k a week of swimming to improve a tiny amount, any less and I don't improve at all!), with a variety of speeds (avoid monospeed training, don't forget all-out sprint intervals), and be ready for the occasional world of hurt workout (like a max steady effort 20 x 100 that you even dread). And then throw in OWS training with a wetsuit to prepare for race day. It all helps.

Thank you. I need to find a way to force myself to do speed training, even tho I swim alone. For some reason I really struggle to make myself go fast.

But I will try using fins more and work on trying to pull harder and see about slowly building up stamina/endurance!

Appreciate your reply

Yay! Glad you are still here :)

So, I don't race. Or do triathlons. I just happened onto this forum when searching for people who were talking about the Finish forearm fulcrum, which I considered buying to help me stop dropping my elbow all the time (which I didn't realize I did until seeing film)

I don't think there is any way I could do 15k a week, I normally swim 3-4 times a week and around 7k-8.5k per week, tho I could probably do more than what I do. Maybe 10k.

But the principal of what you say makes sense. IE, that I need to build strength, and to make myself use it! I do not know why this is such a struggle for me.

(I was marathoner who got injured and started swimming at 43 -- now, 12 years later I am bummed that I am still so slow).

And yes, I need to make myself do sprints. I have no idea why I am so averse to anything but "all-day-pace" but clearly this needs to change if I want to get faster. I just had this idea/dream that if I improved my form, my all-day-pace would increase, as it very very much did with running.

Anyway -- I am so glad you're still here and thank you for answering!

xLisa

Swimming is great (this comes from someone who absolutely HATED swimming and clearly has low talent for it - I should be a pro triathlete swimmer for how much I swim....but I'm not even close!)

You don't have to go hog wild with sprints right away. Accept the fact that they're hard and will take awihle to build up to. Just start with the occasional 4 x 25 or 1 x 100, then maybe 6 x 25, 3 x 50, etc. Keep it short, and fun so you can go as fast as you can while maintaining form. You don't have to do like 10 x 100 off the bat to improve a lot - just doing some swimming fast helps a ton.

I'm totally guilty of not doing enough short 25s and 50s all-out myself, and my top speed definitely suffers for it.

Not to you in particular...
The resistance of water is both a blessing and a curse. Make it work in your favor by appreciating it effects when you go faster (i.e. sprinting). Only a few seconds faster on rested 50s will enhance "feel" for a longer "bigger" stroke, and, if you let yourself sense the water flowing around you all the way to the tip of your toes you can learn to smooth things out.
Speed teaches everything in swimming, to those ready to listen. AOS swimmers generally get far far too little speed in their workouts. Therefore, they get stuck with mediocrity.

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

Feeling the water flowing around and over your body also, IME, increases one's enjoyment of swimming. I never get bored swimming b/c I love the feel of the water flowing around me, and the feeling varies considerably depending on what stroke I'm doing, whether I'm coming off the wall after a turn, how hard I'm swimming, etc, etc, etc. I think a lack of ability to enjoy this feeling is why some people don't enjoy swimming. Feeling the water flowing around and over you is what swimmers mean by "feel for the water".

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

This is something that several people have told me, and something I don't feel naturally "good" at. When I swim, I _do_ feel totally present most of the time, I am concentrating on swimming and not thinking about my boss or deadlines or whatever, but literally feeling the water is not something that comes to me.

Just last week someone recommended to me the Total Immersion book from ages ago, specifically with reference to this, and I just got it from the library last night so will start soon!

I believe he is kind of _not_ into speed, and I want to combine the two - feeling/sensing more the water and how my body is affecting it - and increasing speed.

Thanks!
xLisa

You are welcome!
Enjoy the journey is my motto. That said, it is good to know where you want your journey to take you. It sounds like you do.
A million years ago a Olympic trials qualifier in the marathon told me when I asked "how do you run so fast?" His reply was " in order to run fast you have to run fast."
Which is a polite way of saying, do lots of intervals. I got the message, to my disappointment, I bumped into my limits at a lower level than I hoped for. Guess someone's gotta be average (insert shoulder Shrug emoji)
Enjoy the journey

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

I got started swimming with Total Immersion. It's a good book, but as a triathlete trying to RACE swimming, a few caveats:

The edition I read said to avoid intervals. He said the speed would come with technique. For me, that meant I plateau'd out at 2:20/100, and in fact it was impossible to make any technical gains at that point because my swim arm/form fitness could not sustain better technique. I'm actually completely convinced that the awesome "early vertical forearm" you see elite swimmers do is a much more a function of fitness than form (when you get that strong, you naturally use much more EVF to scoop maximal water, and when you are weaker you naturally avoid it because you're not strong enough to move that much water.) In summary, as a slow beginner, Total Immersion is right, you don't need intervals, but once you're plateauing out, you need them. There is no youth swim group that successfully makes those 'fast' swim kids that avoids intervals - they usually do wayyyy more intervals than adult swimmers.

It's like manofthewoods said - swimming fast is required to learn to swim faster more efficiently. The 'swim easy go fast' sells a lot of books, but is only true if you are comparing yourself to decidedly casual swimmers who never really worry about their form, pace, or about pushing their abilities. If that's your standard, yes, you will 'go fast compared to nonswimmers and casual swimmers' but you will get totally destroyed even by back of the pack triathletes who at least do intervals and try and improve their form.

Thanks, lightheir. Yes, this is my fear/impression. I don't want to not go fast (i.e. T.I.) but I do want to see if I can "feel" the water more. So I'm going to take all of it with a pinch of salt and a bit of philosophy and try, at the same time, to make myself do some intervals. At least to do "faster" if not sprinting.

To me, what you say makes a lot of sense, about the EVF requiring strength. I am also planning to try to up the weights I use in gym class (from 3lb to 5lb, nothing crazy - but I still have the tiny marathoner's body despite having had to give up running in 2014, so heavy weights are a real struggle for me)

Anyway - love getting people's perspective on this forum!

xLisa

Thanks for the perspective! (And I love the sign at your kid's school, lol)
xLisa

The most fun way I've done fast intervals is to do 25's on a lot of rest.

Like 15-20 seconds of rest, then just blast away at the next 25.

Bonus fun if you have a buddy to race. Send off on 45 or 60 seconds and beat them across the pool!!!

Reminds me of a story about the great Eddy Merckx when he was asked what someone should buy for their bike to go faster. He said, "Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades."

This is what I found with swimming. Just like there's "no substitute for the miles" when training for the bike and run, there's no substitute for the yards in swimming. You have to put in the work, and you have to swim fast to get faster. Though there are many days I wish it wasn't so, haha!!

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You will never, in your life, have a chance like this again.
If I were you, I would not pass this up. I would not let this go by...this is rare.
Come on...what harm??

Lisa - You might also want to get some paddles if you don't already have a pair. Since you have a a "tiny marathoner's body", you would prob want to get a smaller size. I like the Strokemaker paddles but there are several good paddles on the market. The paddles more or less force you to pull more water with each stroke which should make your pull stronger. Pulling with paddles and a pull buoy might be just what you need to get stronger and faster. :)

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

Thanks, ericmulk,

Absurdly, I actually have _four_ different sets of paddles:

1) the finis agility, which I like best and are small (just about the size of your hand) and don't have holes in them
2) the more "standard" ones that are large and have holes and rubber tubing to attach them (which I think I need to use more)
3) the finis iso hand paddles (which I cannot remember why I ordered but have never been able to use effectively)
and, as of last week
4) some turbo (Spanish brand - I was in Spain) "finger paddles" that only cover about to your second knuckle. So far I really like them.

In the past, I have used paddles but just sort of done my normal swimming with them (i.e. no "oomph" to my pull). Now, I am realizing that I need to transition into putting some power into it, tho from what I've read not for long distances to avoid injury until I build up more strength, I think.

Also, if anyone has input (yes, I already have a lot of toys), I would be curious if anyone has tried the finis "bolster" paddles, which force you not to bend your wrist. The reviews online are few and very mixed.

Thanks for your reply!
xLisa

If you're interested in the Fulcrum, an easy solution is to hold the paddle 'upside down'. Use the 'standard' ones you have.

I made a video of it recently for a visual.



What the fulcrum does is 'lock' the wrist so that you have to get the forearm and hand doing in the same thing. Holding the paddle like I show accomplishes the same goal.

As others have said, work on swimming progressively faster and you can throw in some of this paddle work to help feel the skill.

If you do it, switch back and forth between reps with the paddles and reps without. Try to create the same sensations with and without the paddles.

Hope that helps.

Andrew

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http://www.masteringflow.info
http://www.youtube.com/@masteringflow
http://www.andrewsheaffcoaching.com/...freestyle-fast-today

I think it's good that it forces an EVF, but I wonder if that's counter-productive. Your arm might be in the right position, but you're not pulling efficiently as it's being forced into that position as opposed to you having a light-bulb moment where you figure out yourself (without the tool) that having a EVF is much more efficient. Does it need to happen naturally to be effective?

Lisa - Ya, I think you know what you need to do: just do lots of pulling using your standard paddles. As Andrew (MasteringFlow) suggests, alternating paddles with no paddles is a good way to try to learn to pull as much water w/o paddles as with. You can time yourself for each 100 and see if you can go as fast w/o padds as with. If you're truly ambitious, you could start a logbook of your swimming so that you can compare today's swim workout with that of say 6 months ago. The paddles and pull buoy are great tools to develop your pulling ability which is the backbone of faster swimming, and with the logbook you can track your progress. :) Cheers, Eric M.

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

To echo Eric, I would HIGHLY recommend keeping track of your performances as often as you can.

It is motivating in the moment and it's motivating over time.

Even if your primary goal is to improve your skills, you need concrete feedback as to whether what you're doing is actually resulting in improved performance.

In addition, keep track of your stroke counts. If the numbers are getting lower, especially when you're pulling, that means you're moving more water with each stroke. That's success.

Andrew

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http://www.masteringflow.info
http://www.youtube.com/@masteringflow
http://www.andrewsheaffcoaching.com/...freestyle-fast-today

I forgot to mention stroke counts, prob b/c it is so second nature to me. Most really fast swimmers have low stroke counts. A couple of Christmases ago, a UGA dist swimmer came into the club where I swim, and i watched him warming up at 1:05/100 yd with 10 str/min, and he did every 4th length backstroke. He went 4:12 for his 500 free and around 14:55 for the 1650. Pretty impressive to me. :)

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

Unfortunately, it's not second nature to most, although it should be.

The observation that faster swimmers tend to have lower stroke counts is a good one and working to improve that metric is a good strategy.

It's great for knowing when something has changed. If you normally take 20 strokes per lap and all of a sudden you're at 25, something has changed and you need to figure it out. Conversely, if you normally take 20 strokes, then you make a change and all of a sudden it's 18, you KNOW you did something good and you want to do that again.

If you can swim faster AND with lower stroke counts, that's a huge win.

It's a simple way to measure your progress and tends to provide good feedback about your skills. If you swim faster, it could just be more effort. If you swim faster and you take less strokes, you may be using more effort, but you're definitely swimming better as well.

And it's free! No tech required.

Andrew

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http://www.masteringflow.info
http://www.youtube.com/@masteringflow
http://www.andrewsheaffcoaching.com/...freestyle-fast-today

This is awesome, thank you so much! I love the upside down paddle, and I will try the pinch as well. I love that you include sample sets. Given my strength (lack thereof!), I think I'll need to work up to the distance, but I am excited to give this a try...and to not buy yet another toy! :)

I really appreciate it, thank you, Andrew.
xLisa

Thanks, Eric,

Yes, I probably should start logging. I always used to log my runs, but I was a good runner, so this felt positive to me. And I'm frustrated by the fact that I've now been swimming for 10 years now and I still suck :-0
Until recently, I was telling myself that it's because good swimmers start when they're 4, not when they're 44, but I recently met two people who completely challenged that notion!

At any rate, having some data would help me, and at least give me concrete goals...

Thank you!
xLisa

Lisa - You're very welcome!!! Discussing swimming, running, nutrition, etc, on this forum is one of my favorite pastimes. It is always interesting reading about the experiences of other athletes. :) Cheers, Eric.

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