DarkSpeedWorks wrote:
These are some outstanding swimmers, and hat's off to them.
BUT
For distance swimming (a subset of triathlon), watching this video is about as useful as watching running track sprinters racing in the 100m olympic finals to get a good example of efficient and effective marathon running technique.
(In other words, or tl;dr, it's not that useful ...
;^)
As a former track sprinter, who became reasonably proficient at running marathons at an age group level, I would say that you may be somewhat off. Now I happened to be a track sprinter who probably should have been a miler from the start, but I was really good to 30-40m and as it turned out I could go for a really long time at speed....my top speed was never great for a sprinter. However, all that track work bestowed me with the right mechanics to hold my body together for the end of long races from 5K up to Ironman. The mechanics are pretty well the same, its just the stride length and frequency that changes....it's all running.
I think this under water footage is excellent even for Ironman swimmers. Think about what happens in the first 50m of the mass start. This is where LIONEL LOSES every big championship race. He's too worried about his pace times for 10x100 and other longer sets rather than getting his full bore 50-200m speed down.
In any case. there is some excellent footage here on streamline (while applying power) that applies at all intensities. Just slow down the kick, but even that kick is applicable when you have to shut down a gap, drop someone, or just ensure that you don't lose some faster feet (at least until you tuck in tight onto the faster swimmer's hip).