I hear you and you hit the nail on the head. What gives? Wish I had some advice but for sure want to follow this post.

Personally I like the Swim Smooth stuff. Lots to work through. I'd look for somewhere that can video you swimming and then show you what to work on.

BTW I do like TI but, for me, when I tried it I was trying to be too long and slow. Swim Smooth is more about being analytical with where you are and then what the best way forward is.

Where to start?
Based on your other stats, there is little doubt that you could be much, much faster in the water.

Have you tried to get any one-on-one help with any other excellent swim coaches, but not "T.I.-certified" ones? Unfortunately, I have closely observed some T.I. coaches that were, essentially, dreadful.

Have you ever tried to do any kicking with a kickboard and wearing standard, full length fins?

Where approx are you located?

Greg @ dsw

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I've checked out the swim smooth stuff. Worked on it last year for 3-4 months. I'm definitely an "Arnie". Still though, no luck. :(

What good is kicking with a kickboard & fins? I do it because, like OP, I can't kick. But I just want an excuse to give to the swimmers around me. I like to think it's to loosen my ankles up... but nope, they're still stupidly stiff and don't flex.

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Are you trying to stick to a stroke rate? If you know that and strokes per length have you tried looking where you are on their 'BMI' chart?

I worked with two separate TI coaches, both who were highly recommend. No non-TI coaches though. My thought process with avoiding regular swim coaches was that they probably were far more accustomed to working with athletes who were swimmers or were at least proficient in the water.
I've done kicking on a board with both regular fins and zoomers. I try not to do more than 50% of my kicking (or swimming, for that matter) with any toys, as I'm afraid of getting to reliant on them.

First, let me start with this: kicking better is not a cure to a horrible distance freestyle stroke.

But if one has a horrible kick (the kind where you move forward at a turtle's pace, or worse go backward), that make it much much hard to swim well.

I have noticed that conventional fins can teach really bad kickers the proper motor program on how to use your hips, knees, and ankles to have an effective and low drag kick. Then the swimmers can apply the same motor program to regular kicking and, voila, a huge improvement can result.

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How were the TI coaches, did they actually produce results?

Here is something brief that I wrote up about finding a great swim coach, it might be worth a quick read.
http://darkspeedworks.com/blog-swimcoach.htm

Never use zoomers at this point, as they are not helping you.

When you use regular fins and a kickboard, how well do you kick, i.e., how well do you move forward?

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Send us some video. I really like swim smooth.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

The last TI coach I worked with in Chicago (I have since moved) came highly recommended for people just like me. I did 5 private lessons and a few group swim classes too, and I just didn't see results.

Where are you now?

What about the kicking question in my previous post?

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Currently in Columbus, Ohio temporarily. May be moving to Denver in the next few weeks.
ETA: yes, I move just fine with fins and a board.

That is a good sign about your fin technique.

Find yourself an excellent non TI coach in your next city, and get some one-on-one help.
(read that link for ideas as to how to find an excellent coach.)

If you find a bad coach, you won't get results.
But if you find a great coach, you WILL get results, and quite rapidly.

Persistence pays off.
It really does.

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I'm headed to Masters swim now, but wanted to add my $.02.

Maybe try working the other end, i.e. Your stroke. A good analogy is that with a big enough engine, any water skier can be pulled to the surface 😉

In other words, put on the paddles, get stronger arms (power) and your swim time should improve. It's swim-based weight training for your arms. Start there.

I'd also find a D1 (Division 1) instead of a T1 swim coach. Someone who was Olympic Trials speed or close to it has spent time getting fast. Just a thought...

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DFL > DNF > DNS

Here's a video example of me swimming one length.
https://www.dropbox.com/...n/Freestyle.mov?dl=0

I'm far from a great swimmer, but I have a friend who is in the same boat as you....he works really, really hard at this swimming, but is really slow. I've observed a number of slow swimmers and they seem to have the same issues. One of the biggest is that they kick with a really bent knee, and so their legs are really low in the water, and they are getting zero propulsive benefit from it. I pointed this out to my friend, who then insisted he was kicking with a straight leg; so, you may think you are kicking with a straight leg, but still have quite a bend. Another issue is folks who initially jerk their head straight up and then turn to breathe, again resulting in poor body position. I would start with somebody making a video of you underwater and post that here...you will get lots of tips on what to fix. You may also see things that you are doing that you didn't even realize. Lastly...it's hard for me (and lots of other AOS swimmers) to kick without fins...get some zoomers or other fins and try those. They will also help you develop some ankle flexibility that will cut down on drag.

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These are all some solid points, but I've avoided going to a coach that is used to working with high level athletes because I'm not even comfortable in the water yet. Like I can't even float! It'd be like going to Eric Clapton to learn how to play twinkle twinkle little star.

So 25 sec video, for round figures say 5 seconds for push off and stretch to wall. 10 strokes counting both arms as a stroke? So somewhere around 30 strokes per minute.

That has to be too slow. I don't want to beat up on TI but sometimes it seems like they are almost encouraging you to be really slow. First thing I'd do is get a swim cap beeper thing and set it higher than what you are doing. It will be uncomfortable. TI can get you in a mind set of not wanting to stroke too fast in case your technique falls apart. But the world won't end if you try. I only ever hit a nice flowing rhythm at a fairly high stroke rate. I simply can't keep coordinated if I slow it down too much.

I watched the vid. What you really need is underwater vid. Or, better yet, the coach is under water with you. Your legs are going too far apart. Do a little kick with your legs straight and your toes very pointed. Get used to feeling your toes burbling at the surface of the water. You also aren't getting much propulsion out of your stroke. I would slow your stroke way way down and work on getting a good high elbow position. Then pull that hand/forearm back towards your hip. If you can't feel your abs when you pull, you're wrong. Be really conscious of your hips and really think hard about how much water your hand/forearm is "grabbing". Focus obsessively on the feel of your forearm/hand grabbing lots of water. When you get it right, it will almost fell like...instead of pulling your arm back towards your hip, you are instead anchoring your arm and pulling the rest of your body forward.

Get the stroke and rotation right with a pull buoy. Slow down as much as you have to in order to nail your stroke. If that means going dead slow in some kind of crazy slow motion, so be it. Once you start getting it, speed up your stroke rate a bit. Then start doing some of your laps w/o the pull buoy so you can work on body position, that is to say, hips and feet up.

Slowing your stroke rate down will also help you feel what is going on. Train yourself to feel when a stroke "didn't get much water", or "stroke felt weak because somehow you got it wrong such that it wasn't your lats and abs that pulled your forearm back", or "feet briefly scissored apart causing big increase in drag." It's not about pulling hard, it's about grabbing lots of water with that forearm/hand w/o really expending a lot of energy, and it's about reducing drag by being long and skinny. It's not a contest of strength, it's a contest of efficiency. You are a pencil floating on the top of the water, rotating L and R. Long, skinny, with effortless efficiency.

For 20yrs I struggled at swimming. I did not understand that I "didn't know how" to swim. I dabbled with various coaches but none of them got in the water with me so none of them really saw anything. They were lazy. The said things like "be smoother".

Finally, about 12yrs ago I stumbled across total immersion videos. Those were very helpful. I spent a lot of time with those videos and drills learning to be "long and skinny", learning "balance" to keep my hips and feet up, and creating a efficient stroke that grabbed as much water as possible. It look a long time because I'm not very coordinated. I spent a lot of time with a pull buoy, and still do.

The problem with total immersion is the technique pushes gliding too much. The slow stroke rate and gliding is very helpful at first because you can fix a lot of problems by going slow. But eventually, if you want to get faster, you have to up your stroke rate. At that point, download the Swimsmooth software simulation. I had to double my stroke rate in order to make it reasonable. I was shocked at how much faster I immed became. Had I started with Swimsmooth tho, I'd have had a stroke rate as fast as yours in the video, and I would not have been able to fix my problems at that stroke rate. I had to slow way down so I could really concentrate on what was going on. And by using a pull buoy, I removed half my problems from the table making it much easier to focus on the problems that remained.

So, get a pull buoy, slow your stroke rate way down, watch some TI videos. Then work on being long and skinny and creating a very efficient stroke. Don't swim hard, swim efficiently. If' you're sucking wind, you're swimming too hard. This is about technique, not fitness. Obsess over technique. Once your technique gets pretty good, experiment with upping your stroke rate by reducing your glide time. And do some of your laps w/o the pull buoy.

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I am probably in a very similar boat as you, but I think I may have some pointers.

My flutter kick is atrocious. When I use a kickboard, I either stop moving or even move backwards! Apparently this is common for triathletes who have really stiff ankles. I am, however, using TI (never had a lesson), and kicking in TI is unimportant. In fact, the 2-beat kick is mostly meant to help rotation for streamlining as opposed to propulsion. Your video is very telling, and I think you have good form, but here are my observations:

• Your arms and upper body seem very tense. I think you're stroking too hard. Your arms should be relaxed and let gravity pull your arm into the water as opposed to you pushing the arm into the water. What might help is keeping your fingers open, which will force you to relax. Tips always below knuckles, knuckles below wrist.
• Wide tracks. You seem to be inserting your arms in the same spot in front of your head, almost crossing over, instead of maintaining them at the same axis as the shoulder they're attached to.
• You're recovering too fast. You should keep the leading arm extended longer and only recover after the catching arm is inserted into the water (FQS, Front Quadrant Swimming). Try focusing on keeping your recovery elbow fairly static, using it as an anchor (think of mountain climbing, where you're pushing your body up instead of your arm down). Together with Wide Tracks this should help increase the distance per stroke.
• You're possibly over-rotating your legs. Focus on keeping your knees straight (but supple and flexible), so all they do is help rotate the body a bit.
• Otherwise your form looks really good.

You should take everything I'm saying here with a large grain of salt, because I've only started training for swimming with TI a few months ago. I will say that spending a lot of time on drills — instead of intervals and workouts — has helped me, and I've gone from constantly panicking and thrashing to only sometimes panicking and thrashing.


Shiran

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Pain is weakness leaving your body.

That's true - however, fast runners tend to have very stiff lower limbs. So pick your poison.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Wow.

This troubling video is unfortunately a perfect example of bad and essentially useless coaching.

But I do want to give her some credit, the coach appears to be earnest and sincere, she swims well too, and the video production values are decent.

However, the problem is that she says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about EXACTLY HOW a swimmer can easily and rapidly correct this very very common stroke flaw. Related to this, she also says nothing about why this stroke flaw happens. Understanding why this error happens can really help a swimmer fix the problem, and it is an easy error to both explain and to understand. But my guess is that this coach has no idea why it happens.

And then her 'total immersion' anecdote of swimming like you are "hugging a tree" just does not cut it.

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With all due respect, lots of very fast triathletes are very fast swimmers and very fast runners. So I think there might be a bit more to this ...

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