Surprised no on has responded.

You don't have a bad stroke.
Lots of people would be happy to have it.
But you don't seem to get a full pull, a 6'5" wingspan should translate to less strokes per length than the 24'ish you take.
I'm just around 6'0" (on a good day) and at the pace you are at would take about 16-18 strokes. So you are losing a little length somewhere.

A head on video may help show other things.

You also might stroke a little faster if you had a little more air. Lots of people think bilateral breathing is great. I don't.
Next time you go running, cut down your breathing to 16 breaths a minute (your swimming breath rate) and see how long you last at any effort.
You can try that on the bike as a well, at anything but a minimal effort. And check what it does to your heart rate.
Swimming is surprisingly oxygen demanding and hypoxic breathing has been proven wrong for a while.

By all means breath on alternate sides. But try every 2 and not 3 as you are doing
You already have a slow rate of strokes so a little more air might help.

I'm not an awesome swimmer but it appears to me you are dropping your elbows quite a bit. Need to concentrate on the EVF (easier said than done..) and increase your stroke rate.

Shitty swimmer chiming in:

Hands cross over in front too much. Imagine you are following train tracks out in front of you, don’t spear them towards the middle.

Fingertips below the wrist, wrist below the elbow. You are dropping your elbow, causing the reverse, and your hand acts as a brake when it’s out in front.

Can you try to enter the water at a steeper angle? Also, your hand entry shouldn’t look like you’re trying to “pet the kitty”. Get after it.

It looks like a smooth stroke though.

It looks good over all. My coach would say it looks lazy though. There is no BAM! He likes for a nice easy recover to the front quadrant (that you have), than Bam! the hand in and streeeeetch and keep streeeetching while firing the “oar” hand back. Keep the elbows higher.
I’m no expert, I’m just thinking what my coach would tell me. I currently strive to have that nice of stroke.
Keep it up.

How many days a week do you swim?

How many yards/meters do you average at each workout?

What is your typical approach to a workout? Are you more focused on distance (volume) or pace (intensity)?

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

Agree that you technique looks ok, but you’ve got to extend those hands and “catch” the water with your hand when fully extended and feel the pressure against your hand all the way through. If you haven’t yet, do some swimming with paddles and pull bouy to feel that catch and moving water. Also will build strength. Are you doing some shorter intervals (25s, 50s) at fast speed longer rest? You have to swim faster to swim faster, as they say.

As said in earlier post breathe every full stroke or bilateral breathe, every 1 1/2 stroke and no less. Your 6’5” will help. Good luck with it.

 

Looks like your hips and legs are sinking, therefore becoming anchors and creating a lot of drag. Try to swim horizontal in the water.

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Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

I think the rather lazy, or lackadaisical effort here is causing your legs to sink a little, and your wrist seems to be disconnecting itself as you go into the catch. The wrist and forearm need to be more rigid.

Swim videos for critique should be made at a tempo pace.

I don't think your technique has major speed-killing flaws. There's always stuff to fix, but I think those technical gains that folks have mentioned above can be done while focusing on your main limiter -

There is no POWER in your stroke. I know you wrote z2 swimming, but even for z2, there's no oomph in the stroke. Stroke rate is very low (it will be lower for you at 6'5" but still seems low) and the slow arm speed generates very little forward propulsive power as a result.

I actually strongly suspect that if you trained hard and managed to up your cadence and pull force signifinantly, you'd naturally discover many of the form improvements that have been mentioned, and more.

This happens to me - when I do hard short intervals at sub 1:20/100yd pace, I'm going fast enough that I feel like everything is clicking - clocklike cadence, superstreamlined, and I don't even need to kick at all. And then when I do a VERY easy cooldown and focusing on getting my HR back to near-resting, that lack of speed throws things a bit out of whack, and all those good looking technical finesses become near-impossible even if the main stroke is ok.

Need more oomph.

That glide is killing your speed.

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others have said it, but it looks like you don't grab and hold onto any water at all

learn to catch/grab the water then learn to use your arms and lats to pull that water back

the hips are low, but id also wager that is due to arms just sliding through

some sculling with fins and a snorkel or buoy and a snorkel so you don't have to worry about your body or breathing would be great. that will help you learn to feel the water when you grab it. id bet you cant scull your way down the pool.

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Merge Multisport Founder & Head Coach
USAT Level 2 - Short & Long Course
Ironman Certified
Brevard, NC

OK...a good canvas to start with as they would say.
A few comments:
1. You are crossing to the midline with your initial hand entry....aim to enter wider, at least shoulder width apart.
2. Your stroke rate is low...use a Finis Tempo Trainer Pro to metronome your stroke rate and look at improving it.... (check out this link http://previous.swimsmooth.com/strokerate.html)
3. Overall you lack oomph....you need to be more aggressive/assertive with your hand entry, really engage your lats with your catch and pull....your kick is a good triathletes kick in many ways but you could kick a little more aggressively to help raise your feet and legs.....
4. You seem to start your catch with your elbow by dropping it....really need to be thinking about what needs to happen at this point in your stroke and keeping elbows up and forearms and hands into a positions to pull back....

With relatively minor changes I think you have an easy 15 secs/100m gain then with some decent training will be down in the low 1:30s over 6-9 months....

THIS!

I agree with pretty much all the advice given and I admire your dedication to improving your swim. The technique improvements will help but your issue is just a lack of muscle memory which leads to lower than desired power. The solution is poolside coaching if you can afford it and to place yourself in an environment that supports your progress, Masters Program for example. After that it's just a whole lot of meters in the pool swimming with precision and strength.

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"They know f_ck-all over at Slowtwitch"
- Lionel Sanders

I'll chime in on a common theme in the responses. Your pull is weak and lacks any thrust. Grip it and Rip it! When you get your hand and arm into the power phase for the pull, tighten up your hand all the way to your upper arm and thrust it back until your hand hits your thigh (keep your fingertips pointed to the bottom of the pool).

3ish

~2500m

Most focused on not drowning :) In seriousness - probably most focused on volume. I find that I can swim with different RPEs, but my actual pace doesn't seem to change that much

Apart from the stroke rate that others have already commented on, I see that your left arm is the one that lets go of the water way too early.
In the picture above you'fe alreadt let go and no arp power is driving you forwaed.

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It's just hard to put together the coordination to swim the taller or leaner one is. Everyone has good advice for you. It's just harder for someone who is 6'5" to look good at gymnastics or even basketball because of the coordination required. Try what the others have suggested and you'll gain new sensations and awareness.

My suggestion is to practice some breathing every two strokes (in the video you're breathing every third, bilaterally). Develop the quick/powerful roll to air on one side and the other side. Maybe breathing every other stroke will allow you to get that umph/forcefulness because the breaths of air are coming more frequently.

Thank you for sharing your video.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

The reason I asked these questions and didn’t comment on your stroke is that the training you do is the technique. And based on your responses, you look like how you train.

I’m happy to help you for 3 weeks at no charge. We should be able to find in 3 weeks somewhere between 5-10 secs/100. If you’re interested, send me a private message.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

First time I've heard of EVF - very interesting thanks!

i'd bet you're right

interesting. good catch (har har).