Isabel wrote:
eblackadder wrote:
I find alternating 100s with a pull buoy and just swimming helps me to feel what going faster should feel like. The buoy lifts you hips and legs, lessening the drag and making you faster. Pay attention to how th water feels over your shoulders, along your abdomen, and legs when using the buoy.
Eblackadder, am I correct in guessing you are male? As a woman who was coached in swimming while quite young, I’m significantly slower WITH the pull buoy than without. The pull buoy does not change my body position so the only effect it has on my swim speed is that I don’t have the extra power from the kick; thus I’m slower. I was training for tris for a while before I even realized some people were actually faster with the buoy and it does seem mostly to be men who don’t have a good natural body position. Same with wetsuits: they barely help me and in salt water I feel as if I’m above the surface and having to reach down. It has to do with distribution of body fat and learning body position early.
Just to say, your advice to use a pull buoy to experience greater speed may or may not work for our heroine in this thread. But it’s cool that works for you 👍.
Here's my n=1 story with PBs and wetsuits -
In my first 5 years of swimming in tri (AOS not good swimmer during that time!) I was significantly slower with PB, and wetsuit gave no advantage. Was so bad with the PB slowdown that I'd have to ditch it in masters swims when the PB sets started up as I'd go from leading my lane to the slowest in the lane. Without the PB, I'd be in the front of the lane even as most others got faster with the PB.
Interestingly, now I'm further along and with significantly stronger pull muscles, I'm now the opposite, with approx a 5 sec speed advantage with either PB or wetsuit in the pool. I suspect I had good body position before but just didn't have the pull strength to capitalize; with the PB though, with a stronger pull, the small energy saved from keeping the back end up could be put to use in a more powerful pull. At least that's my theory, as I didn't make any body changes or real technical changes during that flip in PB swim times. Was actually a shock to me when I retested it last year and found it was the case that I'd flipped.