Thank you for assessing my videos. I appreciate the critique, but it is also great to hear that I seem to do some things right.


No, unfortunately 10 years ago. The videos are 3 years old.


I hope that has inproved in the past 3 years, although I do think I still have to work on that. Before and during pulling I try to achieve a higher ellbow in rotating my right arm counterclockwise, and my left arm clockwise.


That's the Holiday Inn Express in Singapore, indeed glass walls. I do not know if I will ever get the opportunity again to make such demonstration videos.

"I don't have EVF, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."

Sorry, couldn't resist.

here's the view you chose for the thumbnail of one of your videos:



you couldn't have expressed better what you need to work on if you thought it out and planned it. here is a vid of ian thorpe doing some drills. fast forward to the 1 minute mark, and watch 2 minutes of it, ending at the 3 minute mark:



i don't know that i'm a big fan of full catch-up drill, because it's very unnatural, very hard to do. but there are 2 things about it:

1. note how obviously ardently, urgently, thorpe is trying to keep his hand up near the surface before he begins his pull.
2. note that he maintains propulsion through the entire exercise when it's very hard (for you and me) to do so.

this is what i think would help you a lot: just this attention to the hand near the surface of the water during the extend phase, and maintaining propulsion through whatever means necessary during an abbreviated, interrupted, slowed-down freestyle.

dave scott's version of this is "slow arm recovery with hesitation."



same sorta thing. keep the extending hand near the surface, and keep forward propulsion ongoing. the difference here is that dave isn't asking you to do full catch up stroke, where one hand literally sits on top of the other before the pull is commenced. but it asks for the same discipline.

all this done, you still have to take advantage of what you now have going for you once you commence the pull: that early vertical forearm written about in posts above. (look at the grant hackett video above.)

this is the medicine i would recommend you take.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thanks for the feedback

I will incorporate those drills for a few swims and see where that leads me.

Slowman,
Thought about PM-ing you but maybe others are having similar issues.. when I hit play on the videos... it gets all fuzzy and says it won't play bc i dont have permission... love to try to help some of these video folks.
daved

i don't know what to say about that. which videos?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

All work good for me. Maybe try a different browser?

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--Chris

Ill see if i can post a screenshot:

(happens on all the videos not just the ones users have sent in, but also the established videos like the still shot here after hitting play on dave scott video)

THANK You... and fair enough.. works in chrome but not safari...
Sorry for the dumb computer worker here. Im not technically savvy.

:)

Looks like Ill be on slowtwitch using chrome from now on.
daved

Hi all,
Any and all critiques welcome. I'm an adult onset swimmer- been swimming the past 7 years or so. These vids were taken during lessons that I'm currently taking and hopefully benefiting from. Thanks for any feedback!

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"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

Hi,
I'm a 1.05 Ironman swimmer on my only IM so far..

Slowman, lets take your two points and try to expand on them a bit in hopes of helping others w similar issues.
Issues: dropped elbow while pullling
pulling too quickly
catch up stroke

You feel a hand near the surface is going to help him alot. (ala Dave Scott vid).

Lets take these points of reference and make them one unit and have it work for us.
A fully extended arm (not hyper extended in any joints) has a certain energy in it. THink of a thin tree branch w 4 inches of heavy wet snow on it. Rounded but energized (loaded).
This arm extended out in front while rolled onto that side creates a nice long boat. The longer the boat, the more speed. The quality of that line extended from pinky to pinky toe (the one that goes wee wee wee all the way home) is what you see reflecting speed in Ian thorpe (side note using him bc he basically has fins for human feet and about as much leg strength as any land based animal has ever owned.. doesnt make him the best choice for videos in my opinion.)
But yes we should all see some more efficiency through this phase of our swimming.
The smoother more efficient transition to a longer and more engaged edge of your boats means faster swimming without any more FORCE.
*pulling back *pulling in an s or any *pulling type instruction is already coming from a land based thought paradigm of performance.
To all previous videos being posted. I would add that breathing OUT is your main issue. Movements appear okay but clealy a lack of breathing is limiting some of your potential.

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http://www.theundergroundcoach.com

I can't tell if it is the reflection off the water or not, but it looks like the first movement your hands make when they hit the water is out to the side. The first splice of the video shows this really well on the left hand. I typically tell the swimmers I coach to think of the area between their eyes as a no fly zone. A little later as you get faster it looks like your hand placement might be a little cross of center (again could be the angle) or right on center.

The under water video shows a couple things pretty well. Not sure if it's jsut a result of looking at the camera but even in the above water video, I thought your head was a little high. I will also note here I like to see people bury the head (pure swimmer background) and I strongly disagree with the person who said that head placement does nto effect hip placement, but anyway, you are looking forward, like you would on a bike, I would like to see you tuck your chin and look down at the black line waiting for the cross.

Also, your elbow position isn't bad but it almost looked like your arm was locked out? I'd like to see a little bit of a bind in the elbow and see the elbow get really nice and high compared to the hand.

Drills: If you have a snorkel, wear it. When working on form drills I like to take breathing out of the equation so you can focus on just one thing.

Hands - Tarzan: I hate this drill because it causes the hips to sink. Try doing with a pullbuoy but that and add some stress to the low back. Pop your head above water so you can see where the hands enter and make sure they enter outside of the space between your eyes. There's not gonna be much rotation in the shoulders or hips here, and I would limit this drill since you already have a high head, but do it enough to see what it feels like then the hands are wide.

Elbows - Fist/Flip Paddle: One of my favorite drills, even for myself, if you have paddles, take the straps off and flip them and grip the bottom. This means there are no straps around your wrist, and the section of the paddle where your fingers normally sit is running up your forearm and you have a little half fist curdle around holding the end of the paddle. When that elbow slips you'll feel it real quick. If you don't have paddles or that doesn't make sense, just ball your hand into a fist and make sure you focus on getting the elbow up high over the fist.

Head - You can try just lowering the head. If that doesn't work I have had swimmers put tennis balls under their chin to hold while they swim.

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Superfly Coaching
http://www.superflycoaching.com/eric

IL PIRATA VI GUARDA

Thank you so much Slowman, Jason and the others!!! I will be swimming more often starting next week after Boston so I will take this advice and apply it to my workouts, I will make another video and also will make it better (half way thru a 200m instead of off the start)

splatt, i'm going to hand you off to others. there isn't anything glaringly wrong with your stroke. that i can see. i think others might be better equipped to critique you than i am.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

you're a good swimmer. your left hand crosses over. when you breathe. you compensate with a leg splay. fix that and you'll be under an hour.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Splatter, not bad at all

I'd like to see you a little more aggressive on the catch. You kinda do this thing like you are petting a kitten before you get into your catch, it is especially apparent from the front view. See how your hand slides sideways instead of catching?

Your palms are a little too flat, there should be slightly more cock to the wrist on the catch phase as well.

I don't see anything else. Even if you never do anything to your stroke, it's pretty solid.

You might want to work on increasing distance per stroke (not by gliding though, glide is bad) I don't think DPS should be a focal point, per se, but a longer stroke maintaining the same turnover = more speed. Turnover is easier to get than DPS in my opinion.

Hope that helps

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Thanks Jason and Slowman for the feedback. I'll definitely work on that catch and cut out the kitten petting.

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"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

Look at the side view, and tell me if you see any break in the elbow that would resemble an EVF. I looked at the front view and felt there was something wrong. From the side view, there is almost no point where his hand is going straight back: it's following a curve so it's either going down-and-back or up-and-back.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

It's difficult to tell, but it *appears* that your arm recovery is out to the side (sort of "out and around"). This results in a hand entry that is not going straight forward but from outside-to-inside. This whole motion appears to cause your body to snake, and I think *this* is why your legs splay as much as they do. This also causes your first hand motion after entry to be *back* to the outside.

And your arm is too straight during the pull.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Your head swings a bit when you take a breath. In the straight on video you can see this cause your hips peaks out from behind your shoulder when you take a breath. This is definitely more next level but focus on just rotating your head vs swinging it out to the side. Your arm swing might play in here that someone else mentioned, but this is probably a balance thing where your head and hips move opposite of each other.

I think Jason mentioned something about DPS, I would almost say your stroke is too long. In my opinion, you may want to shorten the back of your stroke. The top/front/catch of your stroke is the most powerful part, while the force of the back/bottom/finish is weakest and actually can push you down in the water (tough to show that via text). Anyway, shortening your stroke will get your tempo up a bit and increase the number of times you hit the power part of your stroke. Think of it this way, as you pull your hand through your pull, when your hand can no longer stay perpendicular to the horizon of the water, get it out and get it back up to the top/front/catch.

Drills:
Kick with no board and your arms at your side. This drill is tough for non swimmers, but you are going to kick, with your arms pined to your side, but keep you body rotating as you would when you swim. You are gonna have to kick like crazy, and make sure you exhale before you turn for the breath.

Scull: Front sculling can help you out with that catch, back sculling can help you out getting that hand out of the water.

Blast: I like this drill for anyone in moderation. Blast is exactly what it sounds like. Just blast. Turn your arms and legs over as fast as they can go. Toss technique out the window and just focuse on getting the turnover up. Keep the distance here to a 25 then back that 25 with a 50 focusing on one of the aspects we talked about above. ie 6*75 1st 25 blast 50 focusing on getting the hands out and back to the top.

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Superfly Coaching
http://www.superflycoaching.com/eric

IL PIRATA VI GUARDA

No, but at the same time it doesn't appear that his elbow is leading the pull, which is far worse. The evf isn't so critical in this particular case. IMO.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Thanks for your kind advice turneej, Klehner and Slowman! Quite recently I've been doing lots of swimming with snorkle and ankle band to get my alignment right (Tower26 instructions). So far I'm maybe a bit faster than last year at this time, but at this point, with my swimming hours, I'm not getting faster in big leaps.

Thanks for this thought. I read snippets of articles on using a band and tried it myself but it didn't really slow me down or add any challenge other than making kicking harder, in fact I found it hard to keep the band on (used a strong ankle band like those used in PT) so from this comment, I realize perhaps my legs and hips are not the biggest issue, which I wasn't too worried about anyway.

I need to get my fiance out to record me next week so I can post, but from an older video (that I don't have) I remember my hands and arms going in every possible direction after entering the water and before beginning my pull. Cross-over has improved a bit with zipper and finger tip drag drills but both hands point different ways as they begin the pull and sway left and right and all over the place while pulling, no S pull, more like a & pull... I think I still do that despite my attempts to focus on that, perhaps I don't know the right drills for it.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo