Hello, Watching some of the other videos I hope you can see enough from what I've recorded here. I'm a late life swimmer. Open turns. (yea I know) My plateau seems to be a 1:32/100. I was able to complete the IMLP15 swim in 1:05.

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Tri is my Tribe! "Sometimes you need to slow down in order to go fast."

i have a small, picky, complaint, and i don't know if it's even of value to mention it, and others may disagree. your catch occurs very early. your hands seem to enter the water, as well as i can tell, just after they reach head level. i guess i'd like your hands to catch further in front of you.

other than that, man, just swim! you have a great foundational stroke. when you say your plateau is 1:32/100, is that SCY, SCM or LCM?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Yeah this. There are guys out there much quicker than you with poorer strokes. You need some semblance of a decent stroke to go quick, but it doesn't need to be perfect. Swim more and make your sessions count. How many kms are you doing a week, what kind of sets are you doing?

Those are yards. 1:32/100 yards no flipturn. Sounds like I just need to swim more. This has been bike/run focused early season.

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Tri is my Tribe! "Sometimes you need to slow down in order to go fast."

yeah. well, like was said just above, it would be interesting to know your volume and what sort of workouts you do. because your technique has you primed and ready. i see no reason why you can't be repeating your hundreds on the 1:20 base, coming in on 1:12, with that technique (assuming you learn to flip turn).

the good news is, nothing much to fix. the bad news is, if you don't get a LOT faster it's because you're lazy ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hard to tell for sure from the angles shown, but I "think" I see 2 issues.

It looks like you are bending at the waist a bit, and it looks like you are dropping your elbow on the pull.

Bending at the waist, try kicking on your back in streamline position, poke your belly button so it's as close to the surface of the water as you can. When you flip to your front, that's what the alignment should feel like.

Lots of ways to work on getting the forearms vertical throughout the pull, good one is fist drill.

Other than that, don't see much that would limit you from getting faster than that 1:32 pace.

Good luck!

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Thanks to any and all!

Good to know my speed concerns are just because I'm a slacker. That should be an easy fix...
All of March and April todate listed below. Some of these numbers have some drill work that is slowing down the averages.

Start Time Distance Avg Speed(100yd) Max Pace Avg Strokes Wed, Apr 19 1:24:52 3,650 yd 1:35 min 1:13 min 9 Fri, Apr 14 1:12:42 3,250 yd 1:34 min 1:18 min 10 Tue, Apr 11 1:05:45 2,600 yd 1:37 min 1:21 min 10 Fri, Apr 7 1:14:09 3,200 yd 1:35 min 1:00 min 10 Sat, Apr 1 51:00:00 2,500 yd 1:40 min 1:23 min 9 Fri, Mar 31 1:00:16 2,800 yd 1:30 min 1:16 min 9 Tue, Mar 28 38:22:00 1,800 yd 1:33 min 1:12 min 9 Mon, Mar 27 1:04:59 2,450 yd 1:32 min 1:19 min 9 Wed, Mar 22 1:08:28 2,800 yd 1:33 min 1:15 min 9 Mon, Mar 13 1:03:27 3,000 yd 1:34 min 1:17 min 10 Fri, Mar 10 1:09:17 3,250 yd 1:33 min 1:05 min 9 Wed, Mar 8 47:11:00 2,300 yd 1:37 min 1:21 min 10 Sun, Mar 5 49:04:00 2,100 yd 1:39 min 1:23 min 10

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Tri is my Tribe! "Sometimes you need to slow down in order to go fast."

What does a typical workout look like? How much speed stuff are you doing?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Lack of turnover?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I have a turnover slower than that, and I'm a good bit faster than 1:32 pace (even fat and out of shape like I am now) The arm speed on the recovery phase looks good to me, which is what I look for. Being too slow on the recovery phase causes all kinds of other problems.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Could you tell us a bit more about this? How to recognize it and maybe how to correct it?

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

Essentially what it boils down to is the recovering arm isn't contributing to propulsion and is less streamlined than an outstretched arm in the water. There isn't much resistance on the recovery (air being 800x less dense than water) so it makes sense to get through that phase as relaxed and quickly as possible.

I don't have any metrics, but just eyeballing it, if it looks "careful" then it is probably too slow.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Pull is way too deep. You aren't strong enough to pull like that efficiently for more than 50 metres (no one is).

Your legs are also sinking, and the kick is too big, creating a lot of drag. Try swimming with the band (no pullbuoy or a kiddie sized one initially if you need the help) and really work on getting long out front, which (if your core is tight) will bring the legs up

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I would love some advice from the slowtwitch fishes! This video is from the beginning, middle, and end of a 12 x 100 set decreasing the send off every 3 100's to show my breakdown as I fatigue. Paces here between 1:25 and 1:35 / 100y, which is about my cruising pace.

Thank you in advance!

unless i'm mistaking this, you breathe sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right. that's good. you look pretty symmetrical. your cadence picks up as you get tired. no problem with that, that i can see. you don't pull as much water when you're tired so you normalize with stroke rate. understandable.

looks good. how much are you swimming? same type thing as the last guy. now it's just swim the requisite amount, do the right kind of workouts.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Posting a lot today cuz I'm off work (just got back from vacation at 4:30 am this morning, so I took the day off)

I don't like how your hand sculls outward before starting the pull. Wasted motion, wasted motion =drag. and it stresses the rotator cuff. The reach should go straight to the point where you start your catch downward.

And it looks like youre doing the dance to "Stop! In the name of love" with your right hand before starting the pull. Think "fingers below wrist, wrist below elbow" for the entire pull.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Dan and Jason,

Thank you both for the feedback... WRT Dan's comments, I will note that because I did this as a descending set, I was swimming faster as the set progressed, which may be the reason for the increased stroke rate later in the set, but if I am pulling less water, it may be something to work on... I do breath on both sides, usually every two strokes and just mix up the side every lap or length. I am putting in 3 swims per week with anywhere from 7000 to 9000 yards per week. I am sure if I swam more I would see more improvement, but I focus more on bike and run as I think there is more ROI there.

Jason, my initial take away from watching myself was that I need to get into the catch right away, which might be similar to what you are saying. I am gonna keep looking closely, but I do see what you mean about the motion before the pull and that being wasted. I have been trying to focus on my catch and a high elbow lately and that has caused me to develop the dance move you are referring to :). Thank you for the pointers and I will take them to the pool with me tomorrow!

I'll bite. Here you go. Some info. on my swimming. I think I'm a pretty comfortable 1:35/100m swimmer. For CSS testing, my recent tests for 200 all out were 2:52 and 400 at 5:59.

1. right hand crosses over when you breathe to the left, which causes...
2. legs to splay at the very moment you breathe to the left, so...
3. band your ankles tight, stick a buoy between your legs, and straighten out what i promise will be an eel-like motion when you swim with banded ankles. swim with banded ankles for 300yd to 400yd every workout until you straighten out.

concurrently...

1. you look muscularly strong, that is, strong enough to swim with an early vertical forearm. so, do that.

do those 2 things and you'll swim your 400m in 5:20 instead of 5:59.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thanks for the feedback. I totally understand the early vertical forearm thing, I'm just having some difficulty putting it into action, mainly from a flexibility standpoint. Will certainly try the band thing. I know the crossover on breathing to the left seems bad. Working on that.

look at your kick. see that splay? that's because of what you do when you breathe. fixing the crossover isn't all. there's a misalignment when you breathe. a torquing at the waist. the crossover is a symptom of that. so it's not just fixing the hand placement. i promise you if you band your legs that will create a new, much more apparent problem (fishtailing), and fixing THAT problem will take care of the leg splay, the crossover, all of it.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I got some video at practice last night (just set up the camera at the end of the lane during main set and let 'er roll). I haven't watched it yet, but hopefully it is usable. if so, I'll put something up here for feedback.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I hadn't recorded myself in a while, I thought it was time to do it again. I wanted to see several things:

1.- How does my form differ from wetsuit, to fins, to buoy, to nothing. Especially, my horizontal position, as in how much do my legs keep sinking without the help of toys or the wetsuit.

2.- How does my form change as I fatigue. I swam all of these with no more than 60s rest in between, as I took the wetsuit off, or got ready with the different toys.

This is my swimming 400yds in the wetsuit. (I removed all the sections where I am not on camera, so it'll be faster)



Then this is me doing a 200yd with fins



Then this is me doing 200yd with the pull buoy (please excuse my kicking lol)



Now 100yd without anything



And 100yd with paddles and buoy (again, please excuse my kicking)



A few yards from the front



Feedback is greatly appreciate it.

Some notes: I know I'm still dropping my right elbow, this is a problem I have been carrying over for many many months, and I thought I had fixed it, but it is pretty obvious I haven't. The other one is my pull goes super wide on my right side. I am not sure if this is a strength issue, as it shouldn't, since I am right handed and I'm much stronger on that arm, so I don't know why I have these 2 glaring mistakes on my right arm.

Edit: I gave it a little more thought to my right arm mechanics. When I was a kid I broke that arm 2 times, 1st time I broke the bones in my fore-arm, second time I broke bones on my wrist. I have some kind of flexibility issue where I can't fully rotate that arm to get into a vertical fore-arm position. It requires a bit of extra effort to do it, and I need to rotate from the shoulder a bit more. So maybe that's why that arm is doing what it's doing. Any advice to overcome this?

I expect the experts will chime in shortly. Its hard to tell from that angle but are you sure the right arm is too wide, or the left arm is not wide enough and crossing over?

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