Your coach is right BECAUSE your most important technique improvement changes as you change.

At first I needed to be more level. Then a better catch and pull. Better stroke timing. Keep the stroke in front of me (front quadrant). Better with a buoy at my ankles. Better at two stroke kick with big fins. Better at breaststroke. Better at backstroke.

So the single biggest technique improvement is your ongoing body awareness as you put in the time.

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

If your technique is good.....to swim faster you have to swim faster.

To answer your question. Make sure your arms/hands pull completely through your stroke down to the thighs of your legs. When swimming faster people tend to pull their arms out of the water too fast and you lost 10-15% stroke length that could be used to move you though the water.

When you really think about it, "breathing" is everyone's limiter.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

One of the great truths of the ST forum, leave a thread going long enough and eventually it devolves into a discussion of Lionel.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

The fastest masters sprinter on my team (26.x for 50 fly SCM as a 40-44 y/o ) pulls his hand out at hip level. There really isn't a whole lot of propulsion going on down at the thigh, since the forearm is going to be parallel to the water surface. That extra 10-15% of stroke length may or may not be contributing to anything.

But, it works for some people, depending on other aspects of the stroke.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

^^^^^^^ this

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

I think your coach may be right. How long have you been swimming? The 10,000 hour rule may apply to swimming;)
There are so many things that can make a big difference and what you aren’t doing could be many different things.
That being said I personally believe body position in the water is the hardest thing to master and the hardest thing to teach. That’s why hours in the water trumps everything.
Remember your chin and head need to be in neutral, hips up, heels at the surface of the water. Shoulder and hip rotation matter but don’t overdo it. Think of rubbing your big toes together when doing a 2-beat kick to keep the legs from scissoring. Last but not least use a tennis ball in each hand and swim a couple 100 yards. Then swim a 100 without them. Do this routinely to develop a good feel of the water. I am a decent swimmer having recently finished my Kona swim in 57:00. I am a 58 year old woman. I have coached but prefer to swim. Good luck!

Swim more while going hard with focus on technique.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
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Dang - that's awesome!

Was that the fastest swim time in your AG @ Kona?

And were you a collegiate swimmer back in the day? I shudder to think of how fast you would have gone with -35 years of age!

I have been a pro and age group triathlete on and off since 1983. My fastest time in Kona was just under 54 minutes I was probably 36 at that time. I didn’t swim in high school or college but swam on a summer lake league in N.J. from age 9-13. When I started swimming again at age 22 I had quite a few youth swimming hours under my belt but nothing like the club swimming of today.
Keep at it, watch and I mean really observe the really good swimmers and try to apply that to your stroke. This helped me a lot. Watch videos of swimmers like Katie Ledecky. You can learn quite a bit by watching the most efficient strokes in the world. Note their stroke rate, body position and how they kick. Watch the 800 and 1500 freestyle events, it’s pretty amazing!

My general rule is that once an adult onset swimmer reaches an Ironman swim time of about 1 hour that it is about 1,000,000 yards for every minute to knock off from there. Just a general rule but a 1,000,000 yards is a lot of yards. I would tend to agree with your coach, but the biggest change I ever made was when I discovered the high-elbow catch, that was instantly like 15-30 seconds off my 400 time.

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Wrong.

Best tip for endurance swimming is not to use that phase of the stroke to try and eke out more 'length'. You want to start releasing the pressure when you're getting towards the end of your stroke. You won't get so fatigued and will be able to hold form longer as that last little bit of the pull phase provides very little benefit but does create fatigue. We were taught this way back in 1991...

damnit that post had already been replied to. lol i would say that for distance swimming it definitely doesn't work, if you want to maximise your ability to hold speed.

#1 is Posture.

You cannot make a bent or defective boat go fast no matter how much horsepower put on the hull.

Only a few "club" kids have truly great strokes, yet 90% with more than a 2 years under their belt will deep six most triathletes.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
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Recently...tilting my head down. I'd drifted into the habit of looking too far forward.

I've said this numerous times on this forum but I can't recall anyone ever coming back and saying they really benefited from watching really good swimmers. I know with certainty that I have, and obv it sounds like you have also but apparently many people aren't as big on "visual learning" as you and I. I ALWAYS watch the really good swimmers at my club. Back in January, we had a really fast breast/IM guy swimming with us for awhile. He went 2:16 for the 200 m BR at the Oly Trials in 2016 at age 18 and hopes to make the team in 2020. His breaststroke was amazing!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Winter 2017-2018 was my first time getting some swim technique coaching once every other week for 4-5 months, after starting swimming september 2016 at age 24. Biggest thing there I think was lengthening my stroke more and getting the hand closer to the body instead of way out of streamline when I started pulling, which got me down to low 1:40's per 100m scm. This winter I got some technique coaching again where I tried to fix my bad kick and kick timing and tried to start my catch ealier and with a more vertical forearm and I'm down to averaging low 1:30's now. I also learned flip turns but don't do them or stop doing them when I don't feel like it, which is something I should work on too haha.

2018 bests:

25m: 17"
50m: 36"
100m: 1'23"
200m: 3'01"
400m: 6'31" although I didn't do one at the end of the year after improving my times in the shorter distances

2019 bests so far:

25m: 15"
50m: 34"
100m: 1'16"
200m: 2'53"
400m: have a test planned next week, hopefully I can get around 6'10"..

I do mostly Olympics so my coach focusses on speed a lot, take out speed to get in good feet. So a lot of those shorter distances at or over threshold on 20-30" rest.

Shall we call that "ST Halifax's law", in reference to the Godwin's law ? (where is the pink button ?)

I ALWAYS watch the really good swimmers at my club.
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Yeah, I think it's one thing to watch videos of excellent swimmers but something very different to see them in live action when you are in the water. Then, not only do you get to notice what they're doing, but you get to try it for yourself immediately. Watch. Mimic. Repeat.

Further, you get to set up your own mental race. The thing I think that holds back AOS the most is the lack of competition in practice sets. Getting on to some sort of club/ team challenges the ego as well as the body. I found that a vast majority of the stroke techniques I've ever experienced happened by accident due to the strong desire to win (or, in my case, not lose as badly) versus the other guys/ gals in the lanes near me. That goes for pretty much every interval of every set for everyday. Half the time, I didn't plan a change or even know what I did differently, it just clicked.

That's my advice to the OP. Get thyself to a club that has at least some people at and just a smidgeon above your talent level. Show up every day. Work really hard to get your ass kicked. But, have the mindset that you're gonna kick some ass in the very near future. Don't settle.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I think a lot of us probably can't see what these good swimmers are actually doing - at least I can't. I can sure as hell see they are swimming fast AF, but in terms of what their hands and arms are doing under the water. . . nope. Need someone there to actually tell you what you need to look at instead of going in blind. After all, us AOS swimmers don't have the experience level in the first place.

Swimming is frustrating to me in that I feel like I can't get fast, but I know its because I am pretty much never able to get in the water - especially now training specifically for a marathon. When I do get back to the pool occassionally with a master's group its like I'm starting all over again (: So potentially what the OPs coach said about him swimming more often is the key for him specifically since his coach said his stroke was good.

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I think a lot of us probably can't see what these good swimmers are actually doing - at least I can't.
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You're overthinking it. Swimming has a thousand moving parts and no one can do them all perfectly. Pick up just 1 tiny thing that someone is doing. Hand entry. First movement/ catch. Head position. Eye position. Rotation. It really doesn't matter. Pick one. Watch someone that does it better. Work on making yours better. The deck clock (or, shudder, your watch) will give you feedback. And, we're talking like 1 sec per 100. Didn't work? Fine. Do something different. Once it works. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And while you're repeating, find the next tiny thing. Keep doing tiny thing 1 and start working on tiny thing 2. What you are not allowed to do is turn your brain off.

This stuff happens naturally on a team when your working day in and day out. If you can't get to a team, then race for time. You wouldn't expect a new runner to BQ in their first year of training. Nor would you expect them to BQ on 1-2 days a week of running. Excellence takes time and attention to detail.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Agree in general, but one thing to be aware of is that when you are talking about swimmers who really aren't all that good at it yet, there are a lot of things that a really good swimmer will do that only works because they are a good swimmer, if the poor swimmer tries to do it they won't see any difference in the clock, or just make things worse. Take the kick for example. A good swimmer with a 6 beat kick will have their heels bubbling the surface, because their legs are nice and high in the water. A poor swimmer might see that as splashing the water with the feet, but their legs are naturally floating 18" under the surface. So they overkick with a massive knee bend to try to splash the water with their feet.

I think watching and emulating without additional guidance works better once you have a pretty solid understanding of what it is you are trying to do in the water. If you don't have that, then having guidance is really important.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I think watching and trying to apply what you see to your own stroke is a huge benefit. I was a lifeguard in college and there was a guy who would come in and swim primarily freestyle for long sets and had a a beautiful stroke. I would get in on my break and practice how he was swimming. I think it really made a difference! I still love to watch good swimmers. I actually like to watch bad swimmers too because it shows how crippling certain stroke dynamics can be. Gary Hall Sr. Has some great teaching videos on YouTube and when I am struggling with something in my stroke I go to the videos first. I did have the fastest swim in my A.G. In Kona. Not a huge accomplishment at my age;) The best part is having faster times than a lot of the pros!

I loved your post because I've been at this pace range forever.

I know you got a ton of opinions so I won't give you one. But I will share something i wasn't really expecting.

This winter I did a 10 week deep core strength training program and a bike intensive FTP builder for 11 weeks. Zero swimming or running basically from end of October.

When I got in the pool to get my season rolling in mid January I was swimming as fast as i did at the peak of my 2018 season which are ~1:32/100 and I wasn't killing myself to get it either. I was expecting to be more like 1:40.

My problem is I'm a lazy swimmer and if I put effort into good technique and more time ( i swim like 2x maybe 3x a week) I'm sure something would click and I'd pick up those 5 seconds per 100 that have been eluding me. But in the mean time, being stronger in my upper back, lats, deep core really made a huge difference, probably helped my technique and certainly in just raw power. I can't imagine getting those strength improvements simply swimming to develop muscle strength.

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

Just wanted to say thanks. Watched the video. Tried keeping wrist locked while pointing fingers down (vs. previously bending wrist to point fingers down) to force EVF. Dropped 10sec off fastest 200y on repeats today. Couldn't maintain the 10sec the entire time, but still faster repeats than typical.