Different people react differently to different swim suggestions. In person, I give technique feedback and then see how the swimmer reacts. And then I modify my input based on this. So, kind of hard to do this remotely. But, lets try anyway.

I would start with this: When you enter your arms ahead of your shoulders into the water, don't focus on your elbow, instead focus on your hands/forearms and their water entry. Allow your hands to get deeper (approx 2" to 4", or 5cm-10cm, deeper when your arms are fully extended) in the water before you start your pull.

Then, on the pull, start your pull with your hand and forearm as if you are "reaching over a barrel" (another term for this is EVF--"early vertical forearm"). One way to simulate and teach the skill for this movement is using some special drill paddles like these. They are weird, but they really work to teach this. (no connection of any kind between us and this company, except I bought a set of these paddles)

But, if you don't want to do that, there is another option: try most any kind of regular paddles like this. But, this is very important: for this to work, on each paddle, you MUST remove ALL of the surgical tubing except for the single piece that wraps around just your middle finger. Paddles set up this way will get messed up every time you have a poor entry or pull. But you will quickly learn on your own how to change your entry and pull to keep the paddles on your hands with ease. Paddles set up this way can fix important flaws in your entry, pull, and recovery technique, flaws that swim coaches can't even see.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

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Thank you! I’ll give the paddle thing a go!

What size paddles would you recommend? Smaller or larger?

Optimal paddle size depends on a few things. Is that photo of you? Optimal paddle size depends on age, gender, body size, hand size, strength, swimming experience, and current swimming yardage. If you can give me some info about all that, I might be able to give you a general suggestion.

Also, if that photo is you, I would say your head is kind of low. You don't want your face to face straight down at the bottom of the pool. You want to slightly tilt (but not "lift") your head so that your relaxed line of sight is a spot a few yards/meters ahead of you at the bottom of the pool. So the angle of your face, sort of as pictured below (red lines) should be approximately 20-30 degrees from horizontal. Usually near 20 degrees, and not greater than 30 degrees.

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Yes the photo is of me.

Ha. My bloody head position. I was told to lower my head to fix body position (wasn’t the cause and didn’t help). Then I was told my head was too low, so I tried to correct it. Then I was told it was too high, so I went back - and now…….

So I’m 50kg, 42 years, hands are narrow but long and I have pretty weak arms. I was more wondering for the drill you mentioned if smaller or bigger paddles are better for that particular drill.

Cheers

This might help, if you get these paddles:
https://strokemakers.com/#shopify-section-footer
(click on the "size guide" to see the guide)

Based on your info, I would probably try "size 2" of these paddles. Not sure where you are located, but strokemakers are pretty good and versatile paddles. But, when you use them to improve your technique (or to improve your strength), use them with a pull buoy (and very important to remove the wrist tubing as suggested above).

About your head, I can assure you that your head is tilted down too much. Because, if you look at fast and very fast distance swimmers of your body type, their heads are pretty consistently at approx. 20-25 degrees of "tilt". Any time you get stroke advice in person (or online), you gotta check the veracity of what you are hearing. And there is an easy way to do that. Some info about that here:
https://www.darkspeedworks.com/blog-swimtechnique.htm

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Perfect! Thanks!

Glad to help! Let me know how it goes.

Greg @ dsw

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Another thought on strokemaker paddle size - I'd suggest starting with size 0.5 and working up as needed. I'm not a coach - just an adult learner, but size 2 seems large to me. I have 0.5 in my swim bag and like that I'm keeping the same tempo essentially that I normally swim with but have a little more strength involved. Also, if the purpose of the paddle is technical work then I would think smaller is better? No?

When I was swimming more, I used size 1. But right now 0.5 works great - if I jumped straight to size 2 I know I'd put myself at risk with an injury.

Figuring out a stroke issue from a picture is difficult at best. But just from the little you can get from the single frame of your stroke, your body position issues are what’s driving your lack of a high elbow catch. You are fairly low in the water which will make getting a high elbow catch very difficult to achieve, Your head position isn’t helping either. Ideally, look down at the bottom of the pool and slightly forward which will bring up your chin a tiny bit. The other part of it would be not enough core engagement to stabilize and/or keep you higher in the water.

To get a better feel for it, you can use some drag sox and paddles (stroke maker are good, but I probably wouldn’t get anything larger than a size 1 starting out). If you can’t find drag sox then you could use a chute with paddles. Another option would be an in water stretch or a swim team would let you use one of their “power towers.”

I hope this helps and if you have any questions, let me know.

Tim

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First of all, it is not clear what you mean with „rotating the arm inwards“. I also do not understand quite what you mean with „ellbow collaps“, but lets say you mean ellbow bending.

Anyway, your elbow as in the picture (very good picture by the way) is low, which is no good. The elbow should be high or at least streched. It must stay high when you pull your forearm. You cannot achieve that from the position you’re in (the forearm would rather go into the air). You need to achieve this by rotating the (left) arm clockwise (did you mean that with „inwards“ ?). After that your elbow faces outside instead of facing downwards. Not before that you can start the pull, where your elbow stays higher than your hand.

Not easy: rotating the left arm clockwise (the right arm counterclockwise) is kind of unnatural for beginners (I was one, and basically never became what you call a „swimmer“), and if you‘re not very flexible (as me) you do never really succeed, and it can feel uncomfortable when you have sensitive shoulders.

Further remark: I think the hand should point downwardly, not upwardly as in the picture. But if you rotate your arm as indicated, that becomes easier.

I will actually focus on another point if that is ok. It looks like you are swimming "uphill" vs "downhill". You ideally want to feel like you are swimming downhill, what this means is your bottom is higher than your head. I think you can get your butt up more. Also think about pressing your chest down. That may help the body position and then also make the catch easier. Hope this makes sense! Let me know if you have questions.

The problem I have with the swimming downhill thing, is that my head ends up completely below water, it’s already too low as has been mentioned.

The "swimming downhill" is nice concept for beginner swimmers to help them visualize and correct their freestyle body position. However, it is not a literal description of the (distance) swimming body position. How do I know this? First, for typical athletic people or swimmers, the chest is far, far more buoyant than the legs. Second, if you actually watch fast and very fast distance swimmers (on video, or in real life), you will quickly discover that they do not even remotely "swim downhill". No, their body position is excellent, but their chests are visibly higher than their hips and legs.

Fast distance swimmers do many things correctly, but part of what boosts their body position is their movement through the water (due to a lot power generated relative to their drag) and a low intensity kick helps keep their legs from dragging. But, still, their head and torsos are slightly higher in the water than their hips and legs.

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from the picture - I assume you are comfortable swimming with a snorkel.

Do this exercise for a few lengths. Swim "catch up" drill and WATCH your pull. Don't worry about head position while doing this. Your first goal is to keep your elbow higher than you hand through the stroke/pull. Put on some fins while you are doing this so you can really focus on whats happening with your arms.

There is a lot of great advise here. Think about what people here have said while you look at what your arms are doing in the water.

Paddle question. I have threaded the rubber tube to hold just my middle finger, but there is a lot of excess tube on the back side now. Should I just cut it off? There isn't really a hole in a suitable place to thread it through again. Thanks

Yes, cut off the excess

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I would try fingertip drill. On the recovery, drag your fingertips across the water surface. This forces a high elbow recovery and will put your hand in a better position to enter the water for the catch phase.

When you are doing your regular freestyle, think about getting your fingers pointed down toward the bottom of the pool as soon as your hand is in the water. Then think “accelerate the hand back”.

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disclaimer: PhD not MD

Thanks

I love that drill. But as soon as I go back to normal swimming my recovery goes back to hand led :-(

Why is making changes in swimming soooooo difficult? My brain know exactly what I need to do, get in the water and body is like "nope, can't possibly do that"!

Speaking of recovery why don't any of the pro triathletes do this, have a typical high elbow ? They all have very wide, almost straight arm recovery?

They also lift their heads a lot to breathe (even when not sighting) yet I spend my life trying to keep one goggle lens in the water!

Not sure if this is really true. A pro swimming in choppy open water with a long sleeve wetsuit is going to have a different arm recovery than that same athlete swimming with no wetsuit in a glass smooth pool.

Head position is similar. Fast distance swimmers have a relaxed but slightly tilted head position in a pool. But, in rough water, they adjust their head as needed to be able to sight and breathe above the chop.

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