Hi Slowtwitchers
I’ve been teaching Muay Thai/ kickboxing for 20 odd years and have been indulging in multisport races for about 4. After doing the bike and run legs of a few long course tris (70.3 length) I thought I’ll give this swimming caper a crack so that I could do the lot.
Now bare with me as I’ve only been swimming for four months after not being in the water for a couple of decades. I am just past swimming like a rock status so go easy.
I’m getting some coaching when I can and doing plenty of drills any feedback would be appreciated. Sorry about the quality of the filming. Straight from my blackberry to youtube.
link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uRDv2Rac78
Actually not that bad.
Couple things I saw: you don’t have to be so nice to the water, you can make some splash putting your hands in, you want to be driving your arm/hand forward on the recovery, and keep driving it through the water as you roll your body to achieve maximum extension. Right now you are pretty much doing catch up, crossing your hands over a bit (I like to see them directly in front of the shoulder instead of in front of the head) and your tempo is slow. Your body position isn’t horrible, but you can definitely make it better by pressing your shoulders toward the bottom slightly, like 1in or so. Lastly work on kicking from your hip joint rather than your knee joint, right now you’re only generating power from your leg muscles rather than using your legs as a counterbalance and involving your entire body, plus it makes you want to sink your hips to keep your feet from coming a foot out of the water. Lastly work on relaxing and being smooth, there is no jerkyness allowed.
On the recovery your arms are out to the side instead of above you. Focus on having the recovery go over your body so that your hand goes straight into the water instead of sliding it in at an angle.
On a similar note, can’t really tell from that video but it looks like your hands are starting the pull from just under the surface, you can get them down further underwater from the entry and you can get to the power part of the pull faster.
As was already noted your kicking from your knees, kick from your hips. The best analogy I’ve heard for it is cracking a whip.
Also your pushoff and underwater (ish) glide off the wall could use alot of work. Not directly transferable to OW racing but it would help you look less like a triathlete in the pool. Good streamline (hands stacked arms straight with upper arms tight against your ears) and pushing off underwater (completely underwater so your not creating a bow wave with your head) couple dolphin kicks for good form if you get that far.
Ston_ar catches the most important thing I see – you are swimming “catch-up”. What does that mean? You are waiting to pull with one arm until the other arm finishes coming all the way around. Basically, you end up with both hands above your head at the same time. That is really inefficient and slow. Please see video link at the end for help. Just watching these guys will make you faster. Check out the underwater shots too.
On the kick I agree with Alaric83. However, I find that for beginners and swimmers who aren’t very good yet, sometimes its better to just demphasize the kick. Forget about kicking. Thinking about arms and legs at the same time destroys your power. Just go with your arms and let your legs kick naturally in order to balance the rest of your body. (That will also help you achieve the “from the hip” kick Alaric83 is asking for). In a triathlon the pull will always be more efficient and more prominent than the kick.
Thanks heaps guys. Exactly the sort of tips I was after.
I’ll get back in the pool and see if I can put it all together.
Really apreciate the help
cheers
toolbox
Sorry alaric83 when you say my arms are out to the side on recovery I assume you mean that I havent rolled enough so that I can bring the recovery arm back over my body? (undoing the Zipper up the side of the body)
Sorry alaric83 when you say my arms are out to the side on recovery I assume you mean that I havent rolled enough so that I can bring the recovery arm back over my body? (undoing the Zipper up the side of the body)
What I mean is during the recovery your arms are sticking off to the side instead of going straight over your body. Its most noticeable on the second part of the clip where your swimming right at the camera. You want the recovery arm to move over the side of your body (think zipper/fingertip drag drill, but not that exaggerated when your actually swimming) and extend forward past you to begin the entry, not swinging around to the side.
Its not directly caused by lack of roll, although its really difficult to do without rolling at all, your likely rolling enough to be able to recover w/o throwing your arms to the side. On the topic of rolling, your rolling more on strokes where your breathing. Try to roll that much on all your strokes (just don’t breath on all of them).
Your arm must be straighter when you throw it in front of you, I can see it’s too folded. The second point: you give the impression that you start to push the left arm when the right one arrives in front of you, the same for the right etc… in France, we traduce this kind of swim “caught crawl”, every arm must be perfectly symmetric. I try to be as understandable as possible: Currently, when you swim, you swim with a rhythm and that’s a mistake. The goal of swimming is to slide as much as you can so you have to turn your arm with a linear way to slide a lot. Do you understand what I mean?
Thanks Maarc I think I understand what you’re saying. A bit like the others. Don’t do too much catch up style swimming and drive the arm forward more with the roll.
Cheers
I think everyone else has covered it all but I will re-iterate and input what I saw
You need a stronger kick and you need to kick from the hip more.
You are taking it too easy. Really power through the catch and pull (but be careful to keep your form). Im not talking about trying to sprint. Keep relaxed but on the catch and pull give it some power and make the arms burn. This will speed up your tempo and put you on plane better.
You could be more engaged with your core. I noticed that when you breath your hips and legs slide left or right. this means your core is not engaged. Tighten your stomach by sucking in your bellybutton and feel the lats engage on the pull. The whole body should roll as a rigid unit not just the upper body.
Thanks rundmc and to all the others. These are great tips. Ill repost in 2 or 3 months with another vid after I’ve worked on all the pointers.
Thanks again guys.