So last week my coach got pissed off at me because as he put it “You are thinking too much about your stroke while swimming”, and told me to swim with a straight arm recovery.
Damn that shit works. I finally broke through my ‘5 minute barrier’ and swam 4:55 for 400m SC. Another plus is that I can breathe every 3 strokes much more easily than when I tried to keep a high elbow recovery.
This stroke is also better for open water swimming because I don’t have to worry about my stroke getting messed up by the waves, and people don’t like to get near my because they’ll catch a punch to the face.
So my advice is to try a different approach, and forget about TI and all the crap and work on what works for open water and that is momentum based stroke, and nothing is better than windmill style swimming.
Yeah, gee, I guess since you had a breakthrough that you think you understand, I’ll change my low, relaxed arm recovery that I’ve been using for 20 years, and which consistently gets me out of the water in the top 20, to something that feels like a “windmill.” All that thinking about proper mechanics must be total crap indeed. Thanks buddy.
Could it maybe be the case that all that thinking and careful focus actually improved your underwater mechanics? Nah…
I had a similar ‘breakthrough’ last season when a swimmer I was training with made the very same suggestion. At the time, it worked wonders and I had the same positive effects you are experiencing. I used that philosophy with some success last season to the disdain of my peers. However, looking back, although I think it was a good progression for building my stroke, its not the be-all-end-all. At this point, it’ll get you there faster, but your not going to be very efficient (by you, I mean I wasn’t very efficient).
I guess all I’m saying is, use the windmill for as long as it works, but don’t stay married to it.
A world class swim coach once said… and I paraphrase, that a pretty stroke means shit. The ability to swim hard and keep swimming hard is what matters most.
Look at John Weston (I think that’s his name), the dude won the IMC swim all the time. Nice wide swinging recovery. He looked like he was attacking the water. 44:xx swim time says it all.
There are a hundred different perfectly correct ways to swim freestyle. Some of them are aesthetically pleasing, others are less so. It’s all a matter of figuring out which one of those hundred different ways to swim the same stroke works best with your individual physiology.
Biggest problem I’ve heard about Janet Evans-style windmill freestyle is that it’s a little bit harder on the shoulders than a more catch-up style, but most triathletes don’t put in the yardage or have the shoulder flexibility to really do much damage to their shoulders while swimming.
I love that style of recovery (almost like a backstroke recovery). Feels great, gets my catch out farther forward, etc., and is what I do when I sprint 25s (shaves a couple seconds off). But… I can’t hold it for all that long, and I feel it in my shoulder in a bad sorta way.
20,000 yards is PLENTY of mileage for overuse injuries!!!
You should also look forward to making your Physical Therapist happy, since the additional stress on your shoulders will sure land you on his table (sooner or later).
I won’t even go into possible long term damage… enjoy it while it lasts!
not sure where you get this. if you think about it anatomically, there is less stress on the shoulder in the windmill position than in the classic bent elbow recover. the windmill will tend to me more laterally rotated resulting in less impingement.
i’ve said for a few years now that i really think the windmill recovery will be the future of the stroke.
“You are thinking too much about your stroke while swimming”
I have gone through several iterations of this (after being a big swimmer as a kid, but now 46, 10 years into tri)…I would say that the “stroke” wasn’t the issue, it was thinking too much. Every time I get into some focus work/methodology for a month or two in the off-season, I end up slowing down. When I just chuck the conceptual stuff, I do well.
I recall some brain activity studies from the Don Scholander 60’s that said swimming engenedered the most brain activity of the sports they measured…and for me that was not a good thing!
pretty ironic post; i was just reading Dec. “Inside Triathlon”, Joe Friel & Brian Roche have an article; they talk about the pushing down thru the water after the recovery disrupting the body position by forcing the chest up and hips down. their recommendation is " to counter this negative result…the arm should be driven forward, with a good amount of effort at approximately 30 degrees to the water’s surface and within the swimmers tube", which is about as far from a windmill as you can get. i don’t swim fast enough to say what’s right or wrong, just different strokes…i guess. Anybody had success with an underwater reach ?
The real power for your stroke comes from the twisting of your torso/hips, and the best way to ‘start’ that is to throw your shoulder forward. Good swimmers can do it while keeping a high elbow recovery, but it’s much easier if you swim with straight arms.
So many theories. My training buddy, who is a great swimmer, told me that my stroke was too perfect-I was thinking about it too much. He told me that if I watch the fast swimmers, their arms sort of flop forward on the recovery, very loose and sort of splat on the water. Swimming is very frustrating-kind of like golf. You have to do about 25 things perfectly correct at the same time to make it work right.