Hi Swim Gurus 
Need help with my swimming. Video with me swimming 100 meter in a 25M pool in 1.28 minutes - which is a hard pace for me to hold in a set of 20x100.
AV stroke pr 25 meter is ca 20, but if I should swim the 20x100 AV stroke would be 24-25!
What should I change in my technique to be faster/more efficient?
Thanks
Unfortunately, with new stratification of the sport forums, not many people are seeing/clicking on your post.That said, I think I can offer some suggestions.
Your entry: you are âliftingâ your hands very far forward as you enter the water. You do not need to do this, as it is harmful to your efficiency. You need to lift your arms above your head, yes. But then you need âsliceâ your arms into the water somewhat forward of your head, make a hole in the water with your hand, and then your entire arm must follow that hand and enter the water in that âholeâ. Your hands are also strangely distorted as you enter the water, they need to be flat, very gently curved, paddles, with just thin gaps between your flat or barely curved fingers. Your hands seem twisted into almost fists as they enter the water.
Related to that, your pull is not so good. As you pull your arms back, your elbow is closer to your head than your hands are. So water is just slipping past your arms when you want to anchor yourself to still water and pull yourself forward.
What you should do: your flat hands should essentially stay lined up with your forearms for much of your underwater pull. One way to do this better is to slice your arms into the water as suggested above. but then you do not start your pull until you get your hands deeper in the water. Many people visualize the initial part of the pull as reaching over a large barrel. Others call it EVF (early vertical forearm), meaning that you should not start the power part of your pull until your get your hands/forearms near vertical (vertical relative to the pool bottom).
There is a lot more I can say about your stroke, but it would be interesting to see if you could just correct these things and then post a video again.
Whereabouts do you live (city/state)?
sub 130 per 100 is pretty good imo!
youve got a good natural rhythm but can polish things up a bit.
there are some really top swimmers who have weird recovery over the water, where there elbow goes into the water first, or the base of their hand goes into the water first before the rest of their hand. wang shun and kieren perkins have kind of weird hand entries.
so you see some people say it doesnt matter what the hand does over the water because its all about what goes on under.
but as dark speed noted your hands go over the water a bit faster than perhaps they could, which is because you are not hanging on to enough water under the water. and you want to make sure when your hand enters the water your fingers go forward not in a cupping gesture with the hand.
to bring your stroke efficiency up - you could focus on either holding on to more water in the pull through (more power option or ability to not lose as much power when tired - ie more training), or putting your body into a better position when entering the other hand (better body position option), so that your body travels / glides further for every stroke.
ideas / tips
try to get your head looking straight down or forward, looks like yours kind of goes off centre a bit but could just be the angle. can send your body off the right angles if you have your head in the wrong position
try doing some one arm freestyle where you are breathing on the right, when you do left arm, and left when you do right arm. this is just good for balance and can help with finding the power option and body position option naturally by feeling what you should be doing better. its hard to do properly so you may feel like youre sinking when you try it first time
no need to do more than one butterfly kick off the wall 
Thanks, I will work on the things you mentioned.
I live in Denmark, Europe.
Thanks, no doubt my grip on the water could be much better.
I will work on that - and other issues - when i am back in the pool later today
do you have any guys or gals near you that are low 120 swimmers per 100?
If you mean swimmers that are low 2 minute per 100 meter then the answer is yes i do.
I meant swimmers who would hold around 1 minute and 20 seconds per 100 to 1 minute and 25 seconds. Or swimmers who can swim on 1,30 cycle (so every 100 is going off 1,30 on the clock). Youre way faster than people doing 2 minutes per 100. If youve got people who are faster than you, just try to build up and do their sets.
your stroke is kind of like rainer henkel!
LEN European Swim Championships Men´s 400m freestyle 1987 Strassbourg
OK, I get it.
Actually I have swim buddy who hold 1.20-1.25 minute/100 meter.
I work very hard when following him.
Work on it for a couple of weeks and then repost a new video.
And it is true, there are a few top swimmers who have weird recoveries above the water. And, if you are able to swim multiple 100s (100 meters) and can swim each 100m at near 60 seconds, then I would be more hesitant to change your strange above water recovery. Another thing to remember: most top swimmers do not have weird recoveries.
But, at your speed, most assuredly, the odd things that you are doing above water and in your arm entry, they are harming your speed and efficiency. And, in the water, efficiency equals speed.
Thanks again DarkSpeedWorks
I will try it for a couple of weeks and see what happens. I swam earlier today and tried to enter my hands earlier than I use to. To be honest it felt a little âoffâ.
Felt it hurt my glide and my bodyline/streamline . Feel much longer and more streamlined when I reach longer before I enter my hands/elbow.
Anyway it is no surprise that changing something I have done for years feels weird to a start. I will try again tomorrow!
BTW I normally swim 4-5 times a week, 3-5 km each time.
Do you own a set of paddles?
If yes, there is an easy modification you can do to them to make it so that the paddles can help teach you to enter and pull more efficiently.
yes, I do own a set of paddles. Please axplain the modification that can help teach me to enter and pull more efficiently, thanks
If they are traditional paddles that are flat or very slightly curved, they can help you learn a far more efficient freestyle swim technique. They can help a swimmer catch and self-correct both big and tiny stroke problems, many that even a swim coach or video analysis would miss.
But for them to do this, they MUST be set up with NO wrist strap, and only a single piece of surgical tubing around your middle finger. (If you swim with paddles with a wrist strap, you could actually be making your technique worse.)
Initially, when you use the paddles with no wrist straps, they will feel strange and very awkward, and they will feel like the flow of water is trying to pull the paddles from your hands. But keep swimming and change your entry, your catch, your pull, and your recovery so that the paddles are always kept pressed to your palms. Both while entering and exiting the water and during all phases of your pull.
When you âlistenâ to what the paddles are doing (paddles set up this way will alert you to any spots in your stroke where you are improperly entering, pulling, and exiting) and change your stroke, you will make big improvements in power and efficiency.
(However, this is all assuming that you fairly standard flat paddles. If you have a different style, let me know what kind.)
Greg @ dsw
thanks. I will give it a try. I have the Tyr Catalyst paddles.
Tyr Catalyst 2 Swimming Paddles for Training | Fruugo DK
Not sure if those will work because of the way that they grip the middle fingers (looks like they wrap around too many fingers). But it might be worth a try.
If you use more traditional paddles without wrist straps, you will get some major stroke improvements. Use your specially set up paddles (and a pull buoy) and swim about 30% of your swim meters with the paddles until you can swim effortlessly with them (effortlessly meaning that your body and brain has adapted to swimming with them, such that they are never awkward as you pull through the water). Then, after they have improved your stroke, use them for maybe 10% (plus/minus) of your swimming as âstroke maintenanceâ.
If it helps, this is what I use. I only have one finger (on each hand) through the tubing pieces:
What brand is the paddles you use?
will any of these paddles do the job:
Finger paddles og hand paddles | Spar op til 43% | Se dem her â Watery.dk
Søgning: 5 resultater fundet for âhĂĽndpladerâ â svøm
I use a set of Hanâs Paddles that I modified, but I think they will be hard to find in the EU.
Of the ones that you posted, I like these. You can pull out the wrist straps and save the tubing that you removed to later replace the finger tubing (when it wears out). Also, you can easily get an electric drill (if needed) to make an extra hole or two in the middle of the paddle so that the finger tubing only wraps around a single middle finger (you will get better results if the paddle is attached to only one finger, instead of two fingers).
But if those paddles are not available, look for any larger simple paddle that covers your whole hand, uses simple rubber tubing, and does not have a big hole in the middle of the paddle (that way you can customize the paddle with an electric drill to create a spot for a tubing loop to grip just your middle finger only).
Your stroke doesnât need tweaking, the way you swim needs to completely change. As DarkSpeedWorks says your catch and pull is not so good, your arms are indeed just slipping through the water. To be blunt, Iâm not sure how youâre managing sub 1.30 pace!
Developing a good catch and pull is hard to teach and harder to learn. It will feel wrong and you will go slower at first (possibly). But itâs the key to going faster. Have a look at the plethora of online videos that break down the catch and pull and youâll see how different your stroke is.
It should vaguely feel like youâve wrapped your arm over a barrel. The barrel is this ball of water that your arm is locked on to and you are going to pull past it. I would imagine it doesnât feel like that at the moment?
