I’m a 53 yr old male who only started swimming two years ago. I literally could not swim a stroke before that time.
I am a horrible swimmer. A 1500m swim takes me 38-40 min. Unfortunately, this old dog is finding it very hard to learn new tricks!
If you have time, please check out my swim videos. I’d love your (constructive!) feedback.
One specific question - I know I am doing a lot of things wrong. What would you say are the top one or two issues I should address first? And how do I best do that?
Those two could kind of be 1a and 1b, so I’ll throw in:
Ineffective kick.
Your kick isn’t a kick, it’s kind of a spasmodic twitch when you think about it, that’s not adding anything. Kicking should be driving your breathing, but it’s all for naught if you keep swimming uphill with an ineffective front arm area. Jonnyo’s youtube channel has a couple good vids on that.
There are some other idiosynchracies, such as a bit of crossover (Should be fixed when you develop a better reach/catch), you splay your right hand fingers wide while tensely cupping your left, your turnover is for crap, but none of that would really matter unless you can fix 1a/b especially.
As far as critiquing the video, kudos to the video dude. That’s one of the best swim vid samples I’ve seen on here.
That is a great video. It is nice to see the two view simultaneously.
I would suggest you not be as harsh on yourself.
The top two items:
first
The exhale seems to not be happening much at all until you rotate to get the breath. Bring up your awareness of your exhale (99% of aquatic breathing issues are bc we don’t exhale enough).
Second:
spend some time just laying on a kickboard with the bottom of the board at the swimsuit line across your waist/hips (in your case, maybe an inch lower) and while laying face down in a streamline position… try to learn to “manage your weight” so that your hips and legs can start to line up with your chest and head.
Good Luck.
That video is great! I wish I could get some analysis like that.
I agree with the other posters.
-I would also add that from the front - it looks like your left arm specifically seems to cross over center.
-Picking up your kick cadence will help and make sure that you are pointing your toes. Make sure to keep your feet close and the kick tight as to reduce drag. Spending some time on the kickboard w/ or w/out fins will be good for this.
-Right from touching the arms into the water, it seems like you start the pull right away. I would make sure to reach a bit more, flat, along the top of the water - get a good catch, and then begin the pull. Using a pull buoy w/ paddles can really help with this.
You got the paddleboat syndrome going on. No real skulling happening, so you’re not grabbing clean water. AKA, poor “catch”.
Like previously stated, there is no reach/rotation going on after your hand hits the water.
Once you extend the reach, the body rotation will follow, and the kick will seem more intuitive, and come from the hip, and not the knee.
Finally, the end of your stroke stops pretty abruptly, with little follow thru. Some drills with paddles should remedy this pretty quick.
Kinda surprised nobody’s jumped all over this one -
Your legs are clearly dragging in the water. Big time drag from that one.
Agree with the comments above regarding your catch, but I think the bigger speed killer for you is your dragging legs and bicycle kick (too much knee flexion on your kick, slows you down instead of adding to speed.) For a swimmer of your speed, I actually don’t think your catch is so bad, despite the ample room for improvement. I’ve actually posted a lot on this before, but I think your catch will naturally improve as you swim more volume and get stronger with the catch.
Do a Google search on the Total Immersion style float drills to get those legs up. If you really want to torture yourself, try swimming with the dreaded ANKLE BAND which locks your ankles together, and prevents you from kicking - once you can swim with the ankle band, even super slowly, your legs shouldn’t drag anywhere near as much. (Start with a pull buoy + band, it’s hard at first!)
kinda surprised you said that bc you kinda didn’t read all the posts did you?
that is exactly what I pointed out and tried to address by managing his weight while floating streamline on a kickboard and getting his hips/legs to line up with the surface and the rest of his “boat”
kinda surprised you said that bc you kinda didn’t read all the posts did you?
that is exactly what I pointed out and tried to address by managing his weight while floating streamline on a kickboard and getting his hips/legs to line up with the surface and the rest of his “boat”
I addressed it as “swimming uphill”, but I think a more efficient catch/pull will help along with this good tip. The catch and body position are the two biggest hurdles, everything else is window dressing until those get sussed out.
Your single biggest issue is body position. Not your pull. Or breathing, or any thing else, it’s body position. Fortunately, that’s also the easiest to fix. Looks like to are trying to do it by pushing your head down, but you aren’t keeping your core, especially your back muscles, tight, causing you to almost bend at the waist.
Spend some time kicking, with a board and without, make your body as long as possible. Keep the knees fairly straight, toes pointes, and the kick small.kicking on your front, you always want your heels bubbling the surface, like a boiling pot of water. Constant bubbling, not big splashes. Learn what that feels like.
Get that feeling, then progress to 10 kicks, left arm, 10 kicks, right arm. Keep the kick going through the whole cycle, and keep your heels at the surface. You may want to use a swimmers snorkel to make it easier. Hen progress to a catchup drill (Google that, plenty of examples on YouTube) then full stroke.
Also, some work with the ankle band previously mentioned would be good, but you will find that it is horrendous at first. You may end up dragging your toes on the bottom. Stick with it those, and it will come.
On a sort-of-related hijack-this thread note, being the typical ‘dude’ on the forum, I had to click on the girl with the yellow bikini that showed up in the sidebar videos from the same swim recording session.
Aside from the bikini, her form looked great to me! I was impressed. Then I saw that I actually swim faster than her, and without kicking anywhere near as much!
Am also curious as to what you good swimmers think of her stroke (which is most certainly much cleaner and better than mine, based on my own self-made videos which look atrocious in comparison - so much so that I won’t even dare post one for you guys to see!)
@OP - In comparing yours to her video, note how her body is a lot more flat in the water. That’s the first thing to fix. But she’s also a good example I think of how important cadence and pull power is - you can imagine how much faster you’d be going if you could replicate her stroke rate in the water while maintaing that catch form. But that’s less of a technique thing than a swim conditioning thing.
Basically she has a nice stroke. A little too much extraneous movement on the recovery action, legs and hips should ideally be higher, and she has a lot of up and down movement. The up and down kills speed, as it means you are displacing water further than you should be.
Remember, for every body length you move forward, you are displacing your body weight in water. The trick is to displace that water as small of a distance as possible, and conserve as much momentum as possible, using momentum to displace as much as you can.
I came to swimming late in life and had to learn. First IM came out 1:45 exhausted. Here are the two things I did and recomend i1. Buy the book total immersion and do the drills that will press your chest ( he calls it pressing the buoy)down and get your feet up. You swim with your feet angled to the bottom of the pool which HAS to be corrected first.That will correct 75% of your problem which is poor body position.2. Then down load the animated swim guy from swim smooth and learn the rotation needed to propel. You swim very flat with little rotation of your core. I’m a visual guy and just watching the swim guy from Swim Smooth did it for me. Watch him for 5 minutes every time before you swim that day.
Should take a year of dedicated work but you will see huge gains with number 1. Icing on the cake is that you also need to bilateral breath to feel comfortable in the water but that will come with number two. I did nothing but drills for a year. Last IM came out 1:05 rested and ready to go. Luck
Stretch your ankles. Its free speed. You dont even do it in the water but rather when sitting at a table, just by rolling them and stretching gently, trying to improve the ROM in plantar flexion.
Hey there smallard from the ‘old guy’ clan. You have a great attitude just take heed to what people have said about body position is my 2 cents. I spent the better part of 25 years being a water plow. Talk about frustrating. Don’t be the old me! Keeping taught and elongated in your body lines will help you overcome a great deal of what you are battling. Sagging and slouching is the death of speed! This is your 800 pound gorilla to tame and anyone who swims well has tamed it. You aren’t alone, just find out how to practice it well and accept nothing less.
I will add that once I found out how to lock in a downhill position the catch and pull mystery pretty much solved itself. Not that I don’t constantly pay attention to it b/c it’s a never ending quest for improvement, but for me anyway attempting to leverage my body of an anchored arm was more or less like spitting on a forest fire when I was in an ‘uphill’ orientation. Downhill? Get ready for some fun!
first time I’ve ever commented on a “watch my swim”
You’re in my AG so maybe I should shut up, but then again so is Pete.
Pete is an awesome athlete and I assume you can/should get hands on coaching from him.
The feedback you’ve got from others thus far seems really good. I’ll second any comment about body position, first thing I noticed - truthfully it is part of the “feel” of swimming. Arch your back, and you need a kick that gets you on top of the water - way more efficient.
When you swim (I’m going to get in trouble now) I would try and let speed be your teacher. Play around with adjustments in technique but note that fast stuff will help you feel what fast is and eventually you can’t be fast without being efficient. Of course fast is relative. In order to be able to handle going “fast” you’ll need long recoveries between repeats. An example might be 10x50 with a send off of equal time to what it takes to “sprint” the 50. So if you sprint 50 in 45 then the send off would be 1:30 (more rest, for the purposes of this is OK). The idea is to be fresh for every repeat - it’s not a fitness swim set. Too many adult onset swimmers think “I’ll jump in the pool and do 2,000” then they do it at one speed (kinda like jogging 11 min miles) and wonder why they don’t get/go fast (come race day). Watch kids who are learning competitive swimming - they’ll do all kinds of sets.
Think of yourself as a big kid who’s only shortcut(s) might be a higher level of desire and, an adult ability to focus and, perhaps take coaching tips seriously.
Everybody has a different aptitude for swimming, but, to give you some light at the end of the tunnel. I swam for fun (no team, etc) as a kid, but didn’t get serious as an adult. My form was “not so good” but I did the sprint thing above and have evolved to be FOP in my AG (8 races this year, first out of the water in 6 - worst was 3rd at Wildflower LC) and, as others have and will mention in other threads, getting out of the water fast and feeling good helps the bike and run like nobody’s business.
my suggestions weren’t really aimed at improving kick, per se. It’s that the OP has no idea what it feels like to ride with his feet and hips high enough in the water, keeping the heels bubbling the surface is a really easy way to know if your body position is what you think it is…
My way isn’t the only way to do it, but it is one way to get there. Ultimately the goal is to be able to keep the feet up there with no kick at all (which is where the bands come in). If he starts with bands alone, he will find it extremely frustrating.
i think my first reply wasnt ‘‘formulated properly’’ i agree 100% with you. while great body position can be optain with no kick at all…it s very important to learn to kick and your recommendation to the OP were right.
I’m a 53 yr old male who only started swimming two years ago. I literally could not swim a stroke before that time.
I am a horrible swimmer. A 1500m swim takes me 38-40 min. Unfortunately, this old dog is finding it very hard to learn new tricks!
If you have time, please check out my swim videos. I’d love your (constructive!) feedback.
One specific question - I know I am doing a lot of things wrong. What would you say are the top one or two issues I should address first? And how do I best do that?
As some of the others have said, body position. Not just your legs but your whole body needs to get more horizontal to the bottom of the pool. The good thing is, you are creating so much drag I bet you have pretty good lat engagement just to move through the water currently =) So when you fix this body issue, I predict your time will drop quickly.
Found this video. I have never heard of the guy but I like his approach to body position. As Jason mentioned, just a slight kick with little bubbles on the waters surface. Also introduces the catch-up drill. DON’T touch your hands! He talks about neuromuscular pathways then does this but that’s another topic. Just don’t touch hands is my advice.
Film yourself doing this drill. See if your hips/buttocks get out of the water along with bubbles from the slight kicking. Once you can get in this position then you can move on to the next issue to tackle.
While it would be great if you could get faster by correcting all of the issues discussed in this post and working some drills to help with those corrections. Unfortunately, in swimming, you can’t separate out training from technique. A lot of the issues you have, especially body position, are due to a lack of swimming specific strength and fitness in the water. You’ll have a tough time with your current swimming fitness levels to even implement the technique discussed.
The first thing you should address is your swimming specific fitness. Keeping in mind that you want to always practice getting as long and flat on the water as possible, hands should enter about shoulder width apart and don’t look forward when you swim. My broad recommendation would be to put some fins on and swim a lot of very hard, short repeats focusing on the above technique recommendations.
