I only use a pb for sculling drills which I still manage to throw in nearly every workout for a bit. It’s amazing how much I can still glean from such an old drill. Anyway, sometimes I break right into my full stroke after a bit of sculling to drive home the feel and I was surprised to find out I’m about 3 seconds slower than my full stroke for a 50 yard piece. My kick is not a very propulsive one, very lame kick set performance. For me it’s more about creating torque to resist against than propulsion, at least that’s what I think when I see how slow my kick sets are. Tiny 6 beat flutter. The pull buoy seems to take away the torque I create, especially when on my side and that leads to disrupting my rhythm and timing…pb just fouls up my entire stroke. The kick isn’t a body position fix b/c I can lay flat on my belly and my heels just dip under the surface with bum breaching.
I don’t use the pb much, but always figured I would be faster with it.
Does this bring anything to light about a stroke issue perhaps? Or is it indicative of a good thing?
I add in a shorter set with the pull buoy after my main set practically every workout. I find that I’m ~5sec/100m slower with the pull buoy. However, if my legs are really fried from a run or ride earlier in the day, then my pace can be the same as full stroke. Also, there is a bigger discrepancy in pace for shorter stuff (50s/100s) than for longer stuff. This makes sense since less propulsion is derived from kick as distance increases.
I can see for sure why bad body positions are faster with a pb by the overall drag reduction of the lower body. My only point of ref is a couple of triathletes I swim with who have horrible positions, but are faster with pb’s. I guess I just figured ‘more is better’ and therefore I would be even faster having a good body position to begin with…certainly didn’t envision being slower.
Good swimmers are slower with a pull buoy, bad swimmers are faster with a pull buoy.
Explained: if you’re a “good” swimmer, then the marginal improvement in buoyancy is not enough to offset the loss of propulsion/counterbalance that one’s kick offers. If you’re a bad swimmer, your kick was probably shitty to begin with (even if you didn’t realize it) and the improvement in body position is well worth the sacrifice. Your kick with the buoy (no, you’re not supposed to, but unless you’re rubber banding your ankles you are probably kicking) is probably better than your kick without the buoy too. A lot of poor swimmers tend to have a wide kick, particularly from the knee. Holding a buoy between your thighs will still allow you to kick from the knee, but because you’re thinking about squeezing the buoy to keep it from popping out many people will adopt a much smaller and more efficient kick. It isn’t the ideal kick, but it is better than what that person does without the buoy.
not necessarily. I swam with a guy in university who was a 1:54ish 200 free swimmer, slightly faster than I was. He was about 2 secs per 100 faster with a pull buoy than without in practice, simply because his kick wasn’t all that good. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum, I could do kick sets almost as fast as I could pull them.
In general, if you are a good freestyle swimmer you should be slower with the PB because your kick is no longer involved. And you’re correct, the kick in distance swimming is more about setting up the stroke (through rotation) than it is about propulsion. So you can still be a good distance swimmer with a “weak” kick (at least compared to sprinters) as long as the kick is properly timed to set up your stroke.
There may be exceptions to this rule but most of the good swimmers I’ve seen are slower with the PB.
I swam with a guy in university who was a 1:54ish 200 free swimmer, slightly faster than I was. He was about 2 secs per 100 faster with a pull buoy than without in practice, simply because his kick wasn’t all that good.
He’s the exception, rather than the rule. By and large, my statement has been venerated in my observation–I’ve been coaching swimming for 6 years and swimming for 16.
Nobody denies that the bumblebee flies, but nobody builds airplanes modeled after bumblebees. If I give a fast swimmer a pull buoy, I’m going to expect that he goes slower.
Ankle bands are rough. I tried swimming with a buoy+band and a parachute the other day, and it was a struggle to cover 25yd. Granted, this parachute basically adds 75-100% to your non-parachute time over any distance, but still.
Do not give up. Find the right coach to help improve your form (and perhaps your kick). I was a middle lane two swimmer at our club and over the past winter moved up to leading the lane and now swim in the third lane. My kick still sucks (anyone in lane two can beat me), but I can swim with lane three now. A lot of that had to do with more swimming, but also listening to what the on deck coach was telling me.
I just realized what a truly crappy swimmer I am. I always thought you were naturally supposed to be faster with a PB. I guess that puts me in the ‘poor’ category.
Thanks to (directly above) for advising not to give up. Because that’s exactly what I feel like doing when it comes to the swim.
I assume you are talking about a buoy only, no paddles. I rarely pull with just buoy, so I’m not 100% sure but I think it would depend on the distance. I would guess at 1000 yds I’d be the same speed; anything shorter I’d be faster without the buoy, longer I’d be faster with it. If I put on paddles the cut off point would be more like 300 yards. FWIW my 1000 scy PB is 12:19.