I have been lurking here for a few months learning as much as possible but I need some help. I am in the Army (20 yrs) and recently decided to try something new. Besides the side stroke my swimming has been non existant. I have been working on my swimming since April and improved my straight distance from 25m to 600m. My currentl workout is around 30 laps in approximately 50 min three times a week. I try drills I read about online and follow advice I read about here. Here is my problem. I feel as though my week side (left) does not have a high elbow and just barely skims across the top of the water. I only breath on my right side unless I am practicing my bi lateral breathing. Do I need to rotate more to the right? Is there a drill to help with this issue? I also find that when I am doing kick drills with the swim board I dont go anywhere!! Sometimes I actually go backward. I have taken a few lessons at the local YMCA but the instructors were not that great. My wife will kill me if I suggest a coach right now so I am flying solo. Can anyone help??? Thanks! RLTW!
It sounds like your kick is your major problem. You NEED to fix/work on this before your swimming will drastically improve. I usually recommend the use of fins for beginners. This will help you both on the board and with drills. It will force you to loosen up your ankles and point your toes. The first few times with flippers might be frustrating, but keep with it and you (and the flippers) will teach yourself… guaranteed. My website www.iwaterswim.com has a few podcasts up in the workout portion that might be of real use for you. Good Luck.
If I were you I wouldn’t worry about bilateral breathing until you get more comfortable on the good side. It is perfectly fine to breathe on one side, and many professional swimmers do this in races (of course they don’t have to but just sayin). Something that helped me get more comfortable breathing when I learned to swim was to go faster. I found it easier to get my mouth out of the water when I had some speed. Eventually it got easier. Of course I would get tired super fast.
The suggestion to use fins is a good one, it will force you to be more efficient in your kick and you will learn to feel the drag that’s slowing you down. I would try swimming without fins for a few hundred then go the fins for the back half of the workout when you get tired. Work on both swimming and kicking. A great drill for rotation is one-arm freestyle with the other at your side. You will likely find this very difficult until you improve your body position and kick efficiency however. Fins might allow you to do the drill. Good luck.
You could try to get a hold of an underwater camera and video certain parts of your stroke, such as your kick. Maybe a friend has one?
http://www.smartersport.com/ss/documents/29.pdf
for elbow drills…you would want
- finger drill
- sharkin
weak elbow on your non-breathing side is a normal issue, so you aren’t alone.
If you can clear the $70 with the Spousal Unit, I’ll throw in a rec for the Finding Freestyle program:
http://www.findingfreestyle.com/
The more I talk swimming, the more I come to feel like everything in the water interconnects, and Robert and Dave have a good progression of stroke development that helps everything come together.
I’ll also join the chorus that suggest fins as long as you don’t become addicted to them. They’ll help with ankle flexibility, with is the key to having an efficient kick, and going a bit faster like you get with the fins can help you figure out some stroke issues.
As for the imbalance issue, Kevin in MD who posts here has a good theory about how head position and a tendency to really toss your skull around can screw up what you’re doing on the non-breathing side.
Try focusing on being very subtle about head rotation when you turn your head to breathe (the classic swim coach imagery is that only one goggle should be out of the water hen you’re breathing) and see if that helps with arm movement on the off side.