Great, thanks. I treid in the other thread but didnt get a comment so I’ll try here.
I’m a good swimmer for triathlete (27-28m for half, 57-58 for full AG50), but obviously far away from being a swimmer (also not the goal). I also think I’m quite a single speed swimmer, as mentioned full IM at 1.30/100m pace and my best 100m SCM with pool start is 1.12
I have few questions. I feel the difference between a good and bad day is relatively large and I really cant figure out where it comes from. So:
- Based on the videos below, what do you think is the first thing that might fall apart in that stroke
- What is the first low hanging fruit to improve and how
Here me doing some relaxed, maybe 1.25-1.30/100m SCM pace
https://youtu.be/t1mt_gpn36Y
Here a bit faster, maybe 1.20/100m
https://youtu.be/bggL7Ec4pIc
I know videos are not optimal, but best I can do. Thanks a lot!
Here is my take based upon what I can see.
Overall, you look good. Body position looks good. You’re level in the water and you’re not fighting to stay in position. That’s a big dea for most.
From what I can tell from this angle, the arm action underwater isn’t obviously problematic. It’s hard to tell what’s really going on without a head-on shot.
Two potential issues I see-
The breath is a little late, slow, and it pulls you out of alignment. It’s more noticeable on the faster swim, so my guess is that it tends to get worse when you get tired or swim harder. If you’re having a bad day, you’re probably going to swim harder:).
This causes problems because it will disrupt your alignment horizontally (head goes up=hips go down) and laterally (head swings to side the shoulders will go with the head and the hips go the other way). All of a sudden you’re creating more drag. You can see there is a bit of a wiggle to the stroke.
In addition, when the breath happens like that, you’ll notice the left arm drops pretty quickly and you’re halfway through the stroke before the head gets back down into the water. That means the arm isn’t going to be doing what it needs to do for much of the stroke. The arm does that to attempt to create stability that is lost when lifting the head (pressing head/chest into the water creates stability).
What may be happening is that when you’re struggling, you pick up the tempo and this makes the breath worse and the technique starts to fall apart a bit.
I think the biggest opportunity is to fix the breathing. Put a paddle on the top of your head and swim with it. Don’t let it come off when you breathe. Once you can do this slow, start speeding it up. That will help you learn how to keep the head more stable.
Another observation which is a little less straightforward. You may getting a little ahead of your rotation with your arms strokes. You swim with pretty high tempo (which is no problem), but you might be pulling a little early. It probably gets worse when Try this exercise and see if you can get the same connection when you swim regular freestyle. It’s NOT about more rotation, just better timing. It may help.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tJT5IPZ_mTBuLdlrmR00rQRt5uXkRlXm/view?usp=sharing
However, breathing is probably a bigger issue AND easier to address.
Lastly, moving forward, start paying attention to your stroke counts. You don’t need to change them, but see what happens when you have your good days versus your bad days.
My guess is that you are doing one of two things. You are picking up the stroke rate and taking extra strokes, causing you to slow down. OR you’re really slowing your stroke rate down and keeping the stroke count the same. If the stroke counts are higher on the bad days, you’re getting inefficient. If stroke counts are the same, you’re tempo is dropping off for some reason.
Why do the bad days happen? My guess is that it’s just fatigue which makes some small technical issues worse… I can’t really tell how old you are in the video. If you’re older, you may just need more rest between harder training sessions. Not what anyone wants to hear, but it happens to us all:).
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have follow-up questions.
Andrew