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Off hand position. Up near the surface, or well below? TI calls for the latter (steep and deep entry), while the lesson I took last week from a very reputable source (thanks, Cathy M in SF) suggests the former. I can tell you this much, I sure swim “better” with the hand up high, but it seems to ding my shoulders since my off hand is higher than my shoulder when I’m on my side.
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Breath timing. Early, without ever seeing your recovery hand, or kind of centered in the recovery so that you see your hand almost reaching your goggle line before you are back to face down/forward? I majorly struggle to get a breath early enough. If I try to nail it early, I get a mouthful of water (where the heck is that bow wave??). The web page with all the cool clips/videos (http://www.swim.ee/videos/freestyle/free.html) shows VanAlmzik complete the breath before her hand is even remotely close to her shoulders. Yet… I see lots of photos, the TI book cover, for example, where the breath is way late.
Huh?
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Reach out, catch the water, pull. If you’re doing something else it’s probably wrong.
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Breathe when you follow through the catch and roll your hips (ie breathe on the right as your right arm recovers and left arm pulls). I have no idea what you are doing watching your hands. No wonder you’re sucking water. You might want to try breathing out of the corner of your mouth.
Azzy, man, as long as you didn’t drown, that’s a successful swim, isn’t it? 
I was told that for the hand position the height isn’t the issue but the way you put your hand into the water is. If you put your hand into the water way out in front of you, you will grab air and pull it along with you throughout your stroke.
If you slide your hand into the water a few inches in front of you, the air will slide off of your hand so you can pull water throughout your stroke. I think that is the reason why coaches have people do the drill where you watch your hand go into the water at a 45 deg angle.
Breath timing: My breath starts when my pull is completed and am starting the recovery and my body has rotated as far as it will go, it is finished before my recovering hand is at my head.
The problem I had with TI seems to be the same as yours may be. The way I got to breathing was that I started my catch with my left arm a little earlier than TI suggests so I would have that extra speed and lift to breath with. Once I was comfortable with breathing I slowed the catch down somewhat and broke that habit. Even now I start my catch has my recovering arm reaches my head (way earlier that TI suggests to do)
These are just my recent experiences, I hope they help.
jaretj
Better than asking here is to actually see it. Go watch a practice of the local swim team, not masters, but a really good high school or college. Or else watch the movies on the net.
A quick answer to yor questions:
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Enter your hand in the water ans stretch your arm and shoulder. If you’re doing this then you hand is int he right place.
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The bow wave is there if you’re travelling fast enough. If not, not bow wave. So breathing should be when recovery hand is passing the head.
SmAC – That entry leaves lots of room for individual variation, no? TI had me with my hand so low that half the catch was already done). In my other anti-TI lesson last week, she had me try to keep that off hand right at the surface. Of course, that’s really hard to do, so my hand was a few inches under. If I go with what feels natural, then it’s somewhere between the two. But being a land creature, “natural” probably isn’t good. 
I may have lots of time to go see local swim teams. My shoulder ailments are fast becoming a limiter. I felt my “good” shoulder clunk a few times in my sleep, and it burns nicely today. The “bad” one is just popping and clicking a little. 
Titan – At this stage I’m getting cocky. Not drowning is no longer enough. My goal now is to not actually drink much pool water. I had it down to maybe 4oz in 45 mins yesterday!
Hand entry and hand placement when stretched out is one of those things that are a product of other things you should work on. So I never tell a swimmer anything about entry of depth of the hand when stretched.
In coaching and watching many triathletes swim, the main thing I notice is a lack of relaxation. Watch the fastest swimmers in the world, maybe not 50 freestylers but every other distance there is a point in the stroke where they look completely relaxed. Under water they are still finishing their previous stroke and maintaining a steady kick but from above you’ll notice a VERY slight pause as their hand catches the water, completely stretched out in front of them. If you try to rush this you will get a hand full of air with every pull no matter where your hand enters the water.
Find that point of complete relaxation in your catch (while still propelling yourself with a well timed, steady kick) and you’ll see the light!
As for breathing, try to RELAX and control your exhalation under water, when you inhale focus on letting only one eye break the surface of the water.
One last suggestion: DON’T worry about pace clocks or distance, just play around with the way your body moves through the H20.
My $ .02 EZ
i too learned the deep entry via ti (swimming downhill as they call it) and now am unlearning it after my lesson with doug stern. according to doug, the catch can’t be as powerful if your hand is already 8 inches under the surface.
Interesting. I think she focussed on it because I do a warmup/balance drill by kicking on side with the hand outstretched. It was too deep (angled down, a la TI Skate drill), and that was putting my upper body too low in the water.
The other thing she had me work on was recovery – I was kind of pausing at the finish of the pull, and then dragging my arm up. She wanted me to ditch the pause (duh) and just flip the arm up there (relaxed) farther forward and keep the hand high.
I think she is having me do these in an exagerated way to correct it for now. And I think those two things go together.
Looks like she’s better than your previous coaches. And even if she wasn’t, remember that any decent swim coach can beat me giving swim tips over the Net
Under water they are still finishing their previous stroke and maintaining a steady kick but from above you’ll notice a VERY slight pause as their hand catches the water, completely stretched out in front of them. If you try to rush this you will get a hand full of air with every pull no matter where your hand enters the water.
Find that point of complete relaxation in your catch (while still propelling yourself with a well timed, steady kick) and you’ll see the light!
As for breathing, try to RELAX and control your exhalation under water, when you inhale focus on letting only one eye break the surface of the water.
I have a tough time differentiating relaxing from slowing down. I can seem to just relax.
I’m a little confused about the slight pause. Shouldn’t that be a long pause since your hand is outstretched on its own for nearly the entire stroke on the other side? Or do you mean there’s a pause at the end of the catch, and then the pull? This much I know – if I drop my hand and just do a windmill stroke, I can feel my arm slipping through that air/water mess.
Even though swimming is a technique-oriented sport where “thinking” and concentration are a big part of it, it is also a “feel” sport. Some things you need to feel. And no amount of over-thinking can cover the feel part. Think about that.
Bubbles on your hand AND forearm (It’s not just the hands guys) decrease the efficiency of your catch. Reaching all the way over and immediately stroking leaves you with the bubbles.
Even though swimming is a technique-oriented sport where “thinking” and concentration are a big part of it, it is also a “feel” sport. Some things you need to feel. And no amount of over-thinking can cover the feel part. Think about that.
Agreed, and that’s why I go for as much frequency as possible. I am starting to get that “feel” thing. I can feel a good catch on my arm when it happens right, and the corresponding pick up in speed, etc. And I can feel the burn of chlorine when I breathe badly.
Bubbles on your hand AND forearm (It’s not just the hands guys) decrease the efficiency of your catch. Reaching all the way over and immediately stroking leaves you with the bubbles.
Yes, DocF, makes sense. But… how could you immediately begin the stroke? Especially if you swim almost catch-up style like I do? That front hand is hanging out there for what feels like an hour before the catch and pull.
My TI coach also had me enter with a deep leading arm (about 4:30 if the water surface is 3:00) when I first started TI, but that was to help me get better balance. As my balance in the water improved, he moved my entry up to the point where it’s now around 3:00.
It’s been a couple of years since I went to a TI workshop, and TI does change/improve their methods from time to time, but I remember reading about the “weightless arm”. You are supposed to let the leading arm relax while the stroking arm is working. This talk of having the leading arm low in the water doesn’t make sense, as the whole point is to make you long in the water, and begin to move the water at the surface out of the way for the body. It’s all about a bigger Froude’s number. Isn’t the leading arm supposed to be stretched out straight in front, slightly below the surface? FWIW.
By the way, even though my signature is salmon, I earned that nickname at a run, not in the pool.
If your hand enters and extends lower in the water you are trading streamline for shoulder health. One’s own history of injury will dtermine if this is a good trade or not.
The total immersion guys generally teach a stroke that is conservative in terms of not pushing the edges of normal range of motion nor inducing impingement of the shoulders. Your own experience of shoulder pain after changing your hand entry tends to support the idea that a more downward entry might be proper for you right now.
You mention your shoulders, I hope that you are doing lotsof external rotations, side lying abductions and scapular stabilizer exercises. These exercises are the only way to really keep your shoulders from acting up once they start giving problems. Dillignece with those things will help to end the popping and other odd motions of your humeral head. Unfortunately, I know just how important it is to stay on top of these things.
If your hand enters and extends lower in the water you are trading streamline for shoulder health. One’s own history of injury will dtermine if this is a good trade or not.
The total immersion guys generally teach a stroke that is conservative in terms of not pushing the edges of normal range of motion nor inducing impingement of the shoulders. Your own experience of shoulder pain after changing your hand entry tends to support the idea that a more downward entry might be proper for you right now.
You mention your shoulders, I hope that you are doing lotsof external rotations, side lying abductions and scapular stabilizer exercises. These exercises are the only way to really keep your shoulders from acting up once they start giving problems. Dillignece with those things will help to end the popping and other odd motions of your humeral head. Unfortunately, I know just how important it is to stay on top of these things.
Since one shoulder started feeling bad 2 months ago, I began working on that. I do lying L-fly (“soup cans”) and a standing cord move where you hold your arms up as if being robbed, with the band tension coming from the front. Hands go forward, then back up, ~90 degrees, w/o moving the elbows. I do some hanging shrugs from a chinbar. That shoulder started to feel better, despite seeing my MRI report (3 spots of tendinosis, one bursitis, two labrum tears, one cyst) and upping my volume some.
Then my “good” shoulder started to twinge, I ignored it, made the hand height change mentioned above, and now the pain is worse than my “bad” shoulder. Very sad. Sitting here, I just raised my arm overhead and it made a dull clunking 1/3 of the way back down. The front is very sore. Super.
All this from maybe ~1000-1200yds per session, and some pro instruction making sure I’m not doing anything scary bad for the wings. Huh.
Once this feels better, I’ll shoot for an arm that’s no higher than just level rather than angled up toward the surface. Too bad, because that made it so the end of a 50 was no longer a gasping effort, and something I could continue doing were it not just so convenient to rest at that wall…