Wow, my freestyle stroke technique has fallen apart! :afraid: I didn't realize it had gotten this bad since returning from hip surgery.:blush: Videos shot from on deck don't reveal what this video shot from above shows. Underwater clips don't reveal my flaws as much as this video shows either.
What I see in this video is that the arm on my breathing side (whether I breathe to the left or right) is going wide on recovery and entering wide. Even though I aim to straddle the line on the bottom of the pool and trace the edge with my thumb (right thumb on right edge, left thumb on left edge), I'm not doing what I think I'm doing. My arm is going wide, especially when I breathe right on the second 25. It is going so wide that I end up at the right edge of the lane by the time I hit the wall! (Perhaps my fears of crossing over has caused me to enter too wide...)
When I do the one-arm drill each day as part of my warm-up, it feels like everything is going correctly. Evidently, when I put the stroke together, it's not.
Which drills would you recommend for this? I looked through Cokie's "There's a Drill For That!" for some ideas; however, I couldn't figure out which drill would be best.
Any ideas? THANKS!
www.youtube.com/watch
To me it just looks like you are over rotating to breathe. If you're still a little less flexible there, then maybe that might be causing it? For breathing/rotation drills, I just kick relaxed with a good pair of fins and practice breathing with one goggle lens under keeping a rotated torso stationary at no more than 60 degrees from horizontal. Just don't overdo it at first like I did trying to breathe low in the water with fly. My neck was sore for 5 weeks
The wide entry might be from the rotation too
Really? Shoot! I didn't have enough rotation in my stroke, and Swimspire encouraged me to work on it. Perhaps I have worked on it too well! :confused: I just reviewed the side view videos from the same day, though, and I do not appear over-rotated. Only one goggle lens is above the water line on every stroke.
Flexibility is definitely NOT a shortcoming of mine, because I have been working hard on it each day after I get out of the pool. I do a combination of PT exercises I was prescribed, some yoga poses and other swim stretches I picked up off the USA Swimming site. As an example, I can now bend over with my knees locked and touch the ground with flat hands (placed on each side of my feet) and bent elbows. :banana:
One drill you might try is to intentionally lift your head so you are looking forward. Then you can see exactly where your hands are entering. If this is hard to do because it causes your legs to drop you could use a pull buoy. If you have a snorkel this will work even better because you'll be able to look forward uninterrupted by breathing.
Thanks for the idea, Kirk!
To me it just looks like you are over rotating to breathe. If you're still a little less flexible there, then maybe that might be causing it? For breathing/rotation drills, I just kick relaxed with a good pair of fins and practice breathing with one goggle lens under keeping a rotated torso stationary at no more than 60 degrees from horizontal. Just don't overdo it at first like I did trying to breathe low in the water with fly. My neck was sore for 5 weeks
The wide entry might be from the rotation too
Really? Shoot! I didn't have enough rotation in my stroke, and Swimspire encouraged me to work on it. Perhaps I have worked on it too well! :confused: I just reviewed the side view videos from the same day, though, and I do not appear over-rotated. Only one goggle lens is above the water line on every stroke.
Flexibility is definitely NOT a shortcoming of mine, because I have been working hard on it each day after I get out of the pool. I do a combination of PT exercises I was prescribed, some yoga poses and other swim stretches I picked up off the USA Swimming site. As an example, I can now bend over with my knees locked and touch the ground with flat hands (placed on each side of my feet) and bent elbows. :banana:
One drill you might try is to intentionally lift your head so you are looking forward. Then you can see exactly where your hands are entering. If this is hard to do because it causes your legs to drop you could use a pull buoy. If you have a snorkel this will work even better because you'll be able to look forward uninterrupted by breathing.
Thanks for the idea, Kirk!
