Advice please

Swimfit - thanks for coming back. I was afraid all of our VaLuAbLe AdViCe would be for nought. Sounds like this could be worked out with a bit of communication.

Hi Paul, lm pretty sure your spot on. My daughter's stroke is very very long and "pretty" to watch. And yes it does look a lot more like catch up than it should. She is actually very strong and her kick is really good. When they do strength training drills such as using one arm, she excels. Unfortunately the coach that pulled my daughter up on her stroke rate was only a temporary coach. She is actually an awesome coach and l wasn't worried about how she approached my daughter at all. My concern is only that previous coaches haven't brought it up and tried to sort it out before now. Swimfit - thanks for coming back. I was afraid all of our VaLuAbLe AdViCe would be for nought. Sounds like this could be worked out with a bit of communication. Swimfit, After seeing that your daughter is 5'11", I stand by my earlier post - even without seeing her swim. I will go out on a limb and guess she has pretty long arms (34-35" sleeve) and narrow shoulders (meaning she has not developed much upper body strength). If she swims freestyle by laying her arm on the surface of the water, recovering with a very bent elbow (from doing finger tip drag drills) and has any kind of catch-up stroke, she will have an incredibly hard time increasing her tempo. Let me know if I am right about the three things I mentioned. if I am, I can tell you/her how to improve her tempo without sacrificing distance per stroke. If her coach is as experienced as you say, she this stuff and should have offered ways to improve. Paul Windrath

I'm hearing you, l would love for the temp coach to be my daughter's coach. Swimfit - thanks for coming back. I was afraid all of our VaLuAbLe AdViCe would be for nought. Sounds like this could be worked out with a bit of communication. The only things I can think of to increase stroke rate are: 1- Shorten the catch 2- Pull and recover arms faster (without destroying joints). This is done with replacing some aerobic swimming with sprint based training, like 15m all-out efforts with several minutes rest, lifting weights for strength (if ready for it). 3- Kick faster. Do more kicking. To go faster at same distance per stroke is with faster moving arms. Maybe the coach believes this can happen? 13 is a good age to start getting serious about any sport. Pre-puberty athletic development is very limited. Now good coaching makes a difference, and for the next few years. The interesting part is that this coach actually counted your daughters stroke rate. So when this coach is done with her week of filling in does your daughter go back to the coach who didn't pay attention?

This coach is very experienced. She stepped in and trained my daughter's squad cos our coach had time off. The coach doesnt know my daughter or how old she is. I guess she asked them to "sprint" and she prob thought my daughter wasn't putting the effort in. She is only 13 but is about 5 11 so looks a lot older. 13 is a good age to start getting serious about any sport. Pre-puberty athletic development is very limited. Now good coaching makes a difference, and for the next few years. The interesting part is that this coach actually counted your daughters stroke rate. So when this coach is done with her week of filling in does your daughter go back to the coach who didn't pay attention?

Swimfit, Thanks for the info. Having a strong kick - which I hope means a continuous 6 beat kick - is important. And, while strength helps, it is not the primary factor when it comes to increasing stroke tempo. Sometimes coaches, trying to get swimmers to lengthen their freestyle, tell them to reach out in front of them. Doing catch-up stroke drill is common and it results in the swimmer's arm staying at the surface of the water while the other arm is recovering. This leads to dead spots in the stroke when the only propulsion is the legs. It leads to slower stroke tempo. If this is what your daughter is doing she should work on driving her hand through the surface of the water and immediately start pushing water down. She should not have to shorten her catch very much. This will result is an arm pull with less elbow bend and less early vertical forearm and less catch-up. She may even develop a more straight arm/windmill recovery with is also ok. This will feel really awkward at first and it is very tiring because there is no "rest/dead" point in the stroke. And, she will either have to breathe less or figure out how to fit the breath into the smaller window of time when she can breathe. She will want to do this without starting the recovery sooner - she should still be finishing her stroke with her hand exiting the water at mid-thigh and as straight an arm as possible. Caveat to the above. This is a very different stroke than she will be used to. Pure sprint technique, as I described above, is good for 50s - maybe 100s. It is NOT efficiency based and is entirely anaerobic. When you swim longer distances, efficiency becomes more important. So, two different techniques are involved. This is all physics - if you want to know more about the physics, I can do that, but it might bore other readers. :) Good Luck

good drill to remove any catch-up in stroke is doing freestyle with the head up and dolphin kick. It is exhausting but fast, 15 - 25m effort with good rest. forces you to move your arms fast

Swinfit, Yes, the article you found is pretty spot on. An important aspect of this is to accept the idea that freestyle technique is not "one size fits all." Your daughter may follow the in the steps of Ian Thorpe and Hans Fassnacht (WR 1500 free in the early 70s) who both have significant catch-up strokes AND powerful outboard engines for legs. Your daughter needs to understand that her stroke is NOT bad - just self-limiting. She needs an on-deck coach who understands what needs to change and provide consistent, daily feedback and help her manage the frustration of the change not happening after a couple of 50s. Again, going out on a limb with a suggestion - I would have her experiment with swimming long distances at 70% effort without kicking (use a pull buoy) with an emphasis on more hip and torso rotation. When it looks like she has adjusted to less catch-up, let her try to fit her legs into the stroke instead of her arms fitting into the kick. Also, playing stroke games is always fun for the kids. Have her try to do 50 strokes in 25 yards, do chicken wing, swim like a water spider, etc.. The better she does at swimming lots of different ways, the better she will become at making changes when the time comes. Good Luck!

Thanks Windrath, l was afraid there would be a huge change in technique needed😟 It sounds like my daughter is going to have her work cut out for her over the next few months. I guess the bright side is that she has developed a killer kick by pushing herself through all those dead spots over the years 😝 I found this article, lm guessing it's pretty relevant. www.precisionhydration.com/.../when-taking-fewer-swim-strokes-makes-you-a-less-efficient-swimmer

Wow, thank you to everybody who has shared their thoughts and for the awesome advice. I now have a much better understanding of how a slow stroke rotation inhibits a swimmer and ways to help my daughter speed it up. I will definately speak to my daughter's coach now that l have a clearer picture of the changes that need to be made. My daughter will be attending a weekend camp in December where they video and analyse each stroke and give feedback which will be great. Hopefully she will of made some headway by then. QUOTE=__steve__;329115]good drill to remove any catch-up in stroke is doing freestyle with the head up and dolphin kick. It is exhausting but fast, 15 - 25m effort with good rest. forces you to move your arms fast Swinfit, Yes, the article you found is pretty spot on. An important aspect of this is to accept the idea that freestyle technique is not "one size fits all." Your daughter may follow the in the steps of Ian Thorpe and Hans Fassnacht (WR 1500 free in the early 70s) who both have significant catch-up strokes AND powerful outboard engines for legs. Your daughter needs to understand that her stroke is NOT bad - just self-limiting. She needs an on-deck coach who understands what needs to change and provide consistent, daily feedback and help her manage the frustration of the change not happening after a couple of 50s. Again, going out on a limb with a suggestion - I would have her experiment with swimming long distances at 70% effort without kicking (use a pull buoy) with an emphasis on more hip and torso rotation. When it looks like she has adjusted to less catch-up, let her try to fit her legs into the stroke instead of her arms fitting into the kick. Also, playing stroke games is always fun for the kids. Have her try to do 50 strokes in 25 yards, do chicken wing, swim like a water spider, etc.. The better she does at swimming lots of different ways, the better she will become at making changes when the time comes. Good Luck!