Body Roll or not???

Let me see if i can answer your queries in sequence. 1st-drills to help with rolling equally onto both shoulders, try "stick it"(delayed catch up). In this you do catch up but pause your recovery when your elbow and hand are next to your ear, hold for 3 seconds, making sure that your hip on the same side as your recovery hand is up and that you have rolled onto your shoulder. Then enter recovery hand into water and stroke the other arm. Also when ever you swim think of rolling equally onto your shoulder on Entry, Reach and Catch. Only by practicing Bi-Lateral breathing will you be able to correct this in the long term. You say that you get out of breath doing this. Are you breathing correctly ( explosive breathing). Sequential Drills to get to Bi Lateral are: 1- breath to one side only for 1 length, breath to opposite side only on second length. Important, favour your weak side by a ratio of 4:1 to really change things. Always start off drills on your weak side. 2- Move to -3:2:3 which is 3 strokes breath to left, breath to left again, 3 strokes, breath to right and again to right. 3- Move to Bilateral breathing. Breath out steadily underwater, forceful breath as mouth clears the water to breath. However in competition you would want to breath to 1 side for every length as you need that oxygen to clear Lactic. So do left breathing for 1 length and right breathing for 2nd length. This lets you check out your competitors on both sides. I did this in the 1500m at the UK Masters last month and it worked fine. You say your time has not improved, maybe your tempo, stroke rate, has dropped. A longer stroke length + maintained stroke rate = Faster. But longer stroke length + lower stroke rate may make you slower. I may have gone a bit far in my comments on UK coaches. I am sure that there are good ones out there, but there are too many who learnt in the 70's and have not bothered to stay current with latest developments. Check out the www.britishswimming.org/.../about.asp to find info on clubs. BTW, Barnet-Copthall dominated at the UK Masters in Swansea.

Let me see if i can answer your queries in sequence. 1st-drills to help with rolling equally onto both shoulders, try "stick it"(delayed catch up). In this you do catch up but pause your recovery when your elbow and hand are next to your ear, hold for 3 seconds, making sure that your hip on the same side as your recovery hand is up and that you have rolled onto your shoulder. Then enter recovery hand into water and stroke the other arm. Also when ever you swim think of rolling equally onto your shoulder on Entry, Reach and Catch. Only by practicing Bi-Lateral breathing will you be able to correct this in the long term. You say that you get out of breath doing this. Are you breathing correctly ( explosive breathing). Sequential Drills to get to Bi Lateral are: 1- breath to one side only for 1 length, breath to opposite side only on second length. Important, favour your weak side by a ratio of 4:1 to really change things. Always start off drills on your weak side. 2- Move to -3:2:3 which is 3 strokes breath to left, breath to left again, 3 strokes, breath to right and again to right. 3- Move to Bilateral breathing. Breath out steadily underwater, forceful breath as mouth clears the water to breath. However in competition you would want to breath to 1 side for every length as you need that oxygen to clear Lactic. So do left breathing for 1 length and right breathing for 2nd length. This lets you check out your competitors on both sides. I did this in the 1500m at the UK Masters last month and it worked fine. You say your time has not improved, maybe your tempo, stroke rate, has dropped. A longer stroke length + maintained stroke rate = Faster. But longer stroke length + lower stroke rate may make you slower. I may have gone a bit far in my comments on UK coaches. I am sure that there are good ones out there, but there are too many who learnt in the 70's and have not bothered to stay current with latest developments. Check out the www.britishswimming.org/.../about.asp to find info on clubs. BTW, Barnet-Copthall dominated at the UK Masters in Swansea.