Since I am sort of forced to swim alone rather than on a master's team this summer I often end up swimming after/before/next to someone who has horrible technique. I'm not nitpicking here, but I'm talking about dragging legs, barely getting arms out of the water, and nearly stopping to breathe on freestyle, or arms that kind of lazily flop down during the backstroke.
The question is, if you see someone doing something like that do you offer help with their stroke / or pointers?
Currently, I don't. But I'm somewhat torn. I don't want to sound arrogant and like I know everything, or to hurt someone's feelings, but I can't help thinking how much less energy these people would expend, and how much more success they would have swimming if they swam correctly. So, what do you do?
Originally posted by Guvnah
He's a triathlete, and a pretty damn good one. Turns don't matter for his purposes, and I fully understood and let it drop.
I think this is a definite fallacy on his part and on tris/open water swimmers in general. An improper flip turn or even an open turn takes a whole lot more effort than a decent flip turn. If your tri buddy could do a proper turn, he could devote even more of his energy to proper swimming, which in the long run benefits him more. By choosing to do a bad turn, he is wasting effort.
I have found that the more I work on my flip turn, the more I am able to improve my swimming overall. But, I guess that's not part of the tri manual.
Originally posted by Guvnah
He's a triathlete, and a pretty damn good one. Turns don't matter for his purposes, and I fully understood and let it drop.
I think this is a definite fallacy on his part and on tris/open water swimmers in general. An improper flip turn or even an open turn takes a whole lot more effort than a decent flip turn. If your tri buddy could do a proper turn, he could devote even more of his energy to proper swimming, which in the long run benefits him more. By choosing to do a bad turn, he is wasting effort.
I have found that the more I work on my flip turn, the more I am able to improve my swimming overall. But, I guess that's not part of the tri manual.
