My master's coach made a comment to me today. He said that my right arm enters a little wide for my shoulder, catches there and then comes back under my body.
He says that I should be entering right in front of my shoulder,catching and letting the arm stay under the body.
Any thoughts on how to correct going wide? What should I try? Possiblity of how it should feel? I have read that some people enter wide to correct crossing over. Seems to me that I might have the opposite problem then.
Any other feed back is welcome too.
Thanks
David
Former Member
hey david,
You should try - Catch up Drill. This is a drill where your arms play catch up with each other - sort of a touch and go movement. After pushing off the wall in a streamline position, leave one arm in the streamline and bring your other arm around to take a pull, your hands must touch in the streamline position before your other arm can take the next pull. Your hands just need to touch - don't actually streamline each time - I usually just touch my thumbs with each stroke. This will force you to train your body to not reach so wide and also makes you kick more to stay afloat.
Good luck!
Thanks for the suggestions. Two questions for the both of you. If anyone else wants to respond, please do.
Gull, how will bilateral breathing aid in my problem? I have tried it before but most of the time I end up going to one side. I am definitly willing to try it again to see if I can improve.
Lisa, I spend a lot of time trying not to swim flat anymore. From what I have read, the traditional catch-up drill makes a swimmer go flat. Have you had this experience? How did you overcome it too?
Thanks for your responses and continued replies.
David
Lisa, I spend a lot of time trying not to swim flat anymore. From what I have read, the traditional catch-up drill makes a swimmer go flat. Have you had this experience? How did you overcome it too?
I haven't had that experience, however there are other drills you can incoporate into your practice that prevent going flat.
1. Arm Pit Drill: When swimming freestyle, bring your hand to your armpit and touch it, this forces your arms to bend, therefore perfecting a good bent arm stroke.
2. Finger Drag Drill: When swimming freestyle, drag your fingers over the surface of the water.
I practice both drills, and both seem to really help my arm positioning. Just remember when doing catch up drill to reach over, not around your body. Your arms will fall flat if you are reaching in a circular motion, but if you reach up and over, you will have a more efficient stroke. I was explained to this by my coach saying "which is faster, going around in a circle, or going in a straight line?"
Does that make sense?
Bilateral breathing tends to make your stroke more symmetric. Do you normally breathe to your left?
It may take a while for this to feel natural. I've read that changing your stroke requires about 100,000 yards.
100000 yards? Wouldn't that be awful.
For a stroke change to be really ingrained, it wouldn't surprise me. If you swim 3000 in a workout, that's just about a month. Anyway, I'll let you know. A few weeks ago I decided to switch to alternate breathing to correct the lopsidedness in my stroke (and hopefully improve efficiency).
That video you posted above sorta answered in part my question on a thread I started today. If only I could do what the guy is doing. Notice he is bringing his forearm dowm and then slightly inward to make the scoop (?) but pushing fast to the side and out. His inward movement of the forearm is very slight. He does not do a complete S shape. Got any more videos you could e-mail them to me, the sites that is...? Thanks, billy fanstone billy@genetic.com.br
