I'm a newer Older swimmer, age 66, my 25 meter time if I go hard is 45 seconds.
The Pull Buoy is my best friend and knocks 12 seconds off my 25 meter time, that more then 25% faster.
I have read all the articles on hips drop, which mine do, but would appreciate any drills, suggestions or other choice comments.
Bob:fish2:
could be a lot of things
I bet dropping hips are a symptom of different problems
one guess is you need to get more out of each pull
improve your technique, strength, and conditioning
How many strokes does it take you to swim a 25?
a stroke is where you move one arm one cycle
start with one arm out front, press underneath, recover up top
when aone arms gets back to where it started that's one stroke
if you're 25% faster with a pull buoy
adding floatation to your legs really improves your speed
so I believe you definitely need to improve your kick
do ideas from
Help My Flutter Kick is Horrible
I bet you need to improve your pushoffs and streamline glide
You might need to improve your head / body position
Your head needs to be neutral, look down at the bottom of the pool
It would really help to see what you're doing in order to correct it
otherwise we're just taking stabs in the dark
make a video of you swimming
post it on youtube
like this one
www.youtube.com/watch
give us the link ask us to watch and offer suggestions
work on improving your 25 time, you're due for a breakthrough
get one on one swimming lessons where you live
good luck
hope this helps
ande
I'm a newer Older swimmer, age 66, my 25 meter time if I go hard is 45 seconds.
The Pull Buoy is my best friend and knocks 12 seconds off my 25 meter time, that more then 25% faster.
I have read all the articles on hips drop, which mine do, but would appreciate any drills, suggestions or other choice comments.
Bob:fish2:
I'm a newer Older swimmer, age 66, my 25 meter time if I go hard is 45 seconds.
The Pull Buoy is my best friend and knocks 12 seconds off my 25 meter time, that more then 25% faster.
I have read all the articles on hips drop, which mine do, but would appreciate any drills, suggestions or other choice comments.
Bob:fish2:
head down more and press in with your chest more to ensure you are "swimming downhill" per Terry Laughlin. A strong kick (albeit good to have) is not really the dropped hip problem, but better balance in the water.
Hi Bob,
It's awesome that you're swimming.
What helps a lot with swimming, is ensuring you have a good range of motion. I've noticed quite a few older swimmers that don't try to stay limber. This is not good because swimming really gets easier if you're very limber. Try doing 30 min of stretching, in addition to the swimming. It'll make a huge difference in your times if you are currently not very flexible. After a week or two, the stretching actually feels good.
One final bit of advice...improvements in swimming speed, flexibility, etc. are not observable on a short time scale. This causes some people to give up. But if you keep up with it, over a period of several months you WILL see improvements.
I'm a newer Older swimmer, age 66, my 25 meter time if I go hard is 45 seconds.
The Pull Buoy is my best friend and knocks 12 seconds off my 25 meter time, that more then 25% faster.
I have read all the articles on hips drop, which mine do, but would appreciate any drills, suggestions or other choice comments.
Bob:fish2:
If you are an adult that is new to swimming, then you have to keep in mind what your background is. You probably had a job for the last however many years where you spent the majority of your time sitting down. Your legs are probably not very strong at all. A good amount of the time I spend on adult lessons tends to involve flippers as a result.
do a few laps kickboarding with flippers. then do a couple laps streamlining with flippers. then do a couple laps swimming freestyle with flippers. then do all three of those sets over again without flippers.
flippers are great. they force you to correct your kick or sink trying. they also add about 5 or 6 inches of prosthetic to your toes that aren't covered in muscle like the rest of your foot. Thus, the remainder of your foot that isn't prosthetic is forced to tow the additional load. in addition, by correcting your kick and adding additional length, the flippers increase your thrust, such that you are more able to do more challenging workouts when you are on them. however, the thing i like best about flippers is doing a workout once you've taken them off. because flippers overload your feet and legs with the additional workload caused by the prosthetic additions, your legs are dead tired when you take them off. when you do a workout without the flippers on after having done a workout with the flippers on, you not only get an opportunity to practice without flippers the things you have learned with them, but you also get to do it under fatigue conditions. This not only ensures that you give every ounce of strength to improving, but it also ensures that when you are swimming and not practicing that you will nonetheless always keep form even when you are fatigued.
--Sean
