All,
I swim with a masters group a few times a week.
In full stroke freestyle over 800m I keep pace with a number of my peers, but lose about 50m over 800m when we switch to arms only w/ pull buoy.
Clearly an opportunity for improvement - but I'm a little stumped. My kick is not strong - frankly I struggle on kick sets.
I'd be interested in any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong (or doing so right when I add the legs).
I shoud probably add, I've been working on this for some time and its baffled a fair few coaches!
Guyster.
Parents
Former Member
One simple explanation might be that rather than there being a problem with your pull there is a problem with your peer's kicking. It's not uncommon for men especially to be faster over long distances with a pull buoy, especially if they have a weak or poorly integrated kick or compensate for poor balance with a strong kick. With a poor kick the legs can take so much energy that they can't keep up the same pulling effort over long distances. And with poor body position that is corrected by the pull buoy they can swim further faster with the corrected position combined with the energy savings from not kicking. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything...
So maybe the issue is not so much you slowing down on long pull sets as your peers speeding up, relatively speaking.
On the other hand, perhaps your peers are picking up their pull tempo while you are not.
Having times and stroke counts would help with the diagnosis.
One simple explanation might be that rather than there being a problem with your pull there is a problem with your peer's kicking. It's not uncommon for men especially to be faster over long distances with a pull buoy, especially if they have a weak or poorly integrated kick or compensate for poor balance with a strong kick. With a poor kick the legs can take so much energy that they can't keep up the same pulling effort over long distances. And with poor body position that is corrected by the pull buoy they can swim further faster with the corrected position combined with the energy savings from not kicking. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything...
So maybe the issue is not so much you slowing down on long pull sets as your peers speeding up, relatively speaking.
On the other hand, perhaps your peers are picking up their pull tempo while you are not.
Having times and stroke counts would help with the diagnosis.
