Care To Comment on My Stroke?

WIth the rolling too far.. I know I am doing it but I just keep doing it! You should be able to see under the water with one eye while your head is turned to breathe, at least if the pool is calm. Try swimming slowly while concentrating on keeping one goggle under when you breathe. Figure out how to make that work and you will figure out how to keep your head in control (physically, at least).

Paddles with fins to start...then I want to get you on the bungee cord. I'm still recovering from the wounds of stretch cords snapping back at me during my college days. Fortunately, Eddie generally kept us distance guys away from those most of the time. Paddles with fins?? Damn, it's hard enough to get up in the morning and remember my goggles, suit and water bottle. Now I gotta lug more equipment?

Mcarm, I'm not nearly as experienced as most of the swimmers here, but I can tell you I've improved tremendously over the past 9 months or so. There's been much trial and error and a lot of money spent on videos :laugh2:. Let me see if I can give you some ideas that helped me. 1. Breathing. I agree with what has been pointed out about your breathing. Practice strokes where you turn your head with the body uproll but not all the way, i.e. you are not breathing but rather catching a glance of how close you really are to the surface and how much farther you would have to go to get air. Practice that while keeping the head horizontal, i.e parallel to the bottom of the pool (not looking up). Then, practice some strokes where you still don't breath but turn a little more until you feel your mouth and only one goggle out of the water. This gives you a chance to practice keeping the head horizontal and knowing how far to turn, without swallowing a mouthful of water. It really helped me orient myself better when breathing, especially to my weak (right) side. 2. Recovery. Your left arm recovery is very flat. I would practice the arm, hand, and fingertip drag drills. I know they teach this in TI. These drag drills really give you an idea of body position/rotation and arm position, which helps you even out the stroke (as well as getting the elbows higher on recovery). 3. Catch. The arms are slipping in the water, i.e. I'm pretty sure I'm seeing the forearm dragging behind the elbow on the pull. That tells me that the forearm is not pointing to the bottom of the pool and so it is not being used as an effective paddle. This is something that will take some time to improve. Here's what I would advise, though. When you extend your arm, try to rotate your upper arm internally (left arm clockwise, right arm counterclockwise). Try to do this without also rotating the hand, i.e keeping the hand parallel to the bottom. This gets your elbow pointing to the side or upward. Then when you flex your elbow to initiate the catch, the forearm and hand will pivot downward. A neat little dryland drill I read about really helped me. Stand facing a wall (close). Take one hand, put the palm against the wall at shoulder width, then slide the arm upward in a straight line (keeping slight pressure on the palm). As you get to full extension, rotate your body a little to get that extra reach AND start to internally rotate your upper arm. The wall will keep your hand from rotating with the upper arm. Then, keeping the elbow fixed at the same height (pivot point), slide the palm downward while pushing against the wall until the forearm is at a 90 degree angle to the wall. This helps to replicate the feel of the proper arm extension and front end of the catch. Once you have that paddle in place, you use the lats to pull with power. 4. Timing. I noticed that sometimes, especially during breaths, your pull arm is already way behind the shoulders at the point where your body is flat. What I mean is that during the second half of your rotation (uproll), you have no more water to hold onto. This uproll should be a significant part of your propulsion. At the point where you are flat your elbow should be at approximately shoulder level. So your initial downroll includes the catch and a little of the pull, and your uproll should include a large portion of the pull. I found this youtube video which I think has some pretty good 3D animations of Ian Thorpe showing this. ; www.youtube.com/watch Best of luck, sorry if this is too long winded.

You can always spot a TI swimmer - you always look like you are swimming in slow motion and for some silly reason they always go with alternate side breathing... Besides the arm entry, you have to fix the over rotation. - swim 25s Free with a good kick and do NOT rotate your hips at all - allow all your rotation to come from your upper body. - swim 25s Free with a splashing kick (all of the kicks not just a few), because you can't splash if you over rotate your hips. And please pick a side for your breathing - that's why you run out of air...

Ouch, dare I comment? Throw away the book or DVD that you are learning from.

silly reason they always go with alternate side breathing... And please pick a side for your breathing - that's why you run out of air... Hi, all the other swim books i have read - Janet Evans, for example, all recommend alternate breathing, or at the very least swim equal amounts on both sides. I know sprinters tend to breath on one side, but from what i understand they don't train that way. I read a biography of a couple of swimmers - Natalie Couglain had developed an out of alignment body from single side breathing and when she alternated she made a great improvments . even if i do single side, I still have to breath every stroke when i start to run out of air, so i supsect its more of a body position thing, since it doesn't happen with a pull buoy Perhaps its different fro different body types and temperaments. geochuck why? pwbrundage i found that fins and pull buoys soon became addictive so i recently reduced them to about 10% of my work out. I did find fins very helpful for getting my breathing and body roll down - because i was able to maintain a decent speed. I still use them for dolphin kicking facing up across the pool because I can't do it otherwise.

mcarm: Your stroke is not bad for 3-months of swimming. You might check out http://www.h2oustonswims.org/ that article was very helpful- thanks! Well tonight I am going to the pool to try some of this stuff out. Thanks everyone for your input!

Hi, all the other swim books i have read - Janet Evans, for example, all recommend alternate breathing, or at the very least swim equal amounts on both sides. I know sprinters tend to breath on one side, but from what i understand they don't train that way. I read a biography of a couple of swimmers - Natalie Couglain had developed an out of alignment body from single side breathing and when she alternated she made a great improvments . even if i do single side, I still have to breath every stroke when i start to run out of air, so i supsect its more of a body position thing, since it doesn't happen with a pull buoy I'm a BIG fan of alternate side breathing. For me, it helps balance out my stroke. Most of the time, I alternate in a 2-2-3 pattern (e.g., breathe left, breathe left, 3 strokes, breathe right ... then repeat). Sometimes, I will alternate sides by lap. I think it also depends on the distance you're swimming and if you're racing. I will admit that, when racing, I tend to breathe to one side when I'm sprinting (e.g., 50-100), but use the alternate breathing approach on the longer races. I think you can find examples of elite swimmers that do both single side and bilateral breathing. In addition, you can find examples of sprinters who breathe very little and those who breathe nearly every stroke (e.g., Jason Lezak). I'm sure a lot of the ultimate decision is swimmer specific.

Best of luck, sorry if this is too long winded. No need to apologize for that great post ! thank you very helpful :)

those who breathe nearly every stroke (e.g., Jason Lezak) and Phelps.