Video technique review

I agree 100% with your observation CoachT. True on all counts. I don't know about you but for me, I always recommend to swimmers to only address issues one at the time. Not sure if this real kicking flaw should get #1 priority, possibly if performance is the main goal. I thought maybe that Steve should make sure about his shoulder health first by fixing the catch, but hey, kicking is a huge element of Freestyle so... And besides, he seems to have started addressing it already. --- So Steve really you got something to chew on. Again, I'd venture to state that more than half of Master swimmers not coming from a competitive background suffer from one or both of these flaws. Dead spots resulting from wanting to feel long in the water, and a kick that causes some form of drag due (very often) too poor ankle flexibility or some other restriction to efficiency. For the kick, you already started to address it that's great. For the catch well look at some footage, pay attention to how slow catch is made. We may sometimes get the impression that the hand is gliding in the front, I know. But the key thing to look at: Look at how the hand sinks pretty much following the body rotation rhythm. And when you think about it. If body rotates bringing down the shoulder, and that the hands still reaches for the front, it's very risky to drop the elbow. And if you wait too long, then the level of pressure you need to apply on catch to catchup for being late on timing relative to body rotation (the clock) is such that it is barely impossible not to drop the elbow. It takes great concentration to learn to integrate the notion of acceleration from very slow to max power output. Modulate all this appropriately. Slow first is very important. Then sets of 25m buildup on speed from slow to fast.

I agree 100% with your observation CoachT. True on all counts. I don't know about you but for me, I always recommend to swimmers to only address issues one at the time. Not sure if this real kicking flaw should get #1 priority, possibly if performance is the main goal. I thought maybe that Steve should make sure about his shoulder health first by fixing the catch, but hey, kicking is a huge element of Freestyle so... And besides, he seems to have started addressing it already. --- So Steve really you got something to chew on. Again, I'd venture to state that more than half of Master swimmers not coming from a competitive background suffer from one or both of these flaws. Dead spots resulting from wanting to feel long in the water, and a kick that causes some form of drag due (very often) too poor ankle flexibility or some other restriction to efficiency. For the kick, you already started to address it that's great. For the catch well look at some footage, pay attention to how slow catch is made. We may sometimes get the impression that the hand is gliding in the front, I know. But the key thing to look at: Look at how the hand sinks pretty much following the body rotation rhythm. And when you think about it. If body rotates bringing down the shoulder, and that the hands still reaches for the front, it's very risky to drop the elbow. And if you wait too long, then the level of pressure you need to apply on catch to catchup for being late on timing relative to body rotation (the clock) is such that it is barely impossible not to drop the elbow. It takes great concentration to learn to integrate the notion of acceleration from very slow to max power output. Modulate all this appropriately. Slow first is very important. Then sets of 25m buildup on speed from slow to fast.