Foreward: My 50 was a good time for me, my 200 time I have actually beat in practice from a push. Criticism on my 50, starts and turns would probably be most beneficial to me, but I am interested to get feedback on some race pace video. These videos are from the DAM SCM meet yesterday.
My times are annotated in the video, but here they are for reference.
50: 27.71
200: 33.48/36.18/36.78/33.77 1:09.66/1:10.55 2:20.21
YouTube- Mike 50 free DAM SCM 2009
YouTube- Mike 200 free DAM SCM 2009
Dive: solid; nothing spectacular. You got no umph off of it, so I suspect you used the same dive you always use, and the secret is it won't work at my pool. The blocks are nearly flat, and very slippery. If you use a track start, you have to adjust by inclining your back leg more, and also using your arms to pull you forward to get forward momentum. You may have to lean back and do a slingshot/rear-weighted dive, but in the end it will be faster and set you up much better than just trying to dive off a flat block. The best example was that guy wearing the gold suit. You know, the guy who beat your time in 50, but he swam the 50 ***.
Swim: nothing really wrong with it, it just seems you haven't found your sixth gear (I see fast swims! All the time!) for a blast-o 50 free. Then again, maybe it was 9:00 in the morning. Plus the meet was over in less than 2 hours). It may be a timing issue - a true sprint isn't going to be the same stroke at all as your 200. It seems you have a very slight fishtailing action going on (200). You might want to concentrate on keeping in alignment all the way down your body. It was very solid nice swim, just not inspired. I think we already covered this. It is hard to get up for a local-yokel meet where everyone's playing footsie with you in lane 7.
Turns: One thing it seems you do really good is you come straight in the wall and just about go out in the same spot. Keep thinking, I must squeeze myself through a tube of toothpaste in and off this wall! That is good. The other really good thing is your arms are not flailing and spinning around on the 50 turn. They are streamlined and ready when you push off. That's why you had a relatively much, much better turn and was able to pass that guy right at the turn. xxxx On the 200 free, your legs are slightly out of wack, and you seem to ever so slightly break the line off your turn. Think of a "turn" as flag to flag, not just the tumbling part. I would work on timing your last stroke to pull you into the turn, instead of taking a stroke, stopping at your hip, and then cowboy kicking your legs over.
Regarding SDK's and reference points - in the end, it's just your final time that matters, no matter what you do to get there. You will have to play around with the combination of SDKs and anything else to determine what is optimal for you.
Dive: solid; nothing spectacular. You got no umph off of it, so I suspect you used the same dive you always use, and the secret is it won't work at my pool. The blocks are nearly flat, and very slippery. If you use a track start, you have to adjust by inclining your back leg more, and also using your arms to pull you forward to get forward momentum. You may have to lean back and do a slingshot/rear-weighted dive, but in the end it will be faster and set you up much better than just trying to dive off a flat block. The best example was that guy wearing the gold suit. You know, the guy who beat your time in 50, but he swam the 50 ***.
Swim: nothing really wrong with it, it just seems you haven't found your sixth gear (I see fast swims! All the time!) for a blast-o 50 free. Then again, maybe it was 9:00 in the morning. Plus the meet was over in less than 2 hours). It may be a timing issue - a true sprint isn't going to be the same stroke at all as your 200. It seems you have a very slight fishtailing action going on (200). You might want to concentrate on keeping in alignment all the way down your body. It was very solid nice swim, just not inspired. I think we already covered this. It is hard to get up for a local-yokel meet where everyone's playing footsie with you in lane 7.
Turns: One thing it seems you do really good is you come straight in the wall and just about go out in the same spot. Keep thinking, I must squeeze myself through a tube of toothpaste in and off this wall! That is good. The other really good thing is your arms are not flailing and spinning around on the 50 turn. They are streamlined and ready when you push off. That's why you had a relatively much, much better turn and was able to pass that guy right at the turn. xxxx On the 200 free, your legs are slightly out of wack, and you seem to ever so slightly break the line off your turn. Think of a "turn" as flag to flag, not just the tumbling part. I would work on timing your last stroke to pull you into the turn, instead of taking a stroke, stopping at your hip, and then cowboy kicking your legs over.
Regarding SDK's and reference points - in the end, it's just your final time that matters, no matter what you do to get there. You will have to play around with the combination of SDKs and anything else to determine what is optimal for you.
