The swim smooth guys have a new site at www.swimtypes.com that attempts to classify swimmers into six types. I found it interesting to try, and to see how the classification changed when I played around with the input values.
One of the things I found interesting was that they said their data show that people are somewhat polarized between sub 1:25/100m continuous pace for "smooth"/ideal swimmers and plus 1:25/100m "overgliders" and that fitness doesn't seem to be a big factor in dividing people across that time. Most people with good technique will be under 1:25 pace and very few swimmers with overglider technique problems will be able to get under 1:25. They use your 400m time as the input so if your time is under 5:40 you will be classified as smooth, much over that and you'll be classified as an overglider or swinger.
In any case I would be interested in seeing how other people classify and whether you agree with the classification.
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Is it just me, or is his underwater hand position a bit off? I'm not trying to be critical -- I genuinely would like to know what people think, because recently someone has corrected my hand position to be straighter than what I see in this video. He's taking a catch well outside the mid line with his left arm, and it's probably fine. As long as he swims straight (and for that, you can trust a triathlete that holds 1:10 per 100 over 3.8k open water as an introduction to a 8:30 hours long race).
That's one thing with swingers. Gotta be little more open minded and let the guys swim. As long as they don't get injured, and swim straight.
For what it's worth, I think that it's easier to achieve EVF when you go little wider, and when you let a little bit of body roll to occur prior taking the high elbow catch. Since he is a right side breather, we could assume that he has little less body roll on left side. Maybe he, like a lot of top10 in the world, has suffered injuries. This freedom he is taking with this left arm may in fact be a very good compromise between achieving enough EVF and not end up pinching his left shoulder articulations. Pure speculation of course.
Here. A link to a nice youtube clip. Originally posted by Coach T (I believe), it's one of the best resources I've seen on the topic, it explains this principle very well. www.youtube.com/watch
Is it just me, or is his underwater hand position a bit off? I'm not trying to be critical -- I genuinely would like to know what people think, because recently someone has corrected my hand position to be straighter than what I see in this video. He's taking a catch well outside the mid line with his left arm, and it's probably fine. As long as he swims straight (and for that, you can trust a triathlete that holds 1:10 per 100 over 3.8k open water as an introduction to a 8:30 hours long race).
That's one thing with swingers. Gotta be little more open minded and let the guys swim. As long as they don't get injured, and swim straight.
For what it's worth, I think that it's easier to achieve EVF when you go little wider, and when you let a little bit of body roll to occur prior taking the high elbow catch. Since he is a right side breather, we could assume that he has little less body roll on left side. Maybe he, like a lot of top10 in the world, has suffered injuries. This freedom he is taking with this left arm may in fact be a very good compromise between achieving enough EVF and not end up pinching his left shoulder articulations. Pure speculation of course.
Here. A link to a nice youtube clip. Originally posted by Coach T (I believe), it's one of the best resources I've seen on the topic, it explains this principle very well. www.youtube.com/watch
