Awhile back I had tried to record myself swimming freestlye and ask around the net for commentary, but it was with a low-quality camera and only above-water footage. Not getting too much feedback at that time, I decided to buy a underwater HD camera and try to use that as a reference and improve my freestyle technique. Over about 40 days I have recorded ~16 sessions, and tried to gradually improve things. Here is what I have improved:
- No longer crossing over arms in middle (at least most of the time)
- Entry occurs when arms are more stretched forward, before my elbow was bent ~90 degrees for some entries
- Left pull is a bit more consistent, but still not a clean S curve like right arm (yes I'm right-handed)
- kick is a bit tighter and more controlled (though this probably still needs to be made even smaller, with less knee kick)
- neck angle when breathing is less extreme, before I was turning upwards much more than necessary
I still look straight down at the bottom when swimming much of the time, partially because if I look forward with a 45-degree angle I can't really see much anyway because my goggles get in the way, although I know doing this will make my breathing more natural, and possibly improve my posture overall.
I have been doing alot of catch-up with a pull bouy and that seems to have helped me control my upper body more. Also been doing alot of stretches to enable my foot to stretch to a greater degree, and doing a few laps with zoomers to help improve my overall kick form.
Anyway, the result of my recent training can be seen in the following video, where I edited together a few sessions together, and you can see my technique from a few different angles, both above and underwater.
YouTube- Jeff's Freestyle Technique 7/5/2010
I was concerned about doing too much endurance training with 'bad' form,but I think I am nearly ready to start doing less form work and a little more endurance training. However before that I really would like to get some critique from some masters swimming forum members.
If I were to point out my #1 problem at present, it is a lack of 'balance' in the water, though I am not sure exactly what that means or how to work on it. When I see videos of pro swimmers like Michael Phelps I am amazed by how their arms seem 'anchored' in front, whereas I have to struggle to even keep them straight. It takes a conscious effort to not cross over the middle, and even then I can't seem to keep my arms 'anchored' in front.
I do most of my training in a housing-development pool with no swimming friends, so any commentary would be very helpful.
Thanks very much!
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Thanks for the introspective analysis. It will take me a little while to work through this post, but I do appreciate the deep thought.
Aha! As I and many others have long suspected, flutter kicking is not actually propulsive at regular swimming speeds! Toss those kick sets into the trash can! Well, probably not, but this would give serious weight to the argument that the kick is not used for propulsion but rather to maintain body position, or to set rhythm, or as a rotational anchor, or some combinationI think it is risky to try to segment just pulling or just kicking because during regular swimming, these are really integrated mechanisms. You could be pulling fine, and negate everything with a kicking pattern that creates a lot of drag. If you do swims using generally the same stroke frequency, and make significant changes in the kick, or any part of the stroke cycle, it is possible for our Velocity Meter to measure immediately whether it was a positive or negative change in the mean velocity. We actually recently tested a Master's swimmer that had a number of different permutations in technique that we tested and the telemetry was sensitive enough to show the differences/changes. Takes out all the guesswork and it lets the person visually see what they are doing. An important feature in making real changes.
With the absolute amounts of drag and propulsion in the front quadrant not yet determined it is hazardous to draw too many conclusions but I think we can safely say that we're slowing down all the way through the front quadrant (except for the little bump) and we're speeding up all the way through the rear underwater quadrant. So you absolutely do not want to cut short the back quadrant in order to get your hand back in the front quadrant as quickly as possible, which was what was asserted in one of the other threads.In general terms, as the initial pulling phase begins, most are slowing down, (drag) but the amount can be minimized, once you see how much. (improving the mean swimming speed, or minimizing the max.-min. change in velocity. Again, from the measurements, it doesn't appear that even the max force values are very high. I actually have a very good example of this effect that I will post later.
If we were able to overlay the Aquanex force data we would be able to separate out propulsive force from drag force and see whether it is lack of propulsion, or a surplus of drag that leads to the deceleration in the front quadrant. My hypothesis is that there is not a lot of propulsion in most of the front quadrant. The telemetry showed from when the hand enters, a progressive increase in force/pressure that for most peaks somewhere under the shoulder, in general terms. In contrast at the same time, the telemetry from the Velocity Meter clearly shows that instantaneous velocity is progressively decreasing to its minimum point somewhere under the shoulder.
Thanks for the introspective analysis. It will take me a little while to work through this post, but I do appreciate the deep thought.
Aha! As I and many others have long suspected, flutter kicking is not actually propulsive at regular swimming speeds! Toss those kick sets into the trash can! Well, probably not, but this would give serious weight to the argument that the kick is not used for propulsion but rather to maintain body position, or to set rhythm, or as a rotational anchor, or some combinationI think it is risky to try to segment just pulling or just kicking because during regular swimming, these are really integrated mechanisms. You could be pulling fine, and negate everything with a kicking pattern that creates a lot of drag. If you do swims using generally the same stroke frequency, and make significant changes in the kick, or any part of the stroke cycle, it is possible for our Velocity Meter to measure immediately whether it was a positive or negative change in the mean velocity. We actually recently tested a Master's swimmer that had a number of different permutations in technique that we tested and the telemetry was sensitive enough to show the differences/changes. Takes out all the guesswork and it lets the person visually see what they are doing. An important feature in making real changes.
With the absolute amounts of drag and propulsion in the front quadrant not yet determined it is hazardous to draw too many conclusions but I think we can safely say that we're slowing down all the way through the front quadrant (except for the little bump) and we're speeding up all the way through the rear underwater quadrant. So you absolutely do not want to cut short the back quadrant in order to get your hand back in the front quadrant as quickly as possible, which was what was asserted in one of the other threads.In general terms, as the initial pulling phase begins, most are slowing down, (drag) but the amount can be minimized, once you see how much. (improving the mean swimming speed, or minimizing the max.-min. change in velocity. Again, from the measurements, it doesn't appear that even the max force values are very high. I actually have a very good example of this effect that I will post later.
If we were able to overlay the Aquanex force data we would be able to separate out propulsive force from drag force and see whether it is lack of propulsion, or a surplus of drag that leads to the deceleration in the front quadrant. My hypothesis is that there is not a lot of propulsion in most of the front quadrant. The telemetry showed from when the hand enters, a progressive increase in force/pressure that for most peaks somewhere under the shoulder, in general terms. In contrast at the same time, the telemetry from the Velocity Meter clearly shows that instantaneous velocity is progressively decreasing to its minimum point somewhere under the shoulder.
