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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Former Member
I agree that there is still a good deal of mystery regarding the role of the kick. We know that the kick will cease to have any potential propulsive element when the forward speed of the swimmer reaches the maximum backward component of the foot velocity during the kick, and in reality long before that the drag will outweigh the propulsion. None the less, people do seem to pick up speed when they kick so any interesting theory has to explain that. It would be kind of funny if it turned out that people just move their arms faster when they move their legs faster.
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.
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.
If the best way of going faster is reducing the amount that you slow down that makes a strong suggestion that prolonging the extension phase is going to be a poor strategy as you will be slowing down from the point the other arm stops being propulsive. This suggests that getting rid of any dead spot out front, if any, would be a good strategy. But I'm back into conjecture and there's a more pressing question to be addressed.
If the force/pressure sensor shows a steady increase from hand entry to under the shoulder one needs to know the magnitude of that increase before going further because pressure increases with depth below the surface even before you start applying forces. Either you need two sensors, one on the front of the hand and one on the back, with the difference then giving you the actual force exerted by the hand, or you need to track and subtract out the pressure due to depth. Unless the pressures you are seeing make the depth pressure insignificant...
Hmm, force per square centimeter at one meter below the surface would be the weight of 100 cubic cm, which is 100g. The total force over a 10 sq cm area, about the size of a finger, would be 1kg, so maybe roughly 8-10kg or 20 pounds on the area of a hand, which is up in the range of the forces you were measuring even before including the area of the forearm.
It seems like depth pressure would indeed have to be accounted for in this sort of setup. Do you know if the Aquanex does this?
I agree that there is still a good deal of mystery regarding the role of the kick. We know that the kick will cease to have any potential propulsive element when the forward speed of the swimmer reaches the maximum backward component of the foot velocity during the kick, and in reality long before that the drag will outweigh the propulsion. None the less, people do seem to pick up speed when they kick so any interesting theory has to explain that. It would be kind of funny if it turned out that people just move their arms faster when they move their legs faster.
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.
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.
If the best way of going faster is reducing the amount that you slow down that makes a strong suggestion that prolonging the extension phase is going to be a poor strategy as you will be slowing down from the point the other arm stops being propulsive. This suggests that getting rid of any dead spot out front, if any, would be a good strategy. But I'm back into conjecture and there's a more pressing question to be addressed.
If the force/pressure sensor shows a steady increase from hand entry to under the shoulder one needs to know the magnitude of that increase before going further because pressure increases with depth below the surface even before you start applying forces. Either you need two sensors, one on the front of the hand and one on the back, with the difference then giving you the actual force exerted by the hand, or you need to track and subtract out the pressure due to depth. Unless the pressures you are seeing make the depth pressure insignificant...
Hmm, force per square centimeter at one meter below the surface would be the weight of 100 cubic cm, which is 100g. The total force over a 10 sq cm area, about the size of a finger, would be 1kg, so maybe roughly 8-10kg or 20 pounds on the area of a hand, which is up in the range of the forces you were measuring even before including the area of the forearm.
It seems like depth pressure would indeed have to be accounted for in this sort of setup. Do you know if the Aquanex does this?
