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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I'll have to think about whether it's necessary for our purposes as well.
Curious about your meaning of this statement??
I only meant that there might be a way to factor out the pressure depth qualitatively but I haven't thought of one yet.
In his 2004 FINA paper the main purpose was to determine if increased force and increased velocity correlated. For the part where the same swimmer swam at different speeds the force due to depth pressure would be relatively constant so you can still say that the average pressure/force increases as velocity increases. I have to say that I am a little bit uncomfortable with fitting a quadratic curve to the data when all the data points fall beyond the range where there is significant curvature in the quadratic, it looks like you could have got as good a fit for a straight line. I'm also uncomfortable with labeling the y axis as force rather than pressure without an explanation.
In the case we are dealing with the question is how much force is applied in the front quadrant, and since the velocity data only tells us the difference between propulsion and drag we don't know whether the deceleration is due to the drop in propulsion or due to increasing drag or a combination of both.
The pressure sensor is telling us that force is increasing from hand entry to mid stroke, but unfortunately depth and exposed arm surface and resulting drag would both produce a rising value through the front quadrant.
The easy way to test would be to gently lower the pressure sensor to the depth that it achieves during swimming and compare the magnitude and profile with what is registered while swimming.
The pressure on the hand at 1m depth would be the equivalent of the weight of a column of water with a cross section the size of your hand, say 10cm by 20cm times a depth of 100cm is 20000g or 20kg or 44lbs. The peak value in the graph in the paper is 37lbs, but again, he doesn't explain how he gets from a pressure reading to a force, I guess he is using a surface area but he doesn't specify what that is so I can't compare.
Until I can see the pressure/force profile for the sensor as it is lowered to a 1m depth it will be hard to interpret your data. The fact that the entire force in his paper can potentially be explained by depth makes me unsure of my assessment that the sensor doesn't measure a pressure differential rather than simple pressure. It seems like too big a factor to be left unexplained.
I'll have to think about whether it's necessary for our purposes as well.
Curious about your meaning of this statement??
I only meant that there might be a way to factor out the pressure depth qualitatively but I haven't thought of one yet.
In his 2004 FINA paper the main purpose was to determine if increased force and increased velocity correlated. For the part where the same swimmer swam at different speeds the force due to depth pressure would be relatively constant so you can still say that the average pressure/force increases as velocity increases. I have to say that I am a little bit uncomfortable with fitting a quadratic curve to the data when all the data points fall beyond the range where there is significant curvature in the quadratic, it looks like you could have got as good a fit for a straight line. I'm also uncomfortable with labeling the y axis as force rather than pressure without an explanation.
In the case we are dealing with the question is how much force is applied in the front quadrant, and since the velocity data only tells us the difference between propulsion and drag we don't know whether the deceleration is due to the drop in propulsion or due to increasing drag or a combination of both.
The pressure sensor is telling us that force is increasing from hand entry to mid stroke, but unfortunately depth and exposed arm surface and resulting drag would both produce a rising value through the front quadrant.
The easy way to test would be to gently lower the pressure sensor to the depth that it achieves during swimming and compare the magnitude and profile with what is registered while swimming.
The pressure on the hand at 1m depth would be the equivalent of the weight of a column of water with a cross section the size of your hand, say 10cm by 20cm times a depth of 100cm is 20000g or 20kg or 44lbs. The peak value in the graph in the paper is 37lbs, but again, he doesn't explain how he gets from a pressure reading to a force, I guess he is using a surface area but he doesn't specify what that is so I can't compare.
Until I can see the pressure/force profile for the sensor as it is lowered to a 1m depth it will be hard to interpret your data. The fact that the entire force in his paper can potentially be explained by depth makes me unsure of my assessment that the sensor doesn't measure a pressure differential rather than simple pressure. It seems like too big a factor to be left unexplained.
