Freestyle Critique

Lately I've felt like my swimming has been stagnating. I sort of thought that it was just fitness, that I just needed to train harder and put in more time and yardage... which is true, to a point. But I've also come to the conclusion that a few other things are going on, like...

1.) I AM getting faster and stronger, but my lane mates are too and they seem to be doing it at a slightly faster rate than I am. So comparatively, I feel stagnant.
2.) None of my lane mates do much besides swim - two of them are thinking about triathlon...but they arrive to the pool fresh and ready to swim hard.
3.) I'm ususally pretty fresh and well rested...but I've also ususally run or bike for 1 hr.+ the day before...and I've been really increasing my volume lately so this could explain some of the more sluggish swims I've had lately...

When we were at the New England Masters Short Course Yards Championships at Harvard in March, Weasel Boy took this quick video of me swimming freestyle to point out some things to me that he thought I could do to be faster. It's always alarming to watch yourself swim on video - you have this picture in your mind's eye of what you THINK you look like and it's a whole lot different than what you actually look like. In an effort to address my stagnancy, I took another look at myself swimming and I noticed a LOT of things that I can work on that will make me faster. This gives me great hope and motivation as EASY speed is so much more fun to find than speed gained thru hard work and yardage!!!


Here's the video (please let me know if you can't see it - I'm having issues with YouTube today and have embedded it in HTML with a LOOP for your viewing convenience...it works ok in Firefox and Safari - you just have to wait a bit to let it load, so sorry...)

Take a mintue to think about what you see in my stroke...where do my hands enter, what's my catch like, where is my arm when I pull, how is my body rotation, is my breathing upsetting my balance... there's a lot to think about when we swim, huh? Yikes.

The most obvious problem I see is with my pull on the left side - Coach was helping me with this just yesterday and now that I see it again from the deck, it's VERY clear. It's WAY wide and the first third of it is with a straight arm...I'm not bending my elbows. The ideal catch should happen just as my hand enters the water... I should grab water and hold it...and my elbow should bend almost as soon as I start to pull...as if I'm pulling myself out of the pool - or over a barrel. Check out where my left arm is in this frame:



I do eventually bend my elbow but not until very late in the pull. You can see it bent here but look how far back my arm is - almost time for the recovery...



Now look at Karlyn Pipes-Neilson's catch - check out how much water she's holding just before she starts the pull. She's not missing ANY water...



And look at her bent elbow here... this is the image that I try to swim with when I'm focused on this part of my stroke. Pure beauty...



I'm doing it a little bit on the right side too but not NEARLY as horribly... take a look here...



And what makes me feel all kinds of better is that my catch on the right side is really early and my elbow bends almost immediately - look how much earlier in my pull I've initiated the bent elbow. It's SO much more powerful...



I'm not sure if the left side issue has anything to do with my breathing - I always breathe on the right side (although I've been working hard at breathing on both sides, once every third stroke) and I think when I rotate to breathe, my left shoulder doesn't want to engage the same way as when I'm flat in the water. But now that I see what's happening, I feel like I have a much better idea how to fix it.

The next thing I see is that I could work harder on front quadrant swimming...you know why we do all those catch up drills? If you're not familiar with front quad swimming - it's a total immersion thing where you work to begin one stroke before the already stroking hand has left the "front quadrant" of your body... this makes you more streamlined and allows for the longest glide... I'm doing it pretty well here:



Overall though, my front quadrant swimming could use some focus... note to self for tomorrow...

Things that I see I'm doing pretty well are body rotation, relaxation in the water and correct hand entry...I'm not crossing my midline as my hand enters the water. We've spent a lot of time this winter focusing on wide arm entry (if you've ever seen "Tarzan drill" on our practices, that's the wide entry drill) and I'm really looking forward to seeing how this affects my open water swimming...I HOPE it helps me track in a straighter line!!! Here's my left side hand entry:



And the right side entry:



SO, all that said here's what I'm going to focus on for the next few weeks, in order of importance:

1.) Left side pull, early catch, EARLY bent elbow, pull more underneath me rather than out to the side.
2.) Front Quadrant swimming
3.) Bilateral Breathing, especially to see if it helps correct my left side pull
4.) Keep the good right side pull and wide arm entry working for me...
5.) DON'T GET FRUSTRATED if I feel stagnant...it's not really happening, it's just relative to the others in the lane...

I would LOVE to hear if anyone sees anything else that you think could use improvement. Or if you just have comments about the video or pics in general...post away!!! We're all in this together, right?

Now, GO SWIM!!!