Link says no access

Sorry, I just changed the permissions. Should be fixed now.

Take my input with a grain of salt. I am in no way a qualified swim coach/teacher

If you could get an overhead view of you, swimming, and then view of you swimming towards the camera, both above and below water that would be helpful


Well, the great news is, there’s definitely some things that you can change to get faster

The reason I say great news because if your form was perfect, there’s not much room for

In my opinion, neither arm is really getting what is referred to as a high elbow catch, especially the left arm

Go on YouTube and see what the definition of high elbow catch is

Your body also is a little disjointed between the upper half in the lower half

What is helped me get a little better at that is laying on the floor in the same position you’re in when you push off the wall.

Raising your hands and feet off the ground and rolling onto your back, then rolling onto your stomach again

When I first started, this was next to impossible, but over the next four weeks, I’ve been able to do better, and the improvement can be seen when I video myself

I’m sure others will have a lot more to add. This is just the start of my observations and opinion.

Also in no way a swim coach, so caveat emptor.

Second MrTri that your catch and pull need work. Your elbow is super dropped. Closed-fist drills might help you to get a sense for how much propulsion you can get from your forearm & not hand.

Your legs are also all over the place side-to-side - probably creating a lot of drag. I’m guessing your kick goes even more all over when you try to go fast & slows you down.

I can tell I bend my knees a bit when I kick. Most of my swimming I use a pull buoy because I've had major issues with knee hyperextension and every tri ive done so far has been in open water (definitely a bad thing to bank on).

I'll work on some closed fist drills and kickboard drill.

Thanks! And keep the suggestions coming!

I am a front pack swimmer and was a swim instructor and masters coach for a bit. Feel free to DM me and we can chat about the stroke if you want.

Could definitely could use some video taken from the pool deck with the camera person walking along and filming from the side while you swim (swim in a wall lane).

It is hard to tell from the video, but it looks like you are lifting your head when breathing, and this is highly counterproductive, as it messes up your stroke and your body position.

But the main issue visible on your videos: you have no pull. You extend your arms passably, but then you slide your hands and forearms back without actually getting any purchase and without pulling any significant amount of water. (Technically, one doesn't actually "pull" water, one anchors one's forearms in the water and then one pulls one's body through the water.)

Do a search on "early vertical forearm" and compare the video and images you find to what you are doing. Because, right now, you're not even remotely doing it. But there are ways to learn. Reply for more info.

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I appreciate the feedback! I unfortunately don't have a video of my stroke from on top of the water and my pool is closed down for a couple months for maintenance.

I do lift my head pretty far to breathe which may be why I push down more on the water on my left arm so I can get my head a bit higher to breathe.

I'll definitely look up some "early vertical forearm" videos and practice it next time I can get to a pool!

Happy to help. But you really gotta find another pool to swim in during these months. Improving and becoming a faster swimmer means working on your stroke and yardage year-round. A gap of two months is a long time for a skill-based sport like swimming.



Yes, but you do not need (or want) to lift your head at all to breathe. Breathing involves only rotation, rotation of the body and some rotation of the head. Zero lifting. Your head is heavy, and lifting it makes the rest of your body sink. Which creates more drag and slows you down.

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1. As you reach forward to extend after the catch, your hands are palm up, as though you are stopping traffic (an exaggeration, but describes the action). This slows you down by creating drag. You need fingers below wrist, wrist below elbow, elbow below shoulder.
2. From the footage directly below you looking up, it looks like your hands enter the water very close to your head, instead of farther out in front of you.
3. You kick is coming from the lower leg, like you kicking a ball by straightening your knee. It should be generated from the hip instead. Work on keeping your knees as straight as possible during the kick. The reason is that if all you are doing is bending your knee, it will drop, creat drag from the knee dropping and the action of pulling your heel inward before you kick it back out again. Ideally your legs should provide as little drag as possible, and this only happens when you knees are much straighter.
4. your streamline needs a lot of work. You are looking forward, you should be looking down. Your palms should be facing the bottom of the pool. Your upper arms need to be sandwiching your ears as you push off the wall. One hand placed on top of the other.

But also, kudos for having the bravery to post footage for public critique.

Is that 1:50 - 100 yards or meters and what length of pool is that video taken in.

Your hips seem quite low and that might be a result of head position which is a bit high. You also lift your head to breath rather than forming a pocket in the water, which causes your body to move up and your legs down which results in a lot of drag. I also think you turn your body and head in the same movement, to breath, rather than turning your head.

You are losing your stroke quite early and by midpoint your grip on the water is gone (see the bubbles in the video). Your hand position loses it's grip on the water very early in the stroke. If you look at your stroke in the first video between 15 seconds and 17 seconds you will see that your arm is quite straight then as you bend your elbow you are actually sliding your hand back and out of the water without gaining propulsion. Others have suggested that a good stroke shape is like reaching out over a ball and dragging it back to your hip without losing your grip on the ball. Older (slower) styles kept a straight arm, new styles bend at the elbow, but with the same intent. Keep the ball on your hand all the way to your hip. The bent at the elbow version provides longer stroke length, better mechanics, faster swim.

Good luck. It has been said that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything. So patience.

I appreciate the feedback. I knew I needed some help so I appreciate the candid responses from everyone. Being in the military has made me develop some thick skin so I welcome frank responses...I know with all the expertise on here I can only get better!

The pool I have access to is a 25yd pool so that time is 1:50/100yd. I can get down close to 1:40 at the very beginning of my workouts but thats pushing pretty hard on fresh arms. My all day pace is 1:55/100yd and I can hold that for a full IM length swim in the pool.

Thanks for the tips. I look forward to implementing all of the feedback I've recieved next time I get to the pool.



Question for eveyone...are you all constantly thinking of all of this stuff while you're swimming or after a while does it become second nature and you can just turn your brain off while swimming?

You should never stop thinking about technique. As you cement good habits, some things will become more automatic. Eventually you will have enough sense of what is ‘right’ that the sensation of the water flowing over you provides corrective feedback, ie you can tell if things are wrong by feel.

Brutally honest,.. It looks like you are trying your best to NOT pull any water. You are bending your elbow right away and not catching anything. Get that arm pit open on the catch and pull. On your push off from the wall it shows the same thing, elbows bent. Get those biceps to cover your ears on the streamline. Also keep your head down, one goggle eye comes out on the breath not both. Look straight down at the bottom of the pool.

Good luck!

Edit: I did not read any other replies before posting. Enjoy the double ups on tips :)

Always try to make the stroke better and thinking about technique.

You can think about 10-20 things but I find at a certain point I am thinking about my kick and my heels on the surface, when that feeling is nailed down I move to the next thing, like where my hands are starting the catch from, nail that then think about where my hands are entering. You pick up on all these little details and then you get better. If I want to just switch off and not think about stuff I go for a walk. But I typically focus for a few days on small details until I am happy and then move on to the next thing to try to fix up

Does become second nature to a degree but to improve you have to focus and push your limits

Get swimming MORE and have fun. A few months out of the pool is not an option. Got to get real keen about this swimming stuff to get better

Beautifully expressed

I just tried that roll over thing and it’s hilariously fun. Is this about working on the floating muscles? Otherwise I will just stick to sitting on my ankles to make my feet more flexible

Lol

It really helped me to increase strength so my upper half worked better with my lower half

Not sure I would call them fun. Hard yes, fun hmmm not sure lol

This is what I was talking about but without pushing to roll over

i just did superman to a pancake (laying flat) but will try to the banana later today :). This is a great core exercise

From what I see your lowest hanging fruit is:
Body position - feet need to be near the surface and kick needs to be narrow. This is probably the hardest thing to work on.
Your catch, the fist drill will help a lot. Personally I would use a pull buoy when working on that.

Lots of good suggestions in this thread.

Thanks everyone! A LOT of good suggestions here and a lot of hard work ahead of me to fix it all, but looking forward to dropping a lot of time off my 70.3 swim time for next year!

It's not too late to subscribe to the Tower26 swim plan. All of these things are addressed in technique season, which started Nov 1. We get drills to work on each bit of the suggestions that are given here. I love it and have improved each year I've swum with them. (No, this is not Lionel in disguise.)

I downloaded your video and put together a quick analysis. If there are any questions, please let me know.

Tim

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