Swim video - please critique my stroke

work on your kick, should be kicking more than once per stroke.  do kick sets and just practice shorter shallower kicks.  jmho.  

Hey,

Couple major items to work on that I see:

Under rotation in your stroke is causing you to wiggle your hips left and right.  It looks like you rotate your shoulders but not your hips - your hip rotation should drive your shoulders.  This rotation is what drives your stroke to a large extent.  You can see this pretty clearly in the rear view during video 1. 

Definitely need to work on an early vertical forearm.  When you enter the water your elbow leads the way down and you tend to do a lot of pressing the water down instead of back.  Big speed leak here.

The good news is that you do a lot of stuff right.  Not a bad looking stroke - you certainly have the capability of improving your times a great deal.

Edited by sand101 2010-12-02 10:54 PM

I disagree.

Keep your elbows high, and relax that kick a bit. Something is going on with your arm swing/recovery and it's throwing your hips sideways. Can't put my finger on it though.

I agree with the disagreement.  Something is awry with the kick itself (though from what I can see it emanates from lack of hip rotation), but the two beat kick is fine.

My kick looks an awful lot like yours.....  The scissoring aspect and having them out to the side.  

I'm anxious to see the suggestions here.

It looks like you are slightly over reaching with on arm and not going in quite enough with the other. I tell my swimmers think about getting their thumb in line with their noise at entry. I think this over reaching is what is causing the hips to move side to side as opposed to rotate on them. And again another simile you want to be like a bullet in a gun with rifling, spinning more or less so its an up and done hip rotation not a side to side.

i personally like to keep my arms/hand closer towards my chest which I feel allows much more leverage with the pull and allows for the zipper/s shaped pull people talk about. 

Overall its a really nice stroke. Right now, the major fixes are in the front part of the stroke. your 2 beat kick is good, and the hip sway is in reaction to what is happening in front of the hips.

Your biggest point that you can work on right now is your breathing stroke. I see you are breathing every 3rd stroke. On EACH breathing stroke, your hand is not only pushing down on the water, but pushing away from the side you are breathing on. In the underwater views, you can see that your head is coming out of hte water completely for a very brief moment on each breath before it returns to the water.

Your overall body position is relying on your arms to support your head in this moment of lifting and that is waht is causing the swaying of the hips that people are commenting on. It's basically an action/opposite reation...eg when you breath on the right, your left hand is pushing water down adn away from you, causing your hips and legs to sway to the left in order to balance the bodies momentum and keep you generally in a straight line.

You could work on these handful of stroke thoughts to improve your breathign stroke, starting with a "weightless" head. A weightless head is one that is entirely supported by the buoyant force of the water. if your head is fully supported, then your arms are freed of the duty to push down on the water to support your head. A weightless head enables weightless arms. Weightless arms can float forward to part the water (like a torpedo), and slowly create a hook shape (EVF) to catch the water in front of you. Reintroducing a moment of glide to allow your palm/wrist/forearm to find the resistance of hte water and face towards your feet will allow you to anchor your body in the water. The spearing of the entering arm along with the core rotation supplied by your hips and 2 beat kcik is what will allow your body to sail forward over your arm in the catch position.

In the thread recently about breathing patters, I also listed a 4 focal point breathing practice that should really help you as well. I'll try to find it and paste it here, or in its own thread.

Again, overall, nice looking stroke. Fix the breathing problem and it will really start to look totally pro!

Edited by AdventureBear 2010-12-03 1:38 AM

This is basically pasted from another thread, but I think it will benefit you, and help you find the weightless head, weightless arm combination. When I do the "nod" drill, I look for a sensation of having my head supported as if laying on a pillow...never lifting my head, but letting it "rest" on the support that the water itself provides. All tension should be gone from the neck as the head remains weightless both when looking strainght down at the bottom of the pool as well as during the "nod" and by extension, the breath.

=====================

This is a drill that I practice this drill to stay streamlined while breathing: It's called a "Nod".

The breathing pattern here is every 4th stroke, ie same side breathing, alternating between a "nod" (described below) and a "breath". Aim to have the same sensations described during the nod as during the breath. During the nod, it si much easier to relax since you are not also focused on getting air. You'll need to slow down your pace just a hair so that you are comfortable breathing every 4th stroke. The more relaxed you are the easier it is.

The "NOD".
While swimming in your STREAMLINED position, simply rotate your head 90 degrees towards the side of the pool, but don't breath. Just "nod" your head to the side. You should be able to do this without lifting your head out of the water, without changing the tempo of your stroke & without losign either your side to side or front to back balance.

Practice alternating a nod with a breath (you obvioulsly still need to breath).

As you practice your nod, pay attention to the following focal points (i.e. do 25 yd repetitions, choose one focus for each, and practice each focal point on both right side & left side)

#1) "I SPY" - what do you "spy" (see) when you turn your head to the side? Focus on the visual information that comes to you when you turn your head. Note that you don't have to linger to the side to gather information and process it in your mind. This is a good skill to hone for sighting as well.

#2) "SHIMMER" - focus on the shimmering underside of the water. it's just a hair further of a head turn than the "I SPY" focus you just did. Look at the underside of the water and enjoy it.

#3) "SO NEAR" - this time, look at the AIR just above the surface of the water. Look how near it is to your face...it's just a tiny bit further away (or it should be). It won't take much more rotation to just sip a little bite of air.

#4) "WAVES" - as you swim in a streamlined position, your head will form a bow wave, even when swimming slowly. The bow wave will not be there if you are lifting your head out of hte water to breath. Well, it will, but you'll be putting your face right into it. With this repetition, turn your head just a littel further and look for the wave that forms around your head & face. Don't try to breath with this nod, just LOOK at the wave

THere are half a dozen more focal points you could work on while practicing breathing, but the above four should really help you "tune in" to what a proper streamlined breath should feel like.

Inevitably when I've done a progression like the one above, my next few 100s have seamless breathing. My fastest 25s have come breathing every 2 strokes after doing a progression like this. Keep practicing the "NOD", and soon your breathing stroke will feel just as streamlined, long and fast as your non-breathing stroke.

Your left ar is crossing in front of you instead of going straight out, You aren't getting the full reach

At times you are looking 6-10 feet in front of you.  Put your head down 


Try and keep a consistent 4 beat kick.

Your right arm is swinging back and forth in the pull phase.  Work on using paddles to help with your pull.  Your left arm is also doing this in the pull phase.

Focus on finishing your pull closer to your thigh and not your waist





 

I've got a similar issue with my stroke when taking a breath.


Would swimming with a snorkel teach some kind of muscle memory and help with the breathing stroke?  

 

disagree all you want...how many 5k open water swims have you placed in?

One out of one. Why?

I agree with everyone above and would add:

Your seat is too high

One thing my coach taught me about "scissor-kicking" was that it was caused from turning my head to breath before I had rotated my body.  When I concentrate on looking at the bottom of the pool a little longer before breathing my lower body gets more streamlined.

IMO your hip rotation is fine. too much more and you'll actually lose stability and it will take even longer to get your body fully rotated to teh opposite side, slowing down your stroke rate. Shark fin drill encourages OVER rotation and also causes your body to sink a few inches under the surface of the water...not helpful for breathing...not a realistic part of a freestyle stroke for the majority of people. (Phelps can get away with anything though...)



It's probably not entirely due to that. It happens on your non-breathing strokes as well. But workign on the weightless head/weightless arms I discussed earlier will ALLOW you to tip the fingers down towards the bottom of the pool and relax your wrists. This can actually help bring the elbow up. (that is, rather than thinking to yourself "raise my elbow", think to yourself "lower my wrists & finger" and see what happens



I think your kick is realtively good the way it is right now...you've done some good work on it. I would spend the majority of your time focused on the other points brought up so far.




Keep us updated

from my comp experience ive found the 2 beat kick is great for distances of 500 and more, but if its a shorter distance sprint race (400 or so) i like to concentrate on a steady rhythmic kick. something you can experiment with. also i noticed slight splay int he fingers ( but we all have lapse in concentration sometimes ). focusing hard on keeping the body staright and streamlined will help you smooth out that hip toss. you might try rotating the shoulders slightly more to help correct this. GOOD STROKE! keep it up and keep us up to date!

Funny enough, same here.  

Pretty darn proud of that race, too.

Your hips are too low in the water, you're sinking. Try to swim slower and I bet you'll feel the need to speed up to keep from sinking.

Put a little more pressure down from your armpit, think swimming downhill. That should help get your hips higher in the water. Someone mentioned above that your arms were pushing down instead of back, I think that's because your hips are too low and you're trying to keep yourself "up" by pushing down. Try some drills that keep your body on top of the water, and then focus your arm stroke on forward propulsion.

Keep your legs quiet. The sinking hips are also causing you to splay your legs to keep your body up when you turn to breathe. Focus on becoming a floater instead of a sinker, I think that will solve a lot of your issues.

This is the first thing I noticed also.

I thought it was easiest to spot in the first video as you're swimming towards the camera.  Your arm goes outward first, instead of making a smooth "in-then-out" shape on the pull.

It's causing you to snake slightly in the water, and you're not getting the use of your entire forearm on the pull.

I agree with Suzanne that it's tied to breathing.  Relax and let your body rotate during the stroke and turn your head just enough to breathe.

So, should I look to have the arm enter the water more in line with my shoulders?  I then pull in closer to my body, then let the arm work it's way out as it gets toward the hips?  I watched a video of Phelps and it was really dramatic just how much he worked his pull into his body, and then out again.

Is this what I need to aim for with the pull portion - but perhaps not as dramatically?

Yes and I'd add to that: let your body roll a bit when your arm comes inward.  It'll make it easier to breathe because you won't have to turn your head as far.

And most importantly, like you said - don't make any dramatic changes.  Just slight incremental modifications and see how you feel.  You're looking pretty good already - we're just talking about minor tweaks and not reinventing your entire stroke.

Edited by spudone 2010-12-06 9:53 AM