Feedback on Swim video

1. Your kick.  You're kicking like you're riding a bike.  Your kick comes from your knees.  It should be coming from your hips/glutes.

2. Hand position.  Lupy provided some good info.  Easy thing to remember.  Hand/fingers lower than wrist, wrist lower than elbows.  Always.

3. Shoulder position.  You're dropping your shoulder and elbow... a lot.  This picture does a great job of illustrating proper shoulder and elbow position as you start your catch.

Notice how his elbow is pointed at the wall and his arm is almost at a 90 degree angle.  Look at your video.  Your elbow is basically pointed at the bottom of the pool at that start of your catch.

4. Your catch.  You more or less don't have a catch.  Look at the pic above with the guy with the 90 degree elbow.  He will pull straight back using his arm like a paddle and pressing the water back behind him. http://www.swimsmooth.com/catch.html

Thanks for the slow-mo bits, very helpful. And by the way, good work on doing flip turns.

overall, you actually look pretty smooth and relaxed in the water. That's hugely helpful, so keep that mojo. You've got a nice light kick with the right action, and actually your body position in turns of rotation looks pretty good. You don't want to be tipped over on your side or have your shoulder dip down deep in the water, and you don't. So, good.

In terms of stroke you want your elbow UP and your fingertips DOWN as soon as possible so that your entire wrist and forearm are a paddle vertical to water surface/pool bottom, pushing water BACK so you go FORWARD. Right now you've got your arm straight out, and it continues to be pretty straight and therefore pushes DOWN on the water (so you go as much UP as forward) until nearly halfway through the stroke.

Look at Peter Vanderkaay's arm in the attached photo. That's what you want your arm to look like. Another poster mentioned watching your arm in the water and that's a good idea.

Try doing it on land, over the pool edge (black arrows in the attached photo). It gives you the correct bend in your arm and you'll feel what it's like to put pressure on your hand and forearm pushing water BACK (like you're pushing on the pool wall).

I strongly recommend nosing around the http://www.swimsmooth.com site for more visuals and tips.

If you're serious about wanting to improve your swimming, and now for where you are wintertime is ideal for this, check out the

http://www.sheilat.com site and start on the Swim Speed Workouts (first 6 are free). You can order the rest, and frankly the visuals in her book Swim Speed Secrets are second to none and make it "click" for a lot of people.

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