Mr. Smooth Freestyle Stroke Visualization

Awesome find better than anything ive found googling

I'm just on dial-up, so I'm not going to try until I can get to a high-speed connection.

HOWEVER --

I did a one-on-one clinic with Paul three years ago, and it was a superior experience -- vastly better than any other swim clinic I have attended. His main DVD sets are great as well, so whatever he has up there on the new website is certain to be top-notch!

Thanks, Great Site

I think most non HS/collegiate level swimmers underestimate the kick. I did multiple sets of 300m kicks today without a kickboard and was actually keeping up with alot of slow swimmers, I didn't feel tired at all as a kick i supposed to be a relaxed effort unless you're sprinting. 1:09/100 frestyle after 4 weeks training, out for 10 years. Kick adds alot of balance to a stroke and allows you to rotate/breath alot easier imo.


Edited by ex-buzz 2009-08-14 9:43 PM

This was interesting in regards to having a long gliding stroke and makes more sense to me:

http://www.swimsmooth.com/strokerate.html

Edited by yojimbo 2009-08-14 10:44 PM

Awesome website! I'm looking forward to trying these tips out next time I'm at the pool.

interesting site; thanks for the link.    it was much better than what my google-fu could produce.  

Hi guys,

Adam Young from Swim Smooth here. Thanks for all your feedback about Mr Smooth and our new site - please keep it coming! If you have any questions, please fire away.

It's a big site with lots of information but we've worked hard to structure it heavily towards individual needs with the beginner/intermediate/advanced/coach layout. This individual approach that gives you the information and encouragement to think for yourself as a swimmer is a key part of the Swim Smooth philosophy.

Cheers!

Adam
Swim Smooth


Edited by Adam Young 2009-08-15 4:32 AM

Observations I had:

1) The swimmer never get's his mouth out of the water to breath.

2) The swimmer always breathes every 3. Many (most?) of the great swimmers of today breath every 2.

3) The wrist is overly bent at the catch phase.

One other point, quote in the video
"...locks onto the water, and pushes the water directly back behind him"

You don't actually push the water anywhere. You push against the water and your body moves forward.

Actually you do a bit of both.  Water is indeed incompressible, but because of your dynamic motion you do move water. 

I'm a really slow swimmer.  I've been told my technique is good, but the fastest I can achieve is maybe 2:30 per 100 meters.  I was looking at the Wetronome that Swim Smooth offers for sale.  What do you think about using something like this to help a slow swimmer get faster?

I would suggest that before you invest in the Wetronome (haven't read the website but I assume it is just a metronome so you can increase turnover) that you look at the following:

1)  Different coach(es) to look at your technique - swimming at 2:30/100m it is almost impossible to have good technique; there are likely several areas to improve that will bring your swim times down
2)  Video - useful in many ways to see what you are doing, but especially if you can't find a coach that will give you feedback on how to improve your technique, tape yourself swimming and either find a coach to send it to or post it here
3)  Group - masters or coached triclub swim - swimming with others with a coach on the deck is by far the best way to improve IMO
4)  Swim more - it appears your swim volume is right around 10k a month; in order to realize improvements in the water, you would be better served aiming for a weekly volume of 10k

Good luck,

Shane

Great stuff, Mr Smooth!

Quick question for you swimmers out there - I noticed that Mr. Smooth finishes his stroke a bit early (at least it seems to me) and thus sets him up for  a nice elbow catch. however, that does shorten the stroke length a few inches. What's the "correct" way to finish the stroke according to swim gurus? 

Hi meepx2,

Thanks for your critique! To discuss your points:

1) I'm not quite sure what you mean? He breathes in the bow wave trough (I've used a multiple angle shot here from the Pro Console):



2) This is an interesting point for debate. Some great swimmers do only breathe to one side when racing, the thing is we never see them in training. Most of those guys will breathe bilaterally in some form during training to keep their strokes balanced. For 'normal' swimmers like ourselves breathing bilaterally is hugely beneficial in training. You can read more about that here: www.swimsmooth.com/bilateral, but here's one quick reason: When you breathe swimmers tend to concentrate hard on the action of breathing - making sure they get the breath in, it's only natural to do this. If you breathe on every stroke to one side (say to your left) the extension and simultaneous catch on the other side (the right arm) never gets any of your attention - the focus is always on breathing. Here we have the hardest part of your stroke to get right (the catch) and we're never concentrating on it on one side of the stroke. When we watch swimmers who only breathe to one side (unliatelly) 99% of the time (I'm not exagerating) we see major problems on that opposite arm and catch - cross overs, pushing down on the water, dropped elbows etc. By breathing every 3 strokes you go from breathing every stroke on that offside arm to 1 in 3 strokes - a massive improvement in your attention on that catch, allowing you to concentrate on it and develop it.  This is just one reason of many why we believe bilateral breathing is a very good discipline in training. If you train bilaterally then when racing you can swim how conditions and strategy dictate, there might well be an advantage in breathing to one side only to watch a competitor or avoid the sun or swell.

3) Ah, many people spot that and wonder about it so I'm glad you've brought that up. The 'cocked wrist' is a very heavily thought out part of our philiosophy on feel for the water, something we've extensively tested and refined with 'normal' swimmers. You can read more about it here: www.swimsmooth.com/aboutmrsmoothcatch
Suffice to say here that it has many benefits for non-elite swimmers like ourselves in improving our catch and feel for the water. We work with and study a lot of elite swimmers too; in the last few years this cocked wrist has emerging within elite distance freestyle, for instance you can see Rebecca Adlington (both distance golds in Beijing) using it to great effect here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VhZm2fj3Ck

I hope that clarifies some. When we developed Mr Smooth we were obviously trying to design a tool that would be widely used and appreciated by non-elite swimmers. It's not a project we undertook lightly, we debated long and hard about all aspects of his stroke and the stroke that is relevant to non-elite swimmers.

4) Another interesting point of debate. We use the phrase 'push the water back behind you' because swimmers relate to it in the right way - we find that using phrases like 'locking on' and 'anchoring' makes the swimmer look for a large force during the catch - this is only really possible by pushing down on the water and this is what many (most) end up doing. I'd agree that you want to minimise slipping but even in elite swimmers the hand and arm does move backwards and the viscosity of the water generates forward propulsive force from this movement which is beneficial to the swimmer. A simple example to demonstrate: Grant Hackett is 1.98m tall, which means his full reach (full front of the stroke to full back will be in the region of 2m - probably slightly more). He pushes off the wall for about 8m before getting into his stroke. He has 42m remaining to swim down the lap, given his total stroke length is 2m, he should take 21 strokes to cover that 42m if there was zero slippage. He actually takes 31-32 strokes.

I hope that was useful - good debate!

Cheers,

Adam

i am beginner / intermediate swimmer....trying to perfect my stroke, just downloaded the app.  very very cool.  Thanks adam.

i think i can watch this for hours....

Hey CitySky,

Thanks for the great feedback - that's very interesting and somethign we'll certainly bear in mind. We like to think that splitting advice up 4 ways (beginner, intermediate, advanced and coach) is a lot better than one section but each section is still still quite wide yes.

What speed per 100m are you approximately? You know, these speed ranges are just a guide. If you feel that the advice in the intermediate section is more applicable to you then please read those articles! It's really not our aim to pidgeon hole people - instead we're keen for swimmers to understand swimming and be able to think for themselves. The struture of the site is designed to help with that but if it doesn't...

Specifically on exhalation - 95% of swimmers in the beginner speed range don't exhale properly into the water. You might be in the 5% of them who do but I'd encourage you to consider that you could exhale better. Good exhalation helps you relax and allow you to swim faster without reaching your breathing limit. Do you ever feel short of breath when you swim? If you do then improving your exhalation could well be the key to increasing your speed. Why not try out the sink downs described here and then swim an easy lap of freestyle - you might be surprised at the results. Just a suggestion: http://www.swimsmooth.com/exhalation_beg.html/>
Adam

Thank yojimbo, you know we looked into this quite a bit. We found it really hard to fit our methodology into systems like that. It's why we chose to go our own way with our soon to be released training plans: www.swimsmooth.com/trainingplans - supplied in a waterproof booklet to take poolside. They have extensive explanations of drills and the stroke, a progression in the training as your fitness increases and lots of advice, testing and techniques to help you get your training paces right. I wouldn't rule out such a tie-up in the future but the sites will have to offer much greater level of information to the overall program before we'd be happy to go that route.

Adam

Hi Leah, many coaches might poo-poo the idea of someone in the 2:30 speed bracket using a tool like the Wetronome - saying you've got to learn the basics of the stroke before focusing on stroke rate. To some extent this is true - but here's something from my experience:

I coach 5 or 6 women a week who are a similar speed to yourself, as a rule they all lack confidence in the water and struggle a little to co-ordinate the stroke. Each one finds using a Wetronome to set stroke rate to be a very positive experience. It gives them something to focus on and swim to - it sets a tempo for them when there is very little rhythm in their stroke. These girls all have stroke rates in the low 40s per minute which is extremely slow - their arm stroke is so slow and gentle under the water they're getting very little propulsion from it. For sure their catch and pull action is also fairly poor but even if you took someone with a perfect catch action and slowed down their stroke that much they're not going to get much propulsion from it.

By raising their stroke rate a bit (depending how tall them are, into the 50-60 strokes per minute range) we can give them a tempo to work to. The resultant positive stroke action helps them generate much more propulsion (still not a huge amount but it's all relative). Once they are feeling some propulsion they start to get a feel for the water and from there we can work on improving their stroke action as they start to feel what's going on.

It's not about putting more effort in or working harder, it's about getting them in touch with a positive rhythm and timing to the stroke. Without seeing you swim Leah I can't be sure but I think it's very likely you'd fall into this catagory and a Wetronome would be a worthwhile investment to help you set a tempo for your swimming.

Any coaches or technical swimmers out there might find this article interesting (my words above explain why we have 'overly low stroke rate' in level 1): www.swimsmooth.com/hierarchy

Hope that helps, Adam

Hi BabsVa, that's a good observation. For sure there's something in that - the trough is smaller at lower speeds. All I would say is try not to use that as an excuse to accept bad breathing technique (e.g. lifting the head to breathe or turning it late). Plenty of 2:00+/100 swimmers have perfect breathing technique keeping their head low in the water and looking across the pool rather than skywards. One problem with poor breathing technique like lifting your head is that it's a viscous circle - lift the head partly out of the water and the bow wave will reduce further!

Hope that helps, Adam