Swim technique question.

I've never really studied swim techniques before but I swam competitively my whole life. My technique has always been to just hesitate a split second before I start my pull after entering the water to get my other hand out of the water and then my hand is pulling all the way through. I couldn't really see any point in letting your hand drift without pulling, seeing as this is a few inches or so of pulling that you won't be using. My stroke counts down around 16-18/25yds or 20/25m. My pull is real fast with some time in between and this might have just been how I've learned over the years.

don't pull, plant. You do pull your hand all the way back to your hip, but think of it more as planting you hand in the water and pulling your body foreward. If you feel your hand moving backwards in the water, then you losing traction and need to chill out.

What you really want to do is anchor that lead hand by keeping your elbow high and bending at the elbow.  This will create a large "paddle" with your entire forearm and hand.  Think of it as "grabbing the water wit that paddle and pulling your body past it rather than pulling with the hand and throwing the water back behind you.  The tricky part at your stage is that this take a good bit of concentration to do correctly and it's really best to have only a single focal point for each drill.  So if you're focused on holding that lead hand in front as you "zipper" the recovering arm forward it will require a quick change in focus  to the anchor as soon as you begin the switch.  Basically, if all the parts of the zipper (head facing down, lead hand relaxed, shoulders stacked, relaxed arm leading with the recovering elbow) aren't pretty much automatic then thinking about the switch and anchor will be a bit too much to add.  For now it's fine not to think too much about the lead hand and arm but you don't want to let the elbow drop because that's what leads to pushing down to support the body which messes with your balance in the water.  

What FRB said.

Like your question about kicking, it is good to start thinking of these things now.  It sounds like you have made outstanding progress so far!  2:00/100yd is not a shabby pace at all.  Personally, I did not start thinking about the pulling part of my stroke until after I had done all the TI progressions...not out of any devotion to TI, or sense of order, I just didn't feel that the pull was my limiting factor. 

Again, having only one focus at a time is the best way to integrate new methods.  Don't be afraid to move on to the next TI focus before you've got the pull totally figured out if you want to continue learning new things.  Everyonce in awhile something magical will happen while you are swimming and all the words in a book or a forum will be unable to explain a feeling of things "clicking" when you get it right. 

"Elbow High" was a difficult concept for me to get while in the water because your orientation is different...your body is horizontal and your head points toward a wall...I could never figure out of high meant towards the cieling or towards teh wall in front of you.

Basically, to get maximum pull (or PLANT), you create as much surface area as possible to anchor your body in teh water as you go past your arm.  Your hand and forearm up to teh elbow create this surface area.  THis means that your wrist has to be straight and your forearm perpendicular to your forward direction.  , or in other words, perpendicular to the side walls of the pool, parallel to the front and back pool walls.  Whether this orientation of the plane of your forearm points up and down, diagonally or side to side I think is irrelevant, as that will change depending on your body rotation. 

Others may disagree with me on this last paragraph, but I wanted to try to explain how I interpret "high elbow" because it was confusing for me at first.  Hopefullly I haven't confused you more!

But don't forget, it's OK to move on to a different focus if you don't feel you can get this particular one, but good that these ideas are starting to come to you as you get better!

It might be helpful to think of "high elbow" as meaning your elbow should be be closer to the surface than your forearm and hand...but your arm shouldn't be straight.  So if you keep your arm completely straight and start to drop your whole arm without bending the elbow your elbow will be higher but the force of your arm and hand against the water will be up/down rather than forward/back.  By letting your elbow flare out to the side some and flexing the joint you can now use shoulder rotation to direct the force in the right direction.  This would be so much easier if i could just show you what I'm trying to describe. 

I'll reiterate: Do something with your hand! Your recovering hand isn't propelling you foreward, so focus on the hand in the water. The whole catch-up feeling is supposed to lengthen you out, but otherwise pull effectively!

Edit: by the way, if you decrease to 20strokes per 25y, you won't be swimming at 2:00/100y anymore... try 1:40ish

Edited by So Fresh So Clean 2006-01-15 5:44 PM

If you're swimming whole stroke then by all means you need to be efficient with all aspects of the stroke.  But if you're doing TI drills then concentrate on a single focal point at a time.  Once you have a solid handle on the individual pieces then you can start to add them together.  Under and zipper switches are meant to teach you proper form and technique with the recovering arm and also to make you focus on not beginning the switch too soon...generating propulsion isn't of primary concern until you nail the technique and body postion.

Thank you all for the great advice and explanations. I will reward the time you have taken by working hard to improve my performance.