Real Swim Critique

I thought I would post this as I think many people might find it valuable. I had the chance to work with Dr G (Dr. Genadijus Sokolovas)...you can google to get all his credentials but basically he's pretty much "the man" when it comes to Olympic swimming and on the very forefront of swimming technique. This was an unbelievable opportunity.

We did four quick swimming power tests. The order in the video is pull, kick, swim, sight.

The test was at our goal race pace. Given that I'm a triathlete, I tried to go at mile pace. I would suspect it was just a touch faster given the excitement on the test.

Here is the video of the power test

Here is a video of a quick analysis he did for me

Here are the complete recommendations he gave me. One thing to note...he does not tell you what you are doing right. Only things you do wrong and how to correct them. So you pretty much leave there thinking you absolutely have no clue how to swim...lol.

SWIM POWER TEST                                                          Date: November 20^th, 2011

Athlete: Dusty Nabor

Swim Stroke: Freestyle

Recommendations

1. Your head position is too high during the swimming, especially right before the breathing. Because of high head position, your hips and legs are lower than shoulders during the swim. As result, you create more frontal drag and using more energy to swim forward. Try to extend your neck and watch down. Imagine that you swim downhill. The more extended neck, the lower frontal drag. Swim with a snorkel to keep your head lower.
2. You are driving your stroke from head and shoulders, but not from hips. As result, you are losing balance during the swim. Keep your neck extended and avoid any vertical/lateral head/shoulder movements. Rotate more from your hips. Avoid using shoulders and arms/hands for rotation. Drill: both arms on the sides, kicking with fins and rotating slowly from one side to other, breathe on every side.
3. Use body muscles and hips to generate propulsion. By rotating from the hips, you should help the arm to move underwater stronger and faster. Exercise on land: pulling on the Vertical Swim Trainer and balance exercises on the Bosu ball.
4. You are losing balance when breathing. Initiate the head rotation from the hips – rotate hips more for breathing. Drill: Keep one arm on the side, other arm is above the surface in bent position. Kick strongly and rotate from the hips to breathe.
5. Your breathing takes too long to complete. Therefore, you are losing the balance at the end of the breathing. Try to reduce duration of the breathing by exhaling air from your lungs faster at the end of the pull and inhaling as fast as possible.
6. Avoid pressing straight arm down at the beginning of the stroke. Try to establish a high-elbow position at the beginning of the stroke by bending the elbow. Drill for the high-elbow position: do the first half of the stroke only by establishing high-elbow position, fingertips are always pointed down.
7. You are losing velocity significantly at the beginning of the left arm stroke. Most likely, you are pressing right arm too much down. Try to extend arm forward on the surface and establish a high-elbow position by bending right arm in the elbow. Point fingertips down as early as possible at the beginning of the stroke. Drill: swimming with one paddle on the weakest (right) hand.
8. In the pulling test, your swimming velocity doesn’t increase until your arm reaches the shoulder line. It indicates that you are not connecting arms to the body muscles (abdominal and lower back muscles) from the beginning of the stroke. Drills on land: pulling stretch cords on land with short stops at the beginning and middle of the stroke, pulling exercises on land on unstable base (Vertical Swim Trainer, physioballs or Bosu balls).
9. Move your arms with acceleration towards the end of the stroke. It will help to keep a higher swimming velocity during the stroke.
10. You are crossing legs during the swim. It happens because of driving a stroke from upper body. You should drive stroke from hips. Drill: Swimming with fins emphasizing very strong kick to avoid crossing feet.
11. Separate sighting from breathing unless there waves and you have to lift your head higher. Normally, you should lift just eyes above the surface.