New Year New You...reopened for late comers (Page 29)

I am reading an article about the importance of the recovery stroke when swimming. in general, it is important to keep in mind that the recovery stroke takes as little effort as possible and is efficient to allow your arm to actually "recover". you will want this part of the stroke to be quick and use as little energy as possible.

one way to "get a feel" for how your arm should rotate through is to drag your finger tips along the water while arm is bringing itself to the forward position.

another interesting point in the article is the natural rotation of the arms. it is difficult to some to pat your head and rub your tummy; even though it can be done, it isn't something that is naturally done and is awkward. because the swim stroke naturally using your shoulders in pivoting your arms backward or forward, they are naturally opposite of each other. when one arm is completely forward, the other is completely back. likewise, when the recovery is completely upward, your other arm is completely down. with that said, a slow recovery stroke = a slow pull stroke. a straight arm recovery stroke = a straight arm pull stroke. a bent arm recovery = a bent arm pull.

please comment any feedback you have or questions about my post =)

12 days to go....how's the training going?

I have the finger tip drill in my workout for tomorrow morning so I'll try and relax the recovery arm as much as possible. Still my biggest problem is being out of breath after 75m of freestyle. I can swim 1000m fine but have to mix in breaststroke to get through it. Its not arm fatigue its effort and my heart rate going through the roof.

I really still struggle in the pool. My legs are low and I have to virtually look at my own navel to get them to lift. Very frustrating after 8 months of work.

I think I'm going to try and swim even slower. My plan calls for 3m 17s / 100m but I find I simply can't swim that slowly as I sink like a stone. So I swim much quicker and I'm out of breath after 75m

Thanks for the post David and if you have a cure for my swimming ills I'm all ears!

Wish I could see a video of how you are currently swimming. It would help tremendously to give additional advise on what you are doing and what you can do to correct the problems.

A quick article about keeping your feet up
http://silkyswimmer.com/sinking-legs-swimming/

Quite some time ago, I mentioned about pushing off the wall and see how far you glide. If you are only going a couple feet, you are definitely not streamlined for the water. By making little adjustments here and there, you should have no problem gliding past the area where the lane-line changes color (the lane lines usually are solid within a couple yards from the wall).

If your toes are pointed too much, your forward motion will not help with the lifting of your feet. I know it sounds backwards, but you create drag on your feet (not legs) to help with the lift.

If your lifting too much in the upper body, it will cause your feet to sink as well. I know it was mentioned that your head will help with keeping you flat. But, if you are also arching your back, this will cause the upper body to lift and the lower body to sink. Relaxing the mid section will benefit you two ways, a flatter swim along with using less energy.

Drill:
** Of course you already have the finger tips in the water drill
** Try using a pull buoy between your legs at around the calf area. If a buoy is not available, use a kick board between your calves. This will lift your legs up and allow you to "feel" the balance between the upper body and lower body. It might feel extremely weird especially if you are used to lifting your upper body, the floating legs will cause your upper body to feel like it's sinking (but it's not)
** Superman glide off the wall to see how far you can go; works on streamlining your body to the water (all about feel)
** Long strokes with pull buoy
** Use closed fists while swimming to see if your "arms" are pulling water or is it just your hands; adjust where needed
** Use a kick board to practice flutter kick... very important, make sure your arms are straight and in front of you while holding the kick board.

The whole thing about heart rate and fatigue and out of breath...
1) keep in mind that 25m was difficult for you in the beginning; you have made progress
2) i seriously doubt that it is dealing with your physical fitness level cause you can run, run, run for long distances, right?
3) relax as much as you can, if you are "fighting" the water, you are using way too much energy... breaststroke at a racing pace should actually take more energy from you than freestyle at racing pace
4) where are the videos??? hehehe

Rob, hope some of these things help you. Let me know if you've done these things above or not. I can see about getting more ideas or information for you... Good luck and don't give up =)

Hey Rob! Training is going alright. Haven't been able to get in as much as I want, but what I have done is going well. I was on vacation for the last 5 days, so I didn't get much done then. I planned to swim, but it turns out Lake Michigan is actually pretty cold right now, so that didn't happen. I did have a great bike/run workout about a week ago that felt really good, so hopefully I'm alright for the race. I'll get a few quick workouts in this week, but don't want to overdo it. I'm hoping the forecast changes though. It's supposed to be hot and stormy.

Thanks for checking in! And I hope you figure out your sinking legs issue. I had a heck of a time swimming more than 50-100 until I figured out how to get my legs to quit sinking, so I know how frustrating that can be.

Your event is this Saturday, right? Hopefully the weather is in your favor =)
if you are not familiar with dealing with the heat for an event, it can be a horrible experience. Maybe some of the links might have some useful information for you to help prepare.

http://www.trijuice.com/2011/07/triathlon_training_tips_for_exercis...
http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Tips-for-Triathlon-Trainin...

The end result is to stay properly hydrated and to get your body use to the heat by exercising in the hot weather over days and gradually increasing your time out in the heat. =)

About the swimming, do you have any possible tips that you can provide that helped you with your kicking? Maybe something that you've done could help Rob and/or others =)

Good luck with your event...

Thanks David, I'm going to try these things in the off season for sure. Don't worry, no quitting!

My event is this Sunday. There's currently a 70% chance it'll storm. Hopefully that at least holds off until the afternoon. And on the bright side, doesn't look like it's going to be as hot as they thought. I ran outside in the heat/humidity yesterday and it was rough, so I'm hoping it's not that bad.

As for my sinking leg fix - my biggest problem was that I kicked with my knees bent too much, which caused my legs to sink. I just had to really concentrate on straightening my legs and use flippers to get the feel for what my kick should be. Once I got the kick figured out, my balance improved greatly and it was much easier to float. Not sure how much that helps, but that's what mine was.

(fingers crossed) hope that your event has great weather =)

that is a very good suggestion about the flippers. i believe that it might of been mentioned at the beginning of the year as well.
the flippers will force you to use your whole leg instead of just the lower part. the kick needs to originate from the hips with a gentle flex at the joints to give a "whip" affect to the water.

http://theswimmingexpert.com/why-use-fins-or-flippers-when-swimming...
http://www.enjoy-swimming.com/how-to-swim-faster.html

differences between short blade and long blade fins
http://swimswam.com/why-short-blade-fins-vs-long-blade-fins/



Edited by [email protected] 2014-08-27 12:46 PM

Well...the weather was awful for this event. It poured the entire time. But at least it wasn't super hot, so that helped.

Here are my times:
Total - 1:45:00
Swim - 20:16
T1 - 1:55
Bike - 53:48
T2 - 1:53
Run - 27:07

My swim was about a minute longer than my last swim. I attribute that to getting really off course. My goggles were really fogged up and I couldn't see where I was going. I'm amazed I wasn't slower than this even, given how far off course I was. Also, I don't think I spent enough time in the pool leading up to this one - my arms got pretty tired by the end. Also, the beginning of this one was much tougher. Last time, they launched 3-4 people at a time.

I was pretty disappointed with the bike time, even though it was pouring rain the entire time. The course was tough. Out and back, almost all uphill on the way out. It took me just over 30 minutes to get out, so my return trip was much faster. Also, after I mapped the course, I realized it was longer than it was supposed to be (14.4 m instead of 12.4). So now I feel pretty good about the time. Overall, that's an average of 16mph (over 18 on the way back), which is pretty good for me given the pouring rain.

My run this time was much faster. I had to stop to stretch about 2 miles in because my calves were so tight I could feel it in the arches of my feet. I stopped for about 30 seconds, but my 5k time was still about 2 1/2 minutes faster than last time. This course was also out and back - down on the way out and up on the way back. So I'm particularly happy with the run leg of this event.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this. My swim was slower, but my pace on both bike and run were faster. Also, just finishing this one felt like a huge victory. Mentally, it was much harder than my first one. I wanted to quit several times during the bike and during the second transition. I felt miserable pretty much the entire race. But crossing the finish line made it worth it. I just hope this was the wettest tri I will ever do! (=

Congratulations on a "very" successful triathlon.

With the triathlons that you've done, you can definitely say that there is quite a lot of mental preparation needed to compete and finish. It sounds like you were 100% prepared mentally; you didn't quit and you kept moving forward til the finish line. You took the bad like the weather and the uphill / downhill and made your needed adjustments to not only complete the triathlon, but to also put in times that are competitive to even yourself.

You should definitely be proud of your accomplishment in this last race. Mental preparedness is just as important as the physical.

Congratulations again. A major win for you =)

Some information that might help with understanding your swim style and what you can do to improve from there.

http://tridot.com/blog/the-6-common-swim-types/

Happy New Year (2015) everybody... You can find me on Facebook (if interested). Search for "[email protected]". Hope everybody's 2015 is successful =)