Nov 15-Dec 15 "Swim Speed Secrets" Book Club (Page 7)

I received the swim workouts in the mail today. These are going to be GREAT. The booklet that comes with it is a great review of the book itself with the addition of how to actually DO the skills and the workouts.

Just breezing through the cards makes me want to run to the pool RIGHT NOW!! It is frustrating reading all of this and not being able to go try things out myself.

Patience, Grasshopper! (those who are old enough remember this).

Next week, or maybe this weekend if things are healing properly, I am going to try some of the tubing exercises.

I need to read the book again for the first question, but on the second it's hard to say for sure without seeing. But many tend to lift their entire head up which throws a lot of things off. It'll feel fairly level, but they'll actually turn it a bit (or a lot) more upright. I've learned to keep the top of my head down in the water more and think of getting my chin up. It feels a bit like I'm tilting my head down and drawing the chin in some to do this, but it actually stays about where it should. I don't think there should be much, if any, extra rotation for a breath.

What Ben describes sounds right.  Lifting the head forces the opposing arm to go down to try to balance you out and it's really, really hard to get a good catch with a high elbow in that scenario.

What Ben describes sounds right.  Lifting the head forces the opposing arm to go down to try to balance you out and it's really, really hard to get a good catch with a high elbow in that scenario.

A suggestion I'd received and have passed on is to keep the chin tucked into the chest/shoulder when breathing, it seems to help keep the head in a better position and to some degree aids or encourages the rotation. 

I just got the book and am behind the curve but hope to get in the pool Friday. I haven't got to the drills part,,,,,, 

Thanks Switch for this!!

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by ligersandtions

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by ligersandtions Been MIA for a few days, but I wanted to introduce myself as well. I'm Nicole and have little swim background. I did swimming lessons as a kid, but I always got swimmer's ear and as soon as I'd progressed far enough that my parents were content, I stopped....heh. For about five years, I was big into scuba diving and I took an advanced class that required us to be able to do 400m in someting like 12 minutes, so I got back in the water and quickly realized that it wasn't at all natural to me. After a few sessions, I was able to swim the 400m, and promptly stopped once again! Picked up the tri thing in 2012 and started swimming. I was probably in the 2:1X/100y range when I started and worked my way down to 2:0X/100y before I found a master's group and joined. I've now been swimming with my master's group for just over a year and have made some good progress. I did a 500m TT a couple weeks ago in 7:27 and was very pleased with it. Currently swimming 3x a week at about 10k/week. I'm through Chapter 5 of the book and have found it pretty interesting so far. I'd love to get some underwater video of my stroke....I think my right side is better than my left side. I feel like I do something slightly off on the left side that results in my left elbow "slipping" through the water a few inches before the catch part of the stroke actually starts. I'm hoping there will be an "ah-ha" moment reading the book shortly

Welcome Nicole

You really have made some awesome progress with your master's group! 

Re the R/L side thing--do  you breathe bilaterally or every 2?  Does that correlate in anyway to your (relative) L side weakness?

I can bilateral breathe, but I typically choose not to. There's a possibility that my choosing to breathe to one side (the left side) has resulted in this weird/bad habit I've gotten into. I do know that when I breathe to the other side, I still do it, so it's more that it's a habit/flaw in my left side, rather than related directly to which side I breathe to. Good news is that when I do breathe to my right, I don't do it there! We did an 800m continuous swim today -- came in at 12:26, so 1:33/100m (which, as it turns out, is my calculated CSS). I'd like to get that down to 12:00 over the next few months, but to be honest, I don't really enjoy doing such a long, continuous swim in practice. I feel like it allows people to get sloppy, whereas 8x100 with a few seconds to regroup between each 100 results in better form throughout.

Nice going on that! Your speed seems a bit hidden as you're on scm instead of scy as many other are. Time difference is roughly 10% between the two, which is a lot!

Yeah, that's exactly what I though when I saw those times--holy crap, that's METERS!  Nice job Nicole

I swim in a SCM pool and it takes some doing to keep the mental math going and remembering that 10% difference.  When I switched last summer I was freaked out by how slow I was appearing.

x2 on nice job, Nicole!

Yes! The visual that worked for me is to visualize a laser from the top of your head, pointing in front of you like a guidance signal. My mind can work with that and I can even play with the thought of that laser making a connection in front of me and when I am dead on, it pulls me along. (Mind games are evidently a good incentive for me).

Wasn't sure how masters would go tonight, but kept at it on things. Bunch of sprints late in the set. Hit a few :14's on the 25's and :30-31 on a bunch of 50's. Send off time was rather generous and there were easy reps in places, but I've still never hit these times before. Did help having someone fast in the next lane on the same interval to go after (coach) instead of only up ahead. Something really clicked with the catch & pull when we got to this stuff.

Ben, I also find having someone in the lane beside me that is just a bit faster to be a great motivator - much more so than someone in the same lane up ahead.

For my swim this morning my sole focus was on keeping the high elbow.  I don't know if I was any faster than usual but it sure made me realize how much I DON'T do it normally as focusing on doing it was getting me good and tired!  We did a tough (and interesting) set where we did 10x50 as 1-3 and 6-8 were on :40 and we had to hold the best avg pace we could with 2 ez 50s after.  My avg was around 32-33.  Then the coach pulled out the twist!  Next was 3 x 500 and for the 1st, 5th and 10th 50 of each we were to try to hit the avg pace from the previous 50s.  This was where thinking about that high elbow got really tough but I was able to come pretty close to making the goal, a couple of them were 34s but mostly 32 and 33.  

It's a really tough set if you ever want to try it!  I'm sitting at my desk at work and my lats, triceps and delts are all exhausted.  Good times.  

Wasn't sure how masters would go tonight, but kept at it on things. Bunch of sprints late in the set. Hit a few :14's on the 25's and :30-31 on a bunch of 50's. Send off time was rather generous and there were easy reps in places, but I've still never hit these times before. Did help having someone fast in the next lane on the same interval to go after (coach) instead of only up ahead. Something really clicked with the catch & pull when we got to this stuff.