swbkrun Mentor Group- CLOSED FOR BUSINESS!!! (Page 328)

SSMinnow - 2010-10-07 10:17 AM Hello Peeps....newsflash...I've surpassed my swimming yardage from last year and spent nearly 50 less hours doing it....so why the he$$ am I still so slow.....Question for the swimming gurus....today, the Master's coach had me do a 100 with and without the pull buoy.  Result: 15 seconds faster with the pull than without....I know lots of people are faster this way, but what do I need to do to get them more equal????  He gave me his POV, but what's yours?

kt65 - 2010-10-07 11:32 AM Not to hijack Suzy's query, but is anyone slower with the pull buoy? I cannot figure out how to go any faster...and according to the workouts posted, we should be 5 sec faster with per 50 than without. I am about 5 sec faster without than with!

badgerintx - 2010-10-07 1:11 PM

First of all .....  Congrats on the yardage.  Not sure that I qualify as a "guru" (sorry to re-use that word....how is the poor little RU anyway?) but I can hold my own in the pool and it sounds purely like a body positioning issue because you are barging.  A couple of questions need to be answered to start:

-  Chest position is the most important, how are your legs trailing when you are really working on your chest position in the water?  If they trail properly when you are really concentrating on chest position then you know what you need to do.  Kind of like a good bike fit, that solves 90% of the issue alone if it keeps your feet up.  Just takes lots of swim time and drills to implement for it to become "normal." 

-  Head position during your glide versus your breath stroke because as your head comes up, your feet go down.  No way around it!  Do you feel your lower back when you swim... if so you need to drop your head position.  If you are breathing up and to the side instead of staying down and back or "into your armpit" it will drop your legs every time you breath.  Also, what position is your head returning to after your breath stroke, down or forward.  OWS can hurt a triathletes head position over time due to us always wanting to sight forward, that just means we need to work harder on returning our head position correctly after a sight or breath. 

-  Are you using a 2 beat kick?  If so, the kick should really be used to help your complete rotation on each stroke and also help keep your feet at the top of the pool, if done properly.  I like to actually try to feel my heels out of water a little with each kick when I really focusing on form to ensure my legs are trailing properly.  There are some great u-tube videos on proper 2 beat kick form.    

Just my $.02.  I would suggest you focus on one little area at a time like you do with a golf swing. Swim some on your own and play with your head position / chest position and see what helps and what doesn't.  Then comes the hard part of figuring out how to change the muscle memory to that becoming your normal stroke.  

Dino