In advance, apologies if swimming related questions are to be posted in another forum. If so, let me know and I'll post this in the other forum:
1. I'm having trouble concentrating on a million things when freesytle swimming. Bi-lateral breathing, exhaling with the nose and inhaling with the mouth, keeping myself completely straight in the water, etc... I know that that's the point of drills, but how do you focus on 1 and not the rest exactly? As an example: if I'm focusing on gliding through the water long by practicing the catch-up drill, Ihave a habit of inhaling/exhaling with my mouth (but at the back of my mind, I know I want to be exhaling with my nose). How can I focus on both? It just seems difficult!! Seems like a million things to focus on.
2. I notice that when I'm practicing 100m swims, my arms are actually getting tired, but the kicker is that I am starting to focus on technique a lot only when I'm tired more because it seems like I don't have a choice! Do you guys ever feel the same sometimes? To further clarify, I believe that in proper freestyle, I'm rarely using my arms, and using my back a lot more. If that's the case after my first 100m, because my arms are so tired, I 'feel' like I'm using my back a lot more to glide through the water.
3. I have MAJOR problems trying to exhale with my nose. I can't control the breathing and whenever I try to breathe out with my nose, I feel like theres WAY too much pressure on my nose. It hurts my nose for some reason. Do you guys feel that ever? I feel so much more comfortable blowing little bubbles out of my mouse. I've started to exhale with my nose and mouth, but I'm ridiculously inconsistent.
4. Are there any drills that focus on keep my head out of the water 'correctly' rather than over reaching?
5. I find that when I'm NOT doing my drills, I'm using the finger dragging technique regardless. For some reason, I find that I can keep myself in control using that. Is it okay to just finger drag even in my normal swim workouts?
6. If I want to post my videos so that you can see my stoke and help correct it, where can I post them up? Any suggestions?
In advance, apologies if swimming related questions are to be posted in another forum. If so, let me know and I'll post this in the other forum: This is the right place!
1. I'm having trouble concentrating on a million things when freesytle swimming. Bi-lateral breathing, exhaling with the nose and inhaling with the mouth, keeping myself completely straight in the water, etc... I know that that's the point of drills, but how do you focus on 1 and not the rest exactly? As an example: if I'm focusing on gliding through the water long by practicing the catch-up drill, Ihave a habit of inhaling/exhaling with my mouth (but at the back of my mind, I know I want to be exhaling with my nose). How can I focus on both? It just seems difficult!! Seems like a million things to focus on. Who says you need to exhale from your nose?
2. I notice that when I'm practicing 100m swims, my arms are actually getting tired, but the kicker is that I am starting to focus on technique a lot only when I'm tired more because it seems like I don't have a choice! Do you guys ever feel the same sometimes? To further clarify, I believe that in proper freestyle, I'm rarely using my arms, and using my back a lot more. If that's the case after my first 100m, because my arms are so tired, I 'feel' like I'm using my back a lot more to glide through the water. Intersting. I can't even imagine how yo are using your back? Maybe I'm missing something?
3. I have MAJOR problems trying to exhale with my nose. I can't control the breathing and whenever I try to breathe out with my nose, I feel like theres WAY too much pressure on my nose. It hurts my nose for some reason. Do you guys feel that ever? I feel so much more comfortable blowing little bubbles out of my mouse. I've started to exhale with my nose and mouth, but I'm ridiculously inconsistent.
4. Are there any drills that focus on keep my head out of the water 'correctly' rather than over reaching?
5. I find that when I'm NOT doing my drills, I'm using the finger dragging technique regardless. For some reason, I find that I can keep myself in control using that. Is it okay to just finger drag even in my normal swim workouts?
6. If I want to post my videos so that you can see my stoke and help correct it, where can I post them up? Any suggestions?
Thank you for any advice you can give me.
I am just getting back into swimming myself, and have had no lessons (since a masters swim class 5 years ago.) Interesting questions. My philosophy on swimming is that if I wanted to do drills, I would have joined the military. I know that wasn't helpful, but I wanted to bump your post back up! :-)
I think there can be some good benefits by starting simple. When I am teaching breathing technique, stroke technique, body position, etc., it helps to eliminate some things. For example, use a kickboard and do several lengths just kicking and practicing breathing and kicking. Then do the front crawl arm motions, still holding the kickboard to practice bi-lateral breathing. Then use a pull buoy and do arms-only front crawl and focus on arms and breathing without the kickboard.
Basically, find swim drills that will work on your technique and then start putting it all together.
3. I have MAJOR problems trying to exhale with my nose. I can't control the breathing and whenever I try to breathe out with my nose, I feel like theres WAY too much pressure on my nose. It hurts my nose for some reason. Do you guys feel that ever? I feel so much more comfortable blowing little bubbles out of my mouse. I've started to exhale with my nose and mouth, but I'm ridiculously inconsistent.
You are definitely doing it wrong. But you gave me a great giggle.
I think you are trying to do too much at once. Focus on one thing at a time at this point in your swimming. For you that would be breathing. I tell people if I can get you to breathe properly in the water I can teach you to swim well.
First thing: exhaling should be relaxed. Do not try to explosive breathe through your nose. If you feel pressure then let the air exhale through both your nose and mouth. More importantly, why are you exhaling only through your nose? The only time I exhale only through my nose is when I am upside down in the midst of my flip turn.
In advance, apologies if swimming related questions are to be posted in another forum. If so, let me know and I'll post this in the other forum:
1. I'm having trouble concentrating on a million things when freesytle swimming. Bi-lateral breathing, exhaling with the nose and inhaling with the mouth, keeping myself completely straight in the water, etc... I know that that's the point of drills, but how do you focus on 1 and not the rest exactly? As an example: if I'm focusing on gliding through the water long by practicing the catch-up drill, Ihave a habit of inhaling/exhaling with my mouth (but at the back of my mind, I know I want to be exhaling with my nose). How can I focus on both? It just seems difficult!! Seems like a million things to focus on.
Sounds like analysis paralysis. Get flat in the water, deep pull, and try and kick. keep it simple. once your comfortable there then add a something else. Trying to work on too much just turns out to be a mess.
2. I notice that when I'm practicing 100m swims, my arms are actually getting tired, but the kicker is that I am starting to focus on technique a lot only when I'm tired more because it seems like I don't have a choice! Do you guys ever feel the same sometimes? To further clarify, I believe that in proper freestyle, I'm rarely using my arms, and using my back a lot more. If that's the case after my first 100m, because my arms are so tired, I 'feel' like I'm using my back a lot more to glide through the water.
Using more of your back is the goal (lats to be more specific) both in pulling with the lats and extending for your glide. Arms are still part of the game though. Everyone gets tired arms, even if they use their back muscles.
3. I have MAJOR problems trying to exhale with my nose. I can't control the breathing and whenever I try to breathe out with my nose, I feel like theres WAY too much pressure on my nose. It hurts my nose for some reason. Do you guys feel that ever? I feel so much more comfortable blowing little bubbles out of my mouse. I've started to exhale with my nose and mouth, but I'm ridiculously inconsistent.
Breathe like you would on land. Steady and rhythmic. Nose, mouth or both. Doesn't matter. Don't overthink.
4. Are there any drills that focus on keep my head out of the water 'correctly' rather than over reaching?
Not really sure what you're asking. You want your head out of the water and therefore you won't overreach? You lost me.
5. I find that when I'm NOT doing my drills, I'm using the finger dragging technique regardless. For some reason, I find that I can keep myself in control using that. Is it okay to just finger drag even in my normal swim workouts?
Odds are you have a poor rotation. swimming flat in the water makes it harder to get your arms (and therefore fingers) out of the water. fingertip drill helps with rotation and those fingers should brush your ear and check comfortably as you recover. If your fingers are touching the water but not your ear and check, then rotation is your issue.
6. If I want to post my videos so that you can see my stoke and help correct it, where can I post them up? Any suggestions? I use youtube. works pretty well.
You might ask somebody experienced (friend, instructor) to check out your form and pay close attention to your head position and breathing action. One quick lesson made a world of difference to me. The instructor quickly corrected my head position, and breathing quickly got a whole lot easier, making it easier to pay attention to all of the other stuff.
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2010-12-23 12:02 PM
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Subject: Swim related questions
Manchester, NH
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