Correcting swim form - what has worked for you? (Page 2)

The single biggest swi break throughs for me came when a good coach, the late Doug Stern, looked at my stroke and hit me in the head with a kick board.

Then, once he had my attention, he found one thing to work on. I had a number of basic problems with my stroke but Doug picked the one that exerted the most profoundly negative effect on my swim speed. In my case it was crossing over at the front of the stroke.

He made the observation then quickly imprinted a technique for visualizing the correction: "Swim so it feels like your hands are way out here..." he said as he jestured a swim stroke with hands way too far apart than optimal.

I did what he said it worked with my bad hand placement. Since I stopped crossing over I swam straighter. Since I swam straighter I was a little faster. Since I was a little faster I was excited about the improvement and wanted more. But Doug meted out the improvements at a gradual rate, allowing one to sink in and become rote until he introduced the next, checking in with me while swimming, observing and reinforcing that I was doing it right.

Then he moved on to my kick, demonstrating that every other kick my feet and legs seperated an unnecessarily wide amount. We worked on that for two days, and it got better.

To this day I remember his advice and am mindful of those elements of my stroke. That worked for me to this day.