Swim Update - My Form is Good but Catch is Weak

Yup.  I do the fist drills.  Have been doing them for awhile now.

At this point, I will try almost anything!

What is your "still slow" time per 100 during your x100 sets at moderate effort and hard?  Perhaps you can post an underwater video so we can see where you're possibly missing the catch?

You might want to pick up a copy of Sheila Taormina's book "Swim Speed Secrets"...its primary focus is on the catch and pull. 

No expert here, but it sounds like your hand is angling through the water when you initiate the pull.  You'll get a better pull if you visualize pulling yourself over a wall...you would do that with the greatest force if your hand was flat against the other side of the wall and not at an angle to the wall.  In other words, the left side of your hand should be even with the right side of your hand as you pull through the water.  It sounds like your hand might be at an angle in which case you wouldn't feel much resistance from the water when you performed your pull.  I'm guessing your coach wants you to do the skulling drills to get an idea of the resistance you should be feeling so that you can experiment with your regular stroke in order to mimic that feeling of resistance.  You might also try using paddles...if you hold them square you'll feel a lot of resistance ... if you hold them at a slight angle the water will slip right off them.  

Still slow times for 100m is about 2:25 at moderate and 2:10 at hard efforts.

The coach took some videos, I will see if I can post a link...I am not sure this link works but here it is:  

http://www.coachseye.com/OaBA

abd

http://www.coachseye.com/q6ZE

Those videos are helpful!  I'm sure others will chime in as well.

Good form and streamlining but yup, missed catch.  You have to reach further forward to the point where your arm is completely stretched out but not so much that your curve your body.  Keep your elbows high and engage the catch THEN pull.  Try being a bit more patient before you start your pull.  Let's start there.  Reeeeeeeeeeeeach!!!  Catch..............  then pull.  =)

I was EXACTLY where you were roughly 3 years ago. Was a hair faster, but still barely cracking 2:00/100meters all out at the time, so def BOP after a year and a half of learning to swim 'for real.'

Had my form checked out by 3 different coaches. All of them said the same thing - no major flaws, looks pretty good, decent catch (which can always be improved). Just gotta swim more. A LOT more.

Since then, (well, aside from this winter which was a wash!) I put in decent volume and intensity given the constraints of 3-sport training. It made all the difference. Honestly, I do not think it is remotely possible to have a 'powerful' catch unless you train the heck out of it. The beauty of that powerful catch isn't all technique - it's having the endurance and power to be able to really grab and move against that water. 

If your coaches are giving you the thumbs up, sounds like it's time to begin some swim suffering. Crank up the volume and intensity and watch those times drop. 

When it clicked for me I woke up one morning sophomore year high school and all of a sudden my 1:35 all out 100yd sprint became a 1:20. Big change.

The second video at about 0:30 when your coach is rewinding you, it looks like your hips are sinking quite a bit. When you take your fins off I imagine they'd drop even a little bit more. There's a couple ways to help with that and strengthening your core muscles will be a big one to help a lot. if you float without swimming, try to get your legs as close to horizontal as possible. That's a good drill to help give you a feel of what to aim for while swimming.

at 1:07 something that might give you a visualization on your catching water: I noticed you kind of drop your elbow a little bit which (is hard to verbalize what that does to your technique especially over text) will shorten up your effective stroke length by a lot. When you drop your elbow and pull back you're essentially moving your arms with very little to no horizontal water resistance. It's that resistance that propels you forward. There's a couple things that help with this:

• Constant reminder. Every stroke you take you need to be thinking "high elbow. High elbow."
• "The pause" drill. Its more for timing and smoothening out your dead spot, but it helped with visualizing where your arm needs to be. You do it by taking a huge deliberate pause right before your fingers touch the water. The arm that's entering should still have its shoulder higher than the extended arm. While paused, focus on keeping your elbow higher than your forearm. When you pause, that's when you initiate the catch phase with your other arm. High elbow. High elbow. Pause with the other arm, visualize, initiate catch phase with opposite arm, high elbow. repeat.

Your coach targets this at about 2:14 where you put a lot of force in the vertical direction instead of parallel to where you wanna go. A drill that comes to mind is an "early catch" drill where you swim regularly with two tweaks: You extend out pretty far (maintaining high elbow) and as soon as possible you'll exaggerate your hand, then forearm dipping down to get perpendicular with the surface of the water. It should feel like your strokerate will go up significantly. Dunno if anyone wants to chime in on this.

His next comment at 2:36. Try to keep your entering arm as high and as straight in the water as possible before you dip your fingers/palm/forearm. You create a lot of drag by going in at a steep angle like that and shorten your effective stroke length pretty significantly.

80% of your swim speed comes from proper form. That's why 12 year olds can swim a 100 meter long course in under a minute. Granted, they're very powerful, but they're also highly efficient. the 1500m LCM record for the 11&12 age group is 16:45 but that emphasizes my point. over something that long, kids at that age aren't packing much muscle. They're powerful, but definitely topping out efficiency.

Also, make sure to not focus on everything at the same time or your body will never get it. I'd recommend trying to do two at a time max. Keeping your hips up should be on its own, though, that takes a lotta mental effort.

Not a fish myself, but I strongly disagree that the speed is 80%+ technique. It probably is if you're really slow, but once you're going under around 1:50/100, fitness is huge.

Those speedy kids are speedy because they swim a LOT. They put out plenty of power in proportion to their size and area; even if their max force isn't as strong, their turnover is very high to go that fast. And those recordholders swim ridiculous amounts, even at age 10. (Like as much as a typical triathlete does in a whole week - in a single workout.) There's a 10 yr old who blows by me in the pool around here, and there is no way in heck I can maintain her turnover. (She also swims 3x the volume I do.)

If it was just pure technique, no fitness/power needed, most of the senior citizens in the pool who are dedicated swimmers but who avoid gutbusting intervals, would be amongst the fastest swimmers in the pool since they've had years and years to refine technique. And you'd also see 70 year old ex-HS swimmers who were fast in their youth maintaining 80% of their youth speed in the pool. Unfortunately, neither is true. You gotta swim fast and go hard to race like that.

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

Yes, my coach was in the water with me.

I know that I don't "lock" my elbows when spearing.  I went back to the pool today and worked on that some, along with some of the other suggestions made by my coach and above.

I can't say that I am any faster yet, but at least I think I have something to go on now.

Gonna try to hit the pool again tomorrow!  And the day after!  And 4x/week, going forward.

Doug

Not sure what the last 2 comments were, but again thanks for the input.

My coach also sent me a link to this video.  It seems like the video is incomplete, but it says you should do a drill imagining (or really) reaching for a rock and then throw it fast behind you.

I think a big reason why my catch/pull is not good is that I fell like I am lobbing the rock behind me rather than throwing it hard.  I suppose I do need to push harder.  

I think I am making some progress here.

Oh, here's the video, my coach says it was made by a friend of his named Eney Jones.

http://vimeo.com/47257093

When it comes down to it, isn't that what all swimming is?! :-D

I jest - awesome advice in this thread. Keep going. 

I know you're kidding, but this brings up a serious point.  - No.  Swimming well is about punching as small of a hole in the water as possible by maintaining a balanced streamlined position while anchoring onto it with your hands and using your arms to pull yourself through it.  The less water you push around, the more efficient you are. 

Touche, my friend! 

If I was feeling mean, I'd say it was still about pushing water around - less with your body and more with your hand! :-)

I will stop over-simplifying now! 

J