Cr@p Swimmers R Us

Thinking about Zip does work, Brit. A few sessions of concentrating on it will make a difference. I've also been focussing on the thumb entry. It makes it a lot less splashy, and splash = drag and wasted energy.

Swim night again. Did a mile in 47 minutes, which is 4 mins faster than my first time on Tuesday. Now that I've got that milestone (sic) I think I may need to take my "stroke" apart completely. Primary targets are firstly to achieve left side breathing, with a view to getting to one every three strokes. Secondly, I'm not gliding. My replacement hand isn't anywhere near the front when the lead hand starts to move back.
Running is just SO FRIGGING EASY by comparison.

Stephen. FYI, I was barely able to do 25/50m crawl when I started here, and that was May 2nd.

Cheers, I'm off for another swim session this morning with the tri club & coach.    

Last night's tri club training:

400m easy warm-up, 100m freestyle/100m breast/100m free/100 dolphin kick.

400m fists drill

6 x 200m moderate speed

400m - count strokes for 50m, reduce by 10 on the return 50m, repeat x 3

800m easy cool-down, various strokes

Advice please.

How do you swim, whats youre opinion re the shape of the pull?

Straight line
S shape
Question Mark

I pull straight line as was told by my last coach (a couple of years ago) that this was the current thinking?

This morning at swimfit one of the guys in who swims in the fast lane (a coach) suggested the S shape to get more purchase on the water, he was then contradicted by the swimfit instructure who said she does a question mark.

Im going to stick with what I do for now as im not sure either will make a massive difference (mainly I need to improve my swim fitness).

Just wondered what others think?

Straight line, Barley, is what our tri club coach says - and her daughter and 2 sons swim 12,11, and 14 mins respectively for 1000m.

I am flirting with changing from an old school 's' to a more down with the kids straight line. I seem to naturally move to a ? (is this a half way house?), otherwise I seem to loose any elbow bend and catch. Probably the lack of flexibility and bingo wings getting in the way.

Anyone know any good drills to help?

If you aim to do a straight line then in reality you will curve because of the way your joints work and the need to avoid hitting your legs when you get towards the end of the stroke.  The current thinking is not to teach curving at all becasue it encourages people to exagerate it too much.

straight line for me, you need to time each method to find out what suits you best. Apparently there is no right/wrong way, just the fastest way (everybody is different)

Any tips for not over reacting to getting a little water in the back of your throat (oh-er).

I seem to just get a tiny amount get in through my nose toward the end of each lap which mean i end up with a massive coughing fit as if I'd breathed in an entire lung full.

I'm going to try a nose clip but my coach mentioned I might find that makes things worse as I do struggle with feeling a bit claustrophobic with my head under.

She did say as with everything with swimming there is no magic cure apart from practise practise practise but I'm hoping someone can give me a little hope?

I suffer the same problem whether I do breaststroke or front crawl and a have my first tri in 3 weeks time!

Ali
I'm about the same stage as you, maybe a bit further on.
In the beginning I drank the pool, coughed and spluttered and generally was uncoordinated. The more pool time I put in, the more things slowly began to gel. You develop your own stroke pattern and timings, and with coached input these can be worked on. The more you do, the more regular will your stroke pattern become. It's all linked to the central key to swimming at our level: BREATHING. Water is not our natural environment, although I do think that my daughter has gills.

The secret appears to be the ability to continuously breathe out via the nostrils when under water. It's not natural for runners, who will gulp inhale, hold, blast exhale, gulp. Swimmers seem to gargle a half and half air/water mix with barely a head turn. They talk about using the depression behind the bow wave. It's a long way to go yet for me.

None of us will ever be Chrissie Wellington or Ian Thorpe. But we are better then we were, and we'll all be better still as we practice more.

Did my first tri today. Well chuffed with the swim bit. 400m in 09:56, so not too shameful. In fact, even my dolphin daughter was mildy impressed. (She'd do it in 5 to 6 mins, so my feet remain anchored). The funny thing was that I was wishing that the swim was longer!

Perhaps I should sign up for that one then.

Aaaargh me eye patch.

Did the mile in 47 min again. Uh oh, that looks like consistency. It's a shame that the stroke pattern isn't at all consistent. I'm still doing a lot of thinking, and it's just not like running. If you put your feet down in the wrong order you learn the hard way. I seem to be able to plod along with familiar but erroneous stroke timings, and that's not the way to improve.

Onwards

Blisters - I made great progress once I stopped swimbling and started doing 15 or 20 x 100 with ~10 sec rest, repeatedly. You should be able to swim 15x100 with 10 sec rest at about the pace you could swim a straight 1500 in on a good day. Turns out I was swimming too slowly in my long swimbles.

Coached session is my main "effort" slot. I try and do as I'm told, and to try and recall the lessons during the other sessions in the week. I'm pretty convinced that as a feeble skinny I need to man up the top half, and that is a basic question of JFDI. In the same way that the first couple of years of running was basically getting the rump steak out the door and bashing miles, this has surely got to be simply about getting the feel of the water. Beefing up.

I will of course, take note, and am aware that smooth speed generates the bow wave and trough. Presently I'm still thinking every arm stroke.