I did it I did it I did it!

[Kirst]

After decades of only being able to swim a good breast stroke and an acceptable back crawl, six weeks ago I started having stroke development coaching to enable me to swim front crawl. And I just did my first non-stop, continuous, no pauses, no stopping, no swapping to another stroke, full 50m length of front crawl. I was hanging to the edge and gasping for breath at the end, but I did it. And then, just to prove it wasn't a fluke, I did 4 more.

This, for me, is as exciting as the first time I cycled up Ashley Terrace in Edinburgh without having to go into bottom gear.

[cottmiler]

Wonderful!

[SolarEnergy]

After decades of only being able to swim a good breast stroke and an acceptable back crawl, six weeks ago I started having stroke development coaching to enable me to swim front crawl. And I just did my first non-stop, continuous, no pauses, no stopping, no swapping to another stroke, full 50m length of front crawl. I was hanging to the edge and gasping for breath at the end, but I did it. And then, just to prove it wasn't a fluke, I did 4 more.

This, for me, is as exciting as the first time I cycled up Ashley Terrace in Edinburgh without having to go into bottom gear.

Great, don't stop just yet.

Now time to take your stop watch. Time your 50min Free. Aim for slowest possible time. Every attempt, try to make it slower than the previous.

Try to do between 10 and 20 of them!

Remember, this is reverse time trial. The aim if for slowest possible time!

[Kirst]

If I make it any slower, there's a good chance I'll either sink or create some sort of wormhole in time.

[smootharnie]

good job!
We have to do slowest race ever some time.

[Pablo114]

Nice. One small step.... keep it up

[Nayan]

well done.

best

[knetknight]

WTG Kirst! I started front-crawl myself just a few months ago and can totally relate. I practically threw a party the first time I swam 100 non-stop. Then I strung a series of individual 100's together for a 1k total workout. I told a friend about it and the "unappreciative jerk" just said "Oh, you didn't do it non-stop?". I gave him the evil eye but took the challenge and a few sessions later I did my first non-stop 1k. So congrats, keep it up, and don't sell yourself short. Front crawl is all I do now but I'd like try some new strokes myself. I've got my eye on butterfly if I can just work up the nerve to humiliate myself at the pool while I figure it out.

Happy lengths

[SolarEnergy]

I've got my eye on butterfly if I can just work up the nerve to humiliate myself at the pool while I figure it out.
Happy lengths

You may want to try this drill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K5DPz_acyY

[knetknight]

Thanks for that Charles, li watched your vid and several others and I've decided I need to develop dolphin kicks before moving on to butterfly.

[shyswimmer]

Good job Kirst. Keep it up and let us know how you're improving

[RunRunRun]

Wheres the Like Button? Great job. It reminds me of when I started making progress. Its a great thing.

Laurie

[Don Wright]

Hi "SolarEnergy"!

I've got my eye on butterfly if I can just work up the nerve to humiliate myself at the pool while I figure it out.
Happy lengths

You may want to try this drill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K5DPz_acyY

I "pinched" the following extract from one of your old posts (but giving credit to you of course in the text of my post!), and quoted it in current topic "DOLPHIN KICKS...NOT?" started by "dinghar" - which look better for the surface action, especially as you throw in a couple of 1-arm fly strokes on the first clip!

[EXTRACT >]"...

... On the first clip, you see a slow execution [OF 0-ARM] ending with the integration of one-arm. On the second clip, you see a fast execution of the [0-ARM] drill that resulted in a 50m kick done in 41sec flat....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p15jmC95ZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnxvdnu3Bn0

..."[< EXTRACT]

With all due respect (and me being a bit cheeky! ) I think you could "smarten up" on your little bit of underwater body dolphin - arms close by ears and hands over-lapping, plus a "firmer undulation" (it looked a bit slack to me, in the clip that you posted for "knetknight"). Never mind, perhaps you don't do "ubd" very often (ooh! - what a cheeky devil!) Seriously, we would all be lost without your excellent advice and demos!!!

Bye / Don

[SolarEnergy]

I'm in total agreement (with the fact I'm slack)

You have great eyes mate. The whole story is that there's a bit of a hoola hop mystery, as you pass over 40yo in this gesture. Upper body feels stiff and it drives me nut. I don't want to loose fluidity with age, as I feel that fluidity is very important for optimal performance.

So I totally agree that on my slow execution, I sacrifice a tight posture in favor of more fluidity in the undulation. As if I was focusing on trying to create a perfect sine wave, but was failing at this cycle after cycle after cycle.

These are my babies Don, my only ones as I don't have children yet. So it's never an effort to share about these.

In my book, and for a particular reason, I place NAD and single arm for fly equal, in term of benefits it can bring. These drills have the advantage of being doable both at very slow speed (learning process) and at top speed, for learning about race pace stroke mechanics.

Both can act as a substitute. If your coach sets up a 8x100m fly, the weakest swimmers will probably perform it at single arm single arm single arm, then the other side, then full full full. Which makes the single arm drill far more important to fly, than it is to crawl, without a single doubt.

First, just like with crawl, the single arm is almost mandatory (for adults) as the full stroke is too complex, for learning I mean. Then it can allow you to survive hard sets (you wouldn't try to survive a hard set at UNCO right?)

NAD? Same, exact same. So easy that it acts as an entry point to the stroke. It is the first very important gesture one can learn, and that will remain throughout his career, and a very reliable friend too! Because make no mistake. That thing can be accelerated! In my opinion, and this year I may be able to confirm as the level of our Varsity team has increased, and that a very good guy is now the heat coach. I'm sure an elite easily goes under 1:10 at it. So you can really survive sadistic kicking sets. Coach feels like trying send off time on 1:40/100? (meaning you have to kick 1:39 or faster to keep up with the set), no problem my dear. Cause NAD is *much* faster than fly kicking with a board. So this very first drill you learn, is actually a beast tuned for very fast pace.

Phelps can probably do 57.some on a 100m.... Forget it. 55 flat on a 100m NAD SCM given 15m of underwater kick followed by 10m NAD (to breathe). I would bet a thousand bucks on that.

NAD outperform every other variation of an undulaton based fly drill with breating to it. The same with both arms along side the body, which remains the most documented at the mo, is as slow as a Volkswagen Type II Campwagon driving uphill with 2 adults and 2 children.

[Don Wright]

Hi "SolarEnergy"!
I was just finishing my response to your post when my Vista o/s shut me down for Windows updates - I hate the fact it doesn't give any bell warning of impending shutdown. So if you don't notice the little warning box at bottom of the screen, then you can lose a lot of typing! Anyway here I go for the 2nd time ...

I'm in total agreement (with the fact I'm slack)

You have great eyes mate. The whole story is that there's a bit of a hoola hop mystery, as you pass over 40yo in this gesture. Upper body feels stiff and it drives me nut. I don't want to loose fluidity with age, as I feel that fluidity is very important for optimal performance.

So I totally agree that on my slow execution, I sacrifice a tight posture in favor of more fluidity in the undulation. As if I was focusing on trying to create a perfect sine wave, but was failing at this cycle after cycle after cycle.

Sorry to read of your "upper body" stiffness! So I am quite lucky at 76 to be able to do fly undulations in a decent "fluid" manner - despite damaging a lumbar disc when 35 and still having a weakness if I stand or kneel, and then lean forward from the waist - my back complains about the strain if I keep in that position for a while. Ever since the injury I have spent about 10 mins every morning doing back exercises, and that has paid off very well, as long as I don't make the bend at the waist more than 60 or 70 degrees, for more than a few seconds.

Am actually more keen on doing fly stuff than anything else (though limited now by my general fitness), so I endeavour to do all the drills to the best of my ability - hence me "excitedly jumping up and down" when there is anything involving fly on the forum! As one further point on the fly NAD, I would point out that as M(you know who!) points out, flexibility of the ankles/flappy feet are of prime importance for fly-ers! As another member of the forum remarked in a post to you, a while back, on your demos - "You must have a helluva kick!". You certainly seem to be blessed in that department - again, regular exercise over a long time is probably the answer....

...However! - a lot of us are not so blessed, and that includes me - so the downbeat of the major kick is not as effective as it might otherwise be. That means the upward movement of the body as a result of that downbeat is not quite so pronounced, and it is slightly more difficult for the mouth to clear the water for inhalation (no problem though, when the arm stroke is added in the 1-arm action, 'cos the arm upsweep gives more lift!) To address that issue when doing fly NAD, (as I mentioned in my last post to "dinghar"'s topic "DOLPHIN KICKS...NOT?"), a quick sideways scull of the hands (through a few inches!) creates a "temporary anchor" so that the arms can help get the head up a bit more for the mouth to clear the water, facilitating inhalation. I emphasize that the scull is sideways (i.e. horizontal), so as not to destroy the effect of body undulation in the vertical plane!

Bye / Don

[SolarEnergy]

I really like your solution Done, which reminds me that there's a range of possibilities with several sculling actions, with the best probably remaining the breast pull, nice and compact.

Reminds me too that I designed a nice solution for freestyle nad, ie using these sculling motions near the end of the stroke. So it's only logical to recommend it for fly as well.

NAD with a compact breast pull.

[Janus]

Charles,
You casually mention "your book". Is this already published or still in the writing stage? If already published, please, please let us have details of how we can get this as I am sure that many of us here would love to buy a copy. If not yet published, then I very much look forward to the day it is!
In the meantime, keep up the excellent work here
Janus

[SolarEnergy]

Charles,
You casually mention "your book". Is this already published or still in the writing stage? If already published, please, please let us have details of how we can get this as I am sure that many of us here would love to buy a copy. If not yet published, then I very much look forward to the day it is!
In the meantime, keep up the excellent work here
Janus

Ohhhh, thank you so much for your interest

In my book is a french expression, everyone uses it here in Quebec. It just means according to my standards, or simply in my opinion.

Now it's true that writing a book as been a long time dream for me, but at the moment, I don't think I would have enough intelligent things to put in it, ie stuff that you can not already find elsewhere.

THAT said. I got a DVD cooking at the moment. And THAT will be hot! Cheap, sold as a companion product to my swim concept (Swim Training Day), but available for people outside this scope anyway.

It features a good collection of drills + a good collection of stretching exercise + a good collection of dryland exercise. The part that deals with what you can do HOME to improve your swimming will probably be fairly new, and unseen in most DVD available as of now. I aim for 30-45min long session, doable home, packed with stuff that can only make you a better swimmer.

Improving without getting to the pool shall be my next big big field of research for the upcoming years. And if there's ever a book to be done, from me, it would be on this particular topic.

I will release the portion about Single Arm drill to the public (Youtube) soon, within 15 days from now. That scene alone lasts 6 minutes, just this drill. We're actually struggling to avoid going over 120 minutes of content for the whole DVD, which will be bilingual, with no subtitles. I'm recording both in French and in a strange English with Steve Martin's pink panther accent

But if it does have to go over 120m, it will. It's MY dvd and I want to talk for as long as I want

[smootharnie]

interesting. Another buyer here!!
I built a cheap DIY arm exercise tool this week with some old bycivle inner tubes and some other stuff this week.
If it is interesting can open a topic. Further thinking of a cheap way to simulate the real water resistance feel with hydraulic cilinder with a check valve and some adjustable restrictors.

[SolarEnergy]

Very interesting ideas!!

Thanks for your interest. Fun to produce a dvd, even more fun to hear that you may get away with at last 2 sales

Show us a clip of your *system* as soon as you have one!