Please critique my stroke

[gjsven]

Hi all,

Long time SS fan and DVD box set owner, first time poster.

I'm a MOP - FOP AG triathlete looking to remove precious seconds from his swim time - currently I do about 15:15 for 1k with pretty consistent pacing and would love to take 2-3 seconds per 100m off that before the start of the tri season if I can!

Fitness isn't a concern - I swim 4x per week and get through about 16km per week as part of 15-20 hours of weekly training and I have a good strength base from lots of gym work during autumn - all things leading me to suspect my technique still needs some work. My chest/shoulder flexibility and posture aren't brilliant which no doubt also affects things.

I'd muchly appreciate if anyone who's interested could take a look at my video and provide any feedback you have - it's the first 200m of a 1k TT I did about a month ago (in a 25m pool - hence my laziness with the turns!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61oTqb62LGA

Thanks!

[Paul Newsome]

OK gjsven

Quick one to start the ball rolling - how well do you swim in the open water compared with the pool? Do you like using a wetsuit for example? Are you much faster in it relative to the other swimmers you normally train with, or not so much?

You have a really nice stroke there in many respects (hard to see obviously what is happening with your catch and this could be a key area to address - even a front head-on angle from above the water would help here). Your body rotation and particularly body position is absolutely first class - very rarely do we see someone sit as high as you do in the water and hence the question about the wetsuit.

Muse over those initial thoughts and then get back to me.

Cheers

Paul

[gjsven]

Hi Paul,

Thanks very much for your feedback!

I definitely feel like I'm slipping a lot with my catch - I've played around with lots of different variations (EVF, slight outward sweep at the back end, pulling close to the body, pulling further down, etc etc) but haven't quite found what's stopping me from 'latching on' to the water.

I've got quite an unusual build for triathlon (my dad was an elite powerlifter!), which probably contributes to a lot of my idiosyncracies. My body position definitely feels quite high at the front, often to the point of making my legs sink. I have a huge lung capacity (7.1 litres) and due to the lack of flexibility in my chest (an issue my physio is currently helping me with as it's contributed to some back pain) I actually find it quite difficult to fully exhale. My chunky quads obviously don't help either. Interestingly though, I don't swim faster with a pull buoy - I think this might be because I have quite a strong kick (I'm always at the front of the lane for kick sets). I can swim with a 2 beat kick but hate doing so as I have to up my stroke rate significantly to stop my legs from sinking.

I must admit I only bought my first wetsuit about 9 months ago and have only raced in it twice (a HIM and a sprint). I guess you could say I have a love-hate relationship with it! It's been about 5 months since I've swam in it, but it's probably worth about 40-60 seconds over 1km to me. I do like the way it improves my core stability and lifts my legs when I'm swimming in the lakes here in Canberra, however I've never felt like I've raced well in it in a crowded pack and my swim splits were pretty ordinary from both those races.

I'm generally a reasonable open water swimmer in calm conditions, but I've always struggled a bit in heavy chop - living in Canberra and not having the opportunity to swim in the ocean often probably contributes a bit to this. I'm okay at sighting but again often feel like my legs drop significantly when I do.

I should also qualify all this by mentioning I made some significant gains over the last few months (a good minute or so over 1k) by experimenting with a slightly more 'front quadrant' style at the front end of my stroke, ie 'delaying' my catch slightly and slowing down my stroke rate. I haven't swum in open water or in a wetsuit since making the changes so not sure how they'll go.

[Paul Newsome]

Hi again gjsven

Some interesting points there, especially with respect to the kicking dominance, the lack of a good catch, not swimming faster with a pull buoy and not being overly impressed with your open water performances in a wetsuit (yet!). Having seen your stroke and also having you feed this important info back to me, I can safely say you very much fit the Kicktastic profile from our new swimtypes.com microsite and would be best advised following the advice here to improve further:

http://swimtypes.com/kicktastic.html

Have a good look through and get back to me here with any questions.

Cheers

Paul

[gjsven]

Thanks Paul - I must admit I didn't for a second think of myself as a kicktastic when I first checked out the swim types website but on second look it makes a lot of sense (when I was a kid doing pool swimming I was a 50m freestyle sprinter so there was no such thing as too much kicking!).

I've downloaded the Kicktastic guide and will give some of the targetted drill sets a go, and no doubt be back to ask more questions.

[Paul Newsome]

Thanks Paul - I must admit I didn't for a second think of myself as a kicktastic when I first checked out the swim types website...

This is such a common thing to hear Kicktastics the world over say, so much so that we've had to add the following to that page:

WARNING: Many Kicktastics think they don't kick very hard! If you're not sure, ask someone to give you their opinion, ideally by watching from underwater.

It's all in good humour obviously gjsven, but just going on what you've told me above and also having seen your video clip as well, the advice contained within the guide (with respect to the appropriate drills to be doing to further improve your swimming) will be very appropriate for you indeed.

You already swim well (you'd just scrape into our fast lane here in Perth for example) and your technique is pretty well honed, but make these improvements to the balance between your catch and your kick and you should really see some significant gains. As always, if in doubt - fire those questions at me!

Cheers

Paul