Help for an Arnie swim type?

[LaurieR]

Hi

I've been really struggling with my swimming and diagnosed myself as an Arnie swim type with maybe a little bit of bambino. I bought the Arnie guide and I think it's helping but still seem to be struggling. Can you offer any more tips? Here is a video of me swimming:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1usUVh2FU

Thanks!

[SolarEnergy]

Hi Laurie,

A few questions...

What have you been told so far?
What Swim Smooth material have you tried? Have you experienced issues?
How long have you been swimming?
How many times per week do you stretch?

[LaurieR]

Hiya

What have you been told so far?
I had a couple of lessons last year and was told to do the catch up drill and basic extension drill. Also to work on body rotation.

What Swim Smooth material have you tried? Have you experienced issues?
I bought the clean up your stroke dvd and the Arnie swim type guide. The torpedo push offs and sea anchors drills seem to have helped because I didn't realise how much extra drag was being caused by my ankle position. I think the main issue I'm experiencing is that I do the drills then when I go back to trying full stoke I seem to go back to my old habits and get frustrated I'm not making more progress.
How long have you been swimming?
Breast stroke all my life but freestyle a bit when I was a kid then for about 3 months last year and again since this summer.

How many times per week do you stretch?
About 3/4 times a week starting a couple of weeks ago.

[SolarEnergy]

Oh, I forgot one more question. You mention having purchased the Arnie's guide, but still be struggling. Struggling with what?

Do you end up out of breathe? Is this what you're struggling with?

From what I can see in your clip, from the most obvious to the less obvious things:
- Your stroke isn't bad, you seem to have good feel for water
- You breathe only on one side
- You don't seem to exhale underwater, but rather wait at the last minute and exhale in a blast prior inhaling
- You seem to display a wide scissor kick

But my main concern really, is that you don't seem relaxed. You don't seem to enjoy.

[LaurieR]

Yes I can't swim like this for more than about 100 meters without having to stop and being out of breath. The first few strokes are ok but then I feel like I'm either forcefully exhaling or gasping for air when inhaling.

Thanks for the observations, do you think keep following the drills in the Arnie's guide or maybe lots of short repeats could work for me?

[SolarEnergy]

Well, just a bit of a background about me...

I regularly organize special training days. Next one is on Oct 28th. That's a full day of swimming, during which even beginners will be expected to swim perpetually. You could register, then our responsality is to get you to swim non stop.

I must confess that our biggest challenge, have to be our beginners Level 1. We have B-1-2, Intermediate 1-2 and advance. Beginners-1 obviously pose a special challenge, as some (a lot) expect the miracle to occur *that day*.

Big part of my methodology will be to use Front Snorkels. I want to take the breathing component with the stress it brings out of the equation.

My thinking is so simplistic here, as always. If you can swim 400m with a Front Snorkel non stop then it means that any failure at achieving the same distance without the Snorkel is likely due to breathing mechanics (could be exhaling/inhaling, the way your turn your body/head to inhale, a mixture, etc).

There's a possibility that you can not use a Snorkel. If this is the case, I'm stuck in dead end. The same as with SmoothArnie.

The quickest way to fast swimming is to slow down as much as you can.

Here's a simple set:

Perform 12 x 25m with rest in between each. Time every 25. Aim for slowest possible swim time. After the 12 bouts, remember what your slowest was.

Then aim at swimming 400-500m non stop at THAT pace....

[woody]

"My thinking is so simplistic here, as always. If you can swim 400m with a Front Snorkel non stop then it means that any failure at achieving the same distance without the Snorkel is likely due to breathing mechanics (could be exhaling/inhaling, the way your turn your body/head to inhale, a mixture, etc)."

Hi Charles
The above simple advice has just brought me out of the frustration i am having to acheive perpetual swimming had been thinking it may be lung capacity even blew into bags recently to see if i blew out enough!

I think I am bambino as I would be scared to death with 999 people around !

The very next time I am in the pool is 400m snorkel I already own but have never tried a long swim.

Thanks for all your contributions do you know any one in the uk that does a similar course to get a swwimmer swimming perpetually?
Woody

[SolarEnergy]

Hi Woody, glad it could help.

I got several friends in the UK. Some are SS coaches, others are not. Where are you based?

Julian Naggi for instance definitely shares this point of view about the Snorkel as a means of allowing people to quickly get up to speed in term of perpetual swimming. He's a SS coach.

Graham Williams is not. Just an old guy that dedicated a big part of his life teaching swimming, using his own means. I'm sure he could be of great help. His company is called Swimtech-2000 (though I probably have the spelling wong). His nickname is SpeedoSwimmer on tritalk.co.uk.

Alan Cardwell, recently got his training. Probably arrived home yesterday or something. Great dude, fully dedicated. Based in Scotland I think. Julian is South of London I think, and I have no clue where Graham lives.

I'm nervous now, next Training Day is this Sunday, that's going to be 5 people in total that count on this event to finally swim perpetually. At least I ordered enough Snorkels LOL

[woody]

Thanks charles
I am based in cheshire but would happily travel .
i have had a few lessons in an endless pool but still keep coming up with the breathing issue. I will try the snorkel test and get back to you.
Good luck with your session 100% success I bet.

Woody

[woody]

Hi Charles
Rushed to pool today with my finis snorkel and did 20 lenghths 400m (20m pool) so now I know I can do it .I have laminated some of the pages from the book relevant to bambino to take to the pool and will try some slow swimming with bubble bubble breath till i can go further.
Also googled the names you gave but they were all 4/5hrs away but indirectly led me to a swim smooth coach about 2 hrs drive way Steve Cassonz I have mailed him and waiting for his reply.

The googling also led me to the Ti forum where I see you posted a brief mention of swim shack I had a few lessons there in 2011 with Ian Smith who sadly passed away later that year. When I get a swim right I can still hear him say "I'm liking that - I'm liking that a lot" .
I think I need a coach in a pool tho so hopefully a couple of sessions with a swim smooth coach will sort me.

Thanks for your contributions to the board it must take up a lot of your time .

Woody

[smootharnie]

Hi woody,

Interesting outcome from your snorkel swim. Should try it myself.
Great to see you taking up your swimming so seriously. In the clip you seem to have enough time and space to breath, so it must be something with exhaling/inhaling timing. Of coursre you have already tried the exhaling advise when the face is under water, so I am curous too see how you fix this breathing probelem.
Maybe a few twitches can make a lot of difference.

[SolarEnergy]

Hi Charles
Rushed to pool today with my finis snorkel and did 20 lenghths 400m (20m pool) so now I know I can do it .I have laminated some of the pages from the book relevant to bambino to take to the pool and will try some slow swimming with bubble bubble breath till i can go further.
Also googled the names you gave but they were all 4/5hrs away but indirectly led me to a swim smooth coach about 2 hrs drive way Steve Cassonz I have mailed him and waiting for his reply.

The googling also led me to the Ti forum where I see you posted a brief mention of swim shack I had a few lessons there in 2011 with Ian Smith who sadly passed away later that year. When I get a swim right I can still hear him say "I'm liking that - I'm liking that a lot" .
I think I need a coach in a pool tho so hopefully a couple of sessions with a swim smooth coach will sort me.

Thanks for your contributions to the board it must take up a lot of your time .

Woody

Ian Smiths played a big role in helping tailoring SwimSmooth, or so I like to believe. I remember our times together on forums as if it was yesterday. Back then TI had a few problems with lack of mind flexibility. We used to argue very hard, Ian, Paul and I (acting as a natural team, in spite of not knowing eachother). But all in all, Ian did a lot of good around him and his passion for his job was such that I would even trust him enough to send him leads (when possible).

It's too bad he didn't survive to witness this Transition TI is going through at the moment. I wish I could finally read from him: Charles, you were right! (euh well, in my dreams)...

[Don Wright]

Hi folks!

...Rushed to pool today with my Finis snorkel and did 20 lengths 400m (20m pool) so now I know I can do it .

Am absolutely with envy! Before my swim today, I printed out the Amazon guff on the snorkel plus one of the pics showing up close what it really looked like in use - then showed it to our (Parkwood Leisure/local council) pool staff, asking (yet again) if I could use one, but just in the lanes this time, during public sessions. Got turned down again! Was told that there had been a couple of incidents involving collisions in which a snorkel had been accidently pushed aside by another swimmer's wide-flinging arm action, resulting in damage to the snorkel user's teeth! They also repeated the old complaint that "It might make more trouble if an emergency resuscitation was needed". So that's it!

Glum Don!

[woody]

Thats not good Don . I am lucky i go to a local hotel pool its only 20 m tho.If i pick the right time like meal time i sometimes get the pool to myself. Tho the local pool has a serious swimming hour and lets swimmers use them so long as you tell them.
I felt strange using for so long tho wondering what spectators would think but at least i know it is my breathing mechanics that is wrong so will work on it.
Woody

[Don Wright]

Hi "woody"!

My wife is a member of a nearby "Balance" fitness centre, which has a rather pathetic 10m pool. If they would allow me to use a snorkel on a "guest pass", that might be a possible solution, but they don't have lanes or anything organized and it gets quite busy - so not an attractive option! There is a much more distant LA-fitness centre of which my wife is also a member, but that would be more difficult for me to reach (can't cycle now - the knees are too grotty, neither of us drive, and there is no direct bus service - so that's "not on" for me.)

My wife is definitely an exercise fanatic - the nearby centre has a good gym but the pool is, as indicated above, "tea-cup" sized - while the more distant centre has a poorer gym but a longer pool, 18m I think. She uses the nearer one in bad weather [cycles everywhere!], but prefers the more distant one for her favourite ["Spin" - bike again!] organized classes, and it's near to a TESCO for her to do the shopping. Never mind the cost of double subs, got to keep the wife happy! Actually, when I encouraged her to read the main stroke part of the new SS book, she said "Oh!, I'm already doing all that!" Mmmmm- I wonder? We only ever swim together when on our holidays - so am not quite sure how true her comment was!

Bye / Don

[SolarEnergy]

Hi folks!

...Rushed to pool today with my Finis snorkel and did 20 lengths 400m (20m pool) so now I know I can do it .

Am absolutely with envy! Before my swim today, I printed out the Amazon guff on the snorkel plus one of the pics showing up close what it really looked like in use - then showed it to our (Parkwood Leisure/local council) pool staff, asking (yet again) if I could use one, but just in the lanes this time, during public sessions. Got turned down again! Was told that there had been a couple of incidents involving collisions in which a snorkel had been accidently pushed aside by another swimmer's wide-flinging arm action, resulting in damage to the snorkel user's teeth! They also repeated the old complaint that "It might make more trouble if an emergency resuscitation was needed". So that's it!

Glum Don!

I'm dragging me feet a bit Don, but I haven't forgotten you.

I'm meeting live with Joel soon, a person in the exact same situation as you are. I'll be able to test my stuff on human before trying it with you

[Don Wright]

Hi folks!

[via a later edit this evening, after reading "SolarEnergy"'s reply, I have cut out some of the junk I wrote earlier in the day when I thought I had "the answer"!]

Having quickly got over being "miffed" at the prohibition on the use of a Finis snorkel at my pool, am really glad that "woody" did so well, and that the spotlight now falls on breathing "mechanics"!

So what's going wrong? In my own case, I find that inhaling on every 2nd arm stroke doesn't give me enough time to empty out stale air, and trying to force it out is not conducive to relaxed swimming. That's why I found inhaling on every 3rd arm stroke, gave that little extra time to exhale. The trouble seems to be insufficient time to do the inhalation, so gradually by the time I end my one-length "dashes", things are getting just that little bit fraught, making the next length increasingly difficult.

Bye / Don

[SolarEnergy]

Don whit all due respect, and please forgive me if I'm hurting your feelings, what you wrote on the idea of breathing ever 2 etc doesn't make much sense.

Given that you breathe right, you should be able to breathe every 2 very easily. A perfect breathing mechanics even allows breathing every1, ie every single stroke.

This is a first area to seriously look for a problem. But first, your minding needs to be modified a bit.

Why em I writing this now.

Your age and condition prevents you from doing several things that you would otherwise have been able to do if you were younger. This as a coach, I'm buying it 100%. Otherwise I wouldn't be a good coach for people your age and abilities. But exhaling should not be part of this list. To some extent, inhaling neither.

Also note that again, given a sound breathing technique, and a rate that's say, under 60spm (which is likely the case here), freestyle provides with a lot of time to inhale. You should not feel that you have to hurry up inhaling. The same can't be said about fly for instance, which does imply inhaling compressed oxygen (or almost).

Again, sorry to challenge you here, but I wouldn't be helping if I was agreeing with you just to be polite.

[Don Wright]

Hi "SolarEnergy".

No offence - point taken. Have not managed yet, to resign myself to the limitations that old age brings.

On my breathing problems, am probably jumping to all the wrong conclusions - the root cause may be some other factor.

The "TI" long doggy paddle drill you "pointed me to" (from another topic), with the aim of "perpetual swimming", has not been as easy as I hoped, awful drag recovering the arms from way back - rather tiring, and the unilateral breathing getting a bit fraught towards the end of a length.

It seems like it's time for me to "back-off"!

Farewell / Don

[Don Wright]

Hi "SolarEnergy"! I thought it might be better to stop "shooting off my mouth about things", but am terribly addicted to this forum since I have learnt a great deal from it - so here I am "bouncing back again" commenting on what you say, in relation to what I am probably doing wrong!

...Given that you breathe right, you should be able to breathe every 2 very easily. A perfect breathing mechanics even allows breathing every1, ie every single stroke.

...Your age and condition prevents you from doing several things that you would otherwise have been able to do if you were younger... But exhaling should not be part of this list. To some extent, inhaling neither.

Also note that again, given a sound breathing technique, and a rate that's say, under 60spm (which is likely the case here), freestyle provides with a lot of time to inhale. You should not feel that you have to hurry up inhaling...

I think my front crawl SPM is probably in the 30s region, so it's all relaxed stuff. When I inhale on every second arm stroke, despite exhaling on the head-down arm stroke (I really do gently puff out a stream of bubbles!), I can definitely feel myself "blowing up with stale air", and it becomes more difficult to make a proper inhalation after a while. That's why inhaling on every 3rd arm stroke enabled me to feel more comfortable for the next inhalation. The problem that arises with this bilateral style is I think, more one of "rate of energy expenditure"/"oxygen input". If this is really the case, then as I begin to feel things are "getting a bit fraught", maybe I should temporarily roll onto my back for a "breather", then continue.


On the matter of "perpetual swimming", I had forgotten that is exactly what I can already do, when on my back swimming English back stroke. I just need to be able to do a similar thing while on my tum!

Thinking along those lines, I first tried to see how many continuous lengths I could do with back crawl - inhaling on one arm stroke and exhaling on the other. At 70 could manage 4 lengths=100m without too much trouble. That has now dropped to just 2 lengths - laboured breathing and the the tiring continual arm/leg action without any rest decided me against pushing on a bit more! Repeated the test - yup! just 2 lengths were about my comfortable limit. Doing kicking drill on the back soon puffs me out, and I just "dribble along" rather slowly due to having by stiff ankles/inflexible feet.

Next I tried to see how much breast stroke I could manage, really doing a long exhalation during a glide phase. That was quite a bit better, getting a wee bit "fraught" towards the end of the 2nd length, but not sure if that was tiredness or breathing going wrong. Did a repeat test, and pretty much the same result - I could have" pushed on" a bit more, but "chickened out"! Maybe I should try doing more breast stroke - as long as the "grotty" knees don't complain!

On the "TI long doggy paddle" with unilateral breathing, I "blow up with stale air" towards the end of just the first length, despite doing it all in a leisurely manner and exhaling on each alternate underwater arm stroke. Not good for "perpetual swiming"! I tried doing it inhaling on every 3rd arm stroke, but as I was doing it all so leisurely, found myself getting a bit desperate for fresh air towards each inhalation time!

I was interested to read some comments, in 2 separate posts, that "sharkFM" made on this breathing business (from topic "Advice on breathing please?") : -

"...So freestyle at minimum we are what say ~ 70% exhale, 30% inhale. The balance is off. So to optimize the gaseous exchange you need to bleed the air out in a ultra-controlled fashion and time it so it's linear and exhausted just at the point of the inhale. Who does that? When we sing we do that. You exhale the lyrics, grab a breath and keep singing."

"...Got me thinking about the heart & lung pumping system. There has to be a rythmn or frequency that the breathing rythmn must tie or dovetail into to allow for a steady state operation..."

In my case, when I swim my old English back stroke, I must have just the right balance between inhalation, exhalation, and rhythm. So why can't I transfer this correct "balance" (that allows me to go on indefintely) across to swimming on the tum! After 4 continuous lengths of EBS, I could go on for another 4 or much more without feeling tired - almost as "fresh as a daisy" - maybe it's the rate of energy expenditure compared with oxygen input that's important.

Am thinking it might be a good idea for me to try again, the full front crawl "catch-up" drill. Bringing the hands to meet together at the front after each arm stroke, doing unilateral breathing, and just kicking if I need to carry on exhaling till comfortably ready to take the next inhalation, and taking as long as I like over that inhalation! (Doing that can't be any slower than my efforts using the TI long doggy paddle!)

Baffled! / Don