Introduction

[nbaffaro]

Hello all,

Last summer I picked up the total immersion book, read it. Watch a bunch of youtube videos and jumped in the pool. I worked the drills and found my stroke and started swimming as much as I could.

Looking back at my log on 7/16/13 I swam a 55:00 min mile. I worked on that for a while and then competed in a triathlon with a 1500m swim and swam that in 28:00ish (with a strong current, I think first out was a 15:00min or so)

After the triathlon I took some time off and then got back into it the last few months.

Yesterday 4/16/14 I swam a 30:03 mile and then previous to that on 4/14/14 I swam a 1:08 2 mile.

I feel like I am on the right track and that as I am swimming more I am getting there. For the most part I just get in the water and swim. I hate speed work and intervals. I do them running but I don't like them. I should drill more but I'd rather get my km's in. Right now my strokes per length is about 19-21, my pool is a 25m pool and I usually push past the back stroke banner. I am fairly efficient at bi-lateral breathing and usually go to single sided when I am really pushing my self. Normally, my average 100m is 2:00-2:08 sneaking up to 2:15 at 2k+. My goals at this point are a 25:00 mile and there is a 4 mile lake swim Labor Day that I am planning on completing.

I do have some questions and some more will pop up as this thread continues.


How much will I gain time wise learning a flip turn?

Should I video and go from there?

[WFEGb]

Hello nbaffaro,

welcome in the forum!

First shy answer from a non coach, so take it with care.

Your actual time with 28min for 1500m (without currency) is for some of us a long time if not life time goal...

... I hate speed work and intervals...

So hmmm, you might take some stronger looks into TI-philosophy what might change your mind a little bit. If not, you should take the concept of focus work into your swim. Swim and take a focus for some laps, swim a recovery lap if you can't hold the focus and repeat it or take an other focus. count your SPL and weight your effort, so you should find some individual points where improvement is worth the mental efforts...

...How much will I gain time wise learning a flip turn?

Should I video and go from there?...

You like to swim, so why don't learn the flip turn (for fun of cause), swim 1000m without and next day 1000m with flip. That should show you your individual success or not.....

A video will help very much. By yourself to find open weak points where you'll get a payback when focusing on them. If you'll make the video viewable to forum some of us might give you some very worhty hints you didn't recognize by yourself.

Best regards,
Werner

[nbaffaro]

I took some video of me swimming the other day.

Let me know if you have any good suggestions on what I should be doing or focusing on.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIQYipAlx6E

Thanks

[tomoy]

Looks like the video is set to Private.

[sclim]

@nbaffaro: From the viewpoint an ageing late TI starter (read: "struggling non-coach swimming student"), I can only envy your early improvement and speed, but my own consolation is that I really enjoy this journey, and being patient, I know that I will eventually get there, wherever "there" happens to end up. You hate speed work and intervals -- that is normal, and from a TI viewpoint, healthy. However, if you enjoy your progress and improvement, and have any curiosity as to where the new speed comes from, you might reconsider "should drill more", hopefully becoming "excited about the process of further improving form through drills".

The magic of TI for me comes with the enchantment of experiencing new reality, the learning that what holds my speed back is not insufficient power and stamina, but previously unrealised mal-positioning causing drag, and that good swimming is hard in the sense of mental effort, but not necessarily from physical effort in the exertion sense.

I wonder what excites you about your progress? The increased speed due to increased efficiency? Or the low time count number you see on your long pool swims. Efficient tumble turns may be fun and fulfilling in their own right, but they will only improve the latter, not the former.

[nbaffaro]

Thanks for the kind words. I am still a work in progress. Just need to get a handle on what to work on.


I think I fixed the video privacy issue.

[trickyfitness]

I am Tricky FItness, just joined the forum found an impressive discussion board here so decided to be a part of it.
I am glad to be here expecting good suggestions and ideas from you guys.

[tomoy]

Looks like this got orphaned. If original poster is still around:

Looking very smooth. Good kick timing. Clearly your fitness is good. Can't tell about balance from this front/rear view.

If your goal is open water swimming, then the turn isn't that big a deal. It's hard to get a good measure of your progress though without a consistent turn, and similarly without knowing how your splits are: how is your 100 time, 200, 400, 800? Those are tools which will help you isolate and find which technical changes pay off.

As for your stroke, it looks like you have a couple points you could improve and should help your times. First is the amount of knee bend, that 90-deg angle is just putting on the brakes. So focus on kicking from the hip, and maybe a little smaller. That streamlining should help.

Second is keeping a long hull, keeping the patient lead hand out there longer, especially when you turn to breathe. On your breathing strokes, your lead hand is taking off early and pushing down before your recovering hand enters the water. So you'll want to find ways to get air that don't involve pushing that lead hand down.

Anyway, overall it's really good, and clearly your times are proving you have a good stroke. A little time focusing on what things you could improve should speed you up even more. Hope you're getting time in off-season!

[Talvi]

Originally Posted by tomoy

Looks like this got orphaned. If original poster is still around:

Looking very smooth. Good kick timing. Clearly your fitness is good. Can't tell about balance from this front/rear view.

If your goal is open water swimming, then the turn isn't that big a deal. It's hard to get a good measure of your progress though without a consistent turn, and similarly without knowing how your splits are: how is your 100 time, 200, 400, 800? Those are tools which will help you isolate and find which technical changes pay off.

As for your stroke, it looks like you have a couple points you could improve and should help your times. First is the amount of knee bend, that 90-deg angle is just putting on the brakes. So focus on kicking from the hip, and maybe a little smaller. That streamlining should help.

Second is keeping a long hull, keeping the patient lead hand out there longer, especially when you turn to breathe. On your breathing strokes, your lead hand is taking off early and pushing down before your recovering hand enters the water. So you'll want to find ways to get air that don't involve pushing that lead hand down.

Anyway, overall it's really good, and clearly your times are proving you have a good stroke. A little time focusing on what things you could improve should speed you up even more. Hope you're getting time in off-season!

Great observations and tips imo tomoy!

This knee bend thing seems common to many of us, so probably me too. It looks as if nbaffaro initiates (or prepares for) the "kick" early using his knee bend. It made me wonder about how the kick timing is felt. I'm working on the timing of my own kick at the moment so will see if introducing a feel of a "delay" in its inception, not to affect the overall timing of it, might help.

It looks to me as if his lead hand also strays across the centre line on the breathing stroke. Perhaps focus on head position and relaxation during the head turn might help.

[tomoy]

Thx Talvi - i think a little music background helps. We talk about tempo a lot so I guess we could extend that to the kick. NBAFFARO's kick here looks like a half note. Shinji's is more of an eighth note.

If using this language makes any sense the focal point would be to concentrate on using those quicker note values when kicking. Aim for a quarter note. Then maybe when your stroke rate is faster, would an eighth note be more effective? How does it feel? My guess is that a sixteenth note would lose grip on the water and just generate bubbles.

It's just saying that a good deal of the time, a kick in a leisurely cocked or open-parachute position is spending more time slowing you down. Make it a quicker action and less time in the slow-down position will help.

I think I'd need a fixed-width font to show it properly. But if we break down the stroke (on one side) into 2, 4 and 8th note values, the kick would start on the last number.

1 - - - 2 - - -
(half note kick: cocks up on 2)

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
(quarter note kick: cocks up on 4)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(eight note kick: cocks up on 8)

Alternately (confusingly?)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(half note kick starts on 4
quarter note kick starts on 6
eighth note kick starts on 8)

YMMV :-)