For full disclosure, my SPL had gotten up to 19 over distance in a 25 yd pool, which is pretty bad for someone who is a little over 5'10". So the improvement got me back down to 16 or 17, which is probably where I should be swimming. What I think I learned from this is that, regardless of how much care I had taken in a good catch up front, if I relax too much as my arm moves back I am dropping my elbow and losing that grip on the water. Keeping the elbow up and holding onto the ball of water turns out to be a lot easier to do when the rest of your body is coordinated with the arm pushing the ball back. There are a lot of moving parts here, and on those few strokes where all the timing matches up you can definitely tell the difference. If only every stroke could be like that!
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