New Swimming Gadget

[andyinnorway]

Another weekend in a soul less hotel room.

I was contemplating inventing something new for finis and came up with the idea of a pair of lasers on suction pads that you could attach to the end wall at the depth of your optimum hand spear.

The lasers would beam out a horizontal line that would help you develop both an even stroke on the left and right and learn to get your spear to an exact depth each time.

On the way up you could see you laser dance on your hand to know you were correct and on the way down you could make the line disappear.

What do y'all think, should I contact the toymakers?

Anyone else have any training tool ideas?

[Alex-SG]

Hi Andy,

Other gadgets? A few ideas...

1. A tempo trainer like device which tells you if the head stays down.
Could either be a laser beam which points in the same direction of the eyes or some motion detector that beeps if your head comes up (from a prerecorded perfect Superman glide head position
NOTE: In my case this thing would beep past LAP1

2. A laser beam ring for the middle-finger. You can see the laser at the bottom of the pool and that gives you an idea about the catch/pull motion

3. A device that locks your elbow angle to 90deg minimum. You can of course spear, catch pull but the angle is always [90-180deg]

4. May be another motion detector that beeps if hips drop (and drag goes up)?

ALEX

[tomoy]

Haha. Brilliant.

+ I can imagine trying to rig this up with cheap cat toy laser pointers and a lot of electrical tape to water seal it. Then tape it around one of your fingers, or both index and middle fingers. Probably a $10 test which would break the third time you used it.

- If you swim in busy pools, your neighbors may not appreciate it. It's probably safe in water. I think the beam would be diffracted to a safe level in water pretty quickly. More an issue would be if you accidentally pointed it at a law enforcement person or helicopter where the laws don't tolerate much.

[kilgoretrout]

Experimenting with lasers is the first sign you are becoming a Bond villain.

[Alex-SG]

OK Guys, here is the killer Gadget...

The TI Bench. The Swimmer can lie on it and feel the proper TI Stroke.

Starting Point: An inclined bench which can rotate 45deg on each side

The Swimmer can lie on it in a similar 45degree skating position

Add 1: 2 tracks under the bench (shoulder width) with some hand paddle
Add 2: 2 support extensions for legs on the other side of the bench
Add 3: a recovery stick shoulder height
Add 4: Some horizontal planes on the side to simulate the water surface (to ensure the hands clear the water

So it would work as follows:
1. Swimmer is on the bench in a skate position (45deg)
2. Swimmer start the recovery with the left elbow, ensuring that:
a. The elbow touches the recovery stick and
b. the hand clears the "water"
3. Right Hand Spearing starts along the rail, the left hand (positioned on the rail) catches and pulls back along the rail
4. While the pull takes place, the bench rotates to the other 45deg position
5. To make it even more advanced, the leg supports could be coordinated to simulate a 2BK

Can you imagine how great this would be?
You would get a great dry-land technique work-out teaching you: Wide-Tracks, the correct elbow lead recovery, the catch-pull, coordinated body rotation....

What do you think?

[dshen]

Originally Posted by Alex-SG

OK Guys, here is the killer Gadget...

The TI Bench. The Swimmer can lie on it and feel the proper TI Stroke.

Starting Point: An inclined bench which can rotate 45deg on each side

The Swimmer can lie on it in a similar 45degree skating position

Add 1: 2 tracks under the bench (shoulder width) with some hand paddle
Add 2: 2 support extensions for legs on the other side of the bench
Add 3: a recovery stick shoulder height
Add 4: Some horizontal planes on the side to simulate the water surface (to ensure the hands clear the water

So it would work as follows:
1. Swimmer is on the bench in a skate position (45deg)
2. Swimmer start the recovery with the left elbow, ensuring that:
a. The elbow touches the recovery stick and
b. the hand clears the "water"
3. Right Hand Spearing starts along the rail, the left hand (positioned on the rail) catches and pulls back along the rail
4. While the pull takes place, the bench rotates to the other 45deg position
5. To make it even more advanced, the leg supports could be coordinated to simulate a 2BK

Can you imagine how great this would be?
You would get a great dry-land technique work-out teaching you: Wide-Tracks, the correct elbow lead recovery, the catch-pull, coordinated body rotation....

What do you think?

i want one for christmas!

[Rincewind]

That sounds expensive.

I was thinking about something like a straight rod of rigid plastic that would somehow follow your spine from the back of your head all the way down to your hips and produce a feeling of resistance whenever you get out of alignment.

[tab]

I am going to pass on the new gadget. I am having way too much fun discovering a more fluid movement through actual water, I can really feel the difference.

I may try a Tempo Trainer, soon.

Another thing I would like to see is some kind of gps tracking device like runners use to clock their time and distance. I can also take this info to the web, google earth, and see where I have been in Open Water. A recent goal I am considering is circumnavigating my local lake, this could take a few years, 3,886 acres.

[DD_l_enclume]

Originally Posted by tab

Another thing I would like to see is some kind of gps tracking device like runners use to clock their time and distance. I can also take this info to the web, google earth, and see where I have been in Open Water. A recent goal I am considering is circumnavigating my local lake, this could take a few years, 3,886 acres.

I've used such a watch under my cap (gps waves can't go through water), and that was fun afterwards to see the path on the map.

It's less accurate that when running though, because some data point are way out of the way (I guess because my head is too much under water).
But you have a pretty good idea of the overall distance and the direction (provided that your distance is fairly long, i.e : a few hundreds).


My personnal gadget would be an instant speed meter, like on a car or a bike, which would work in the pool and in OW.
That numbers would be shown through your goggle, projected in frontof you. (like heads up speed meter in new cars).
And you would see in realtime the speed effect (not just a feeling which is usually wrong) of pushing, gliding, changing focus point, and so on.

[andyinnorway]

does not the new garmin watch claim to be great for outdoor swimming

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=27335&ra=true

as for the bench gadget, It seems to me a lot of the elite guys look like they are swimming on a plane with a slight curve, its something they do with their hands at the end of the spear, very obvious with sun yang but others too, almost a caressing motion.