Sculling Practice

[Zenturtle]

Do you have any idea where your bottleneck lies Sclim?
What part of your body is getting tired?

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

Do you have any idea where your bottleneck lies Sclim?
What part of your body is getting tired?

I get tired all over. Core, I just don't care, and I'm short of breath. Very strange, because I'm very fit for my age, cardio-pulmonary, I mean. So I must have horrible efficiency still.

[Zenturtle]

Do you ever do short.90% effort sprints?
Sometimes this can expose pronlem areas.
If you dont have a coach you have to do weird things to give different perspectives on your normal stroke.

[WFEGb]

Hello,

Mat developed a test for "Weakest System", might help a Little...

Best regards,
Werner

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

Since you understand Dutch by now,
swimming lessons from Kromowidjojo and Jacco Verhaeren
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaledn9sZWI (sculling from 4 min5)

I only just got to watching it to the sculling portion. OMG Kromowidjojo's a smooth swimmer! When she sculls, her windshield wiper movement seems purely in the side to side plane, yet still maintaining a strong effective forward propulsive thrust, whereas the 13 year old student has an exaggerated figure 8 motion at each end. Is this purely a manifestation of Kromowidjojo's exquisite sculling skill (and I presume also a reflection of her great feel for water)? And should I try to emulate this flat plane action, i.e. trying to get so efficient side to side that I can minimise the figure 8 turnaround at each end?

BTW, no, I don't really understand all the words, but it's eerie how close the phraseology and intonation sometimes mimics the English equivalent. So, yes, I catch the gist of what they are saying.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

If you dont have a coach you have to do weird things to give different perspectives on your normal stroke.

I thought all the things I have been doing, winging off on strange, and often not well considered tangents, etc., were pretty weird already!

[andyinnorway]

Originally Posted by sclim

I get tired all over. Core, I just don't care, and I'm short of breath. Very strange, because I'm very fit for my age, cardio-pulmonary, I mean. So I must have horrible efficiency still.

If you're getting short of breath at any speed and are generally fit then I would guess you are carrying tension down the pool, which can be a side effect of going for distance per stroke.


'you fall off a boat 2 miles from land in the middle of the night' how do you start swimming to shore in order to survive? probably not how you do your 100 repeats.

try some survival mindset swimming - one more relaxed stroke after another, form not important just get to shore

[Danny]

Shortness of breath can also mean you have balance problems, because you have to tense your muscles to maintain your body position. The balance problems in turn can arise due to lifting one's head to breath. If the legs start falling, you have to kick harder and pull harder just to keep them up. The shortness of breath can also happen if you aren't exhaling fully, which you will resist doing if you are worried about being able to get enough air on your next breath. Also, if you don't get your mouth out of the water long enough to inhale in a relaxed fashion. Breathing issues are often the source of tension.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by andyinnorway

If you're getting short of breath at any speed and are generally fit then I would guess you are carrying tension down the pool, which can be a side effect of going for distance per stroke.


'you fall off a boat 2 miles from land in the middle of the night' how do you start swimming to shore in order to survive? probably not how you do your 100 repeats.

try some survival mindset swimming - one more relaxed stroke after another, form not important just get to shore

I think you're right. I'm really fixed on dropping my SPL, so I often forget that relaxation should always be part of the mix.

When I add in the survival mindset swimming just to remind me how I should be and feel, I expect my SPL to rise. Should I always keep this feeling in mind? In other words, I'm trying to figure out how to reframe my "lower the SPL" quest. Would it be fair to think that any SPL lowering achieved by tension or straining should not be counted.

Currently I'm going for 100m at a time, and the first 25m is stupid easy to get a low SPL -- today with the TT set at 1.40 sec it was like 21 or less. But by the time I'm doing the last 25m at the same tempo, I'm struggling to keep on beat and allowing the same glide, and I'm not relaxing, and the SPL has gone to 22+.

So, in a way I'm asking, while the way how I get there is problematic right now (what with the collapsing in the struggle of doing 100m consistently), is the task of steadily increasing the specified distance (100m, 150m, 200m, 300m 400m) with a view to keeping the tempo and SPL constant a reasonable goal? My reasoning is that if I persist in tensing, I just won't be able to progress much past 100m, so that is a huge incentive not to tense. Considering that initially I was achieving these relatively low SPL counts (for me) for only 25m at a time, I must have been able to shed some of the tension holding habits to be able to last (sort of) through 100m.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Danny

Shortness of breath can also mean you have balance problems, because you have to tense your muscles to maintain your body position.

I really hope right now it's not "have to", merely "afraid that I have to", which, hopefully would be easier to correct.

Originally Posted by Danny

The balance problems in turn can arise due to lifting one's head to breath. If the legs start falling, you have to kick harder and pull harder just to keep them up.

I have considered that possibility. However my breathing has improved so much since last year that I don't think I can single out the breathing tension from the tension I am throwing unnecessarily into everything else I do, especially as I tire.

Originally Posted by Danny

The shortness of breath can also happen if you aren't exhaling fully, which you will resist doing if you are worried about being able to get enough air on your next breath. Also, if you don't get your mouth out of the water long enough to inhale in a relaxed fashion. Breathing issues are often the source of tension.

Hmm, I think maybe I have to retract my last paragraph. I certainly am reverting to tensing the air in my chest. I'm trying to let the air out in a small steady stream which I found magically useful last year; but now when I try to do it I realise it's not coming out smoothly because there is conflict between the tensing muscles in my chest and diaphragm and my intellectual command to let the air out slowly in a small trickle. Consequently it doesn't achieve the relaxation magic like it did last year. I'll have to reexamine this whole breathing process again -- you may be right on the whole duration of inhalation thing.

Also see my exchange with andyinnorway which touches on the same issue in a more general way.