Need Stroke Advice (Video Included)

[daveblt]

I think the over rotation is still causing the legs to splay out too much and also the entry hands are reaching too high .

Dave

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[Zenturtle]

That looks like a very exhausting stroke.
You pull like an animal. plenty of power available!
But you waisting all that pulling power in a slipping paddle, and no connection to the rest of the body.

You are trying to swim too long.
You are putting too much emphasis on the pulling part and forget the center of the stroke, that is the midsection of your body.

swim slower and try to focus on rolling the bodyparts around a stick thats going from top to bottom.
Try to find a way to throw the arms forward and out from within that rotating centermass.
Brace that centermass against rotation, initiate rotation with nearly straight legs, starting in the center of your body.

Once you have an idea about that, start working on a proper anchor with the arms in the water.
Now you are pulling, but you are too weak to hold your arm in shape, so you pull with a badly dropped elbow.
Never pull harder than you are able to hold your arm in shape.
This means taking much more time to position you arm in better paddle shape, notice that it is indeed in a good shape, and only then, only then...start to move your body forward over that planted arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGVmL2EriBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j0ILEUd-6g
Your felt extension should be from hip to elbow, all the way untill you have set the paddle in the proper shape.
Then let the extension contract, and move forward with minimal slippage.



to improve:
dropped elbow, should be like green line
wide splaying legs angle between red lines.
general bodyline sloping down, black line
hips rotate more than shoulders. No channeling of propulsion into forward movement, causes an unneeded stall, waisted rotational energy.
Hollow lower back, should be straighter.

the good things.
Little kneebend, if the pulling isnt overwhelming the body tautness and alignment anymore the spaying of the legs will get less. You have not ingrained bad kneekicking technique, so you dont have to unlearn it.

Very good energy output.
I guarantee, you can swim 1.30min/100m pace instead of 1.50min/100m by only optimizing your technique.
THis will take longer than you might think, but its worth it.

Since you like to swim fast, an example from a boy from which you can learn a lot in these points.
Its not TI with this more rotary timing, but the underwater points still aplly, whatever timing you use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x_vMkqWBWQ
(yes I know, he could hold his head lower while breathing, and has some other flaws, but the basics are very good)

The most fundamental is having a horizontal, streamlined rolling shape moving straight forward in the water.
A super high elbow catch isnt really needed to swim fast (but still better than straight), almost staight arms is already good enough, but the fundamentals need to be good to start with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBFQ...Wkm6ej&index=4

i noticed your right arm is crossing over the midline too

if you go wider it'll even out the stroke and stop the over rotating

go for a "Y" and you get the "h"

if you go for a "h" you'll get an "I"

Hello everyone - Thanks so much for the feedback.

@Zenturtle, That video with high-elbow drills is really fantastic. It hit the nail on the head regarding my problem. I'm always in a huge hurry to pull back without properly setting it up. Even when I swim at a low tempo, I just tend to pull the hand back as fast as possible. I do other things slowly but I don't why I just like to pull the hand back that fast. I guess this is the bad habit that I need to unlearn.

BTW, I also love Brenton Ford's feedback Friday videos.

I ranked all the issues based on my expectation of difficulty (easiest first). I'll be working on them one at a time till each one is fixed.
1) Spear the left hand deeper
2) Reduce cross-over of the right hand
3) Reduce rotation - I'm thinking of practicing this by breathing 2-3 times/25m.
4) High-elbow pull

**) Arching back & splaying legs - I'm not sure where to place them or if these are independent issues. Are the legs splaying since I rotate too much?? I have no idea how to fix the arching back.


I'm guessing a snorkel will help me focus on issues 1-3. Any thoughts?

I imagine some of you went through these issues while learning. Do you agree with my difficulty rankings? I learned that it's too hard to focus on more than one issue at a time while swimming so I want to work on the easy stuff first.

[novaswimmer]

Don't even worry about speed at this point. Concentrate on technique, balance, form.

In your latest video, look at around 7 secs in. Scrub through this portion of the video slowly back and forth, and watch your left arm as it's pulling back. From the spear to the point where your upper arm becomes vertical, the lower arm seems to be flexing to 90º and is just not effective at moving any water (this is termed 'slipping'). The green line is where the arm should be. Perhaps you are using your legs to propel more than arms are able.



Now compare to Terry's underwater pull and arm position at approximately the same phase of the stroke. Notice how is whole arm, as a paddle, is propelling the water backwards (some would say 'anchoring' into the water)?

[Zenturtle]

you really have to ask yourself, why am I pulling so violently and too early?

- Are you longing for the next breath, and do you want to go to that point as soon as possible?
- Are you unbalanced somewhere and is it a panicky, drowning action at some level?
- Do you simply want to swim fast and do you think you have to pull fast to swim fast?

You have to build as much awareness as possible.
Why do you do the things as you do them? Which actions are effective and which actions you can do without?

What are the first steps? focussing on what the arms are doing and optimizing your pulling technique is fun, and seems the best first action, but pulling with a perfect paddle on a uncoordinated noodle brings you nowhere either.

study and try this first on dryland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V5PYspkknE

a bit of kicking and adding rotational kicks firns up your core, something you need to make the pulling action more effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYEERgh_VfQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYRecPojBGY

or try to balance with no kick at all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYqQJtcirqQ

[WFEGb]

Hello RamTI,

your improvement (expecially the cut times) is impressive, congratulation!

You've still got a fine analyzis and several hints from ZT and MF. Allow me to add a more or less TI-special thought:

We only see your underwater stroke, but I guess several of your issues might have their cause in your movements above water. So you might have a tight awareness to your elbow not going behind your scapular plane, your elbow swinging (far) away from your body, your elbow leading the recovery movement. A relaxed and faster recovery (doesn't cost much more engergy) might even help a bit to become your lead-arm a bit more patient...

Also doing some minutes of basic TI-drills like Torpedo, Superman and Skate (3s skateposition (before falling back flat) with feet together and without kicking is Shinji's hint before going on); FPs in relaxed head and looooong aligned body from fingertips to tiptoes. And when going to laps with whole stroke be aware what feelings you can carry from the drills into your continuous strokes...

Go on with your succesful work and enjoy!

Best regards,
Werner

[Zenturtle]

I am really curious to see if a beginner can use these core drillls , and transfer these core actions to swimming actions, simply by adding some extension, catch and recovery to the ingrained core patterns. (Maybe dont do too much of these bend drills)

Maybe you can try them and tell if its usable RamTI?

uchimura
bend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54QfT1KFs4

Core twists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdUD9wp59Bw

progress to swim by adding more limb movement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDwA4wh3z80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms391iic1kw

focus on rotation combined with forward extension and the connection from front to back.
The energy for the basic action without propulsion is coming from the center of the body.
Feel how your body is supported in the water (floats) and add that rocking motion.
See if you can move a bit forward only from the leg whipping action.
Probably this is very minimal or non existant. Thats not a big problem. Dont focus too much on it, but let the rotation feel as if its driven from the legs, or the above the knee part to the ribcage part of the body. Not from the arms pushing water down.
If you know how the body reacts on the leg whipping action with a big amplitude, try to keep the same reaction, but with a smaller amplitude. Therefore you need some more core tone and control, but thats a feeling you should get used to.
That feeling is always on when you swim, but gets more manageble when timing and conditioning improves.
Now add a bit of reach to the arm movement, focussing on the point of the elbow as the moving part. let the forarm and hand just hang relaxt, even in the water. You may feel the weight of the arm hanging above water at the outside of the body is helping rotation a bit. This is normal. Use it to achieve a certain rhythm.
Very slowly add some propulsion by adding a bit of backward- forward arm movement with that bend armshape, elbow highest point, but always have the main focus on the inside-out rocking movement.
If the pulling action is disturbing this action too much, back off the pulling action, or try to play with the timing to hook in the main rocking action better.
If you have an arm in the water, feel how the recoil of the body helps your backward pull.
You will notice there is a certain frequency where the rocking action happens almost by itself.
Its nice to stay in this frequency and experiment from there on with more reach, highere elbow etc etc.

[Zenturtle]

You have the same problem as Sam, you are overpulling.
See the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeHQyqI7zq0