Sculling Practice

[sclim]

(This doesn't really belong on the sculling drill thread, but it's just a delayed insight I had in relation to the shortness of breath problems I've been having during my recent swim and scull drills)

I was just surfing the "Strokes per minute & Breathing" thread, and just realised that the breathing every 3 breaths was only adequate for swimming in open water (unless modifications were made).

I had learned to breathe 1 in 3 as an incentive to learn ease in bilateral breathing, and once I got into the groove I assumed it would be adequate for my purposes. I also assumed that my shortness of breath was an anomaly solely due to gross inefficiency or tensing or whatever. I never considered that the 1 in 3 breathing might be insufficient oxygenation in the context of pool swimming with no breath during the tumble turn and immediately after the turn, with escalation of the oxygen debt if no corrective action is taken immediately. (I was taking inconsistent and insufficient correction with clumsy ad hoc breathing "out of turn" which I was not paying enough attention to.) It makes perfect sense now that Im calculating the time without breathing. The ill-advised addition of trying to tumble turn when I was already marginal on oxygen, and likely tumbling inefficiently escalated the situation.

[Grant]

Originally Posted by sclim

(This doesn't really belong on the sculling drill thread, but it's just a delayed insight I had in relation to the shortness of breath problems I've been having during my recent swim and scull drills)

I was just surfing the "Strokes per minute & Breathing" thread, and just realised that the breathing every 3 breaths was only adequate for swimming in open water (unless modifications were made).

I had learned to breathe 1 in 3 as an incentive to learn ease in bilateral breathing, and once I got into the groove I assumed it would be adequate for my purposes. I also assumed that my shortness of breath was an anomaly solely due to gross inefficiency or tensing or whatever. I never considered that the 1 in 3 breathing might be insufficient oxygenation in the context of pool swimming with no breath during the tumble turn and immediately after the turn, with escalation of the oxygen debt if no corrective action is taken immediately. (I was taking inconsistent and insufficient correction with clumsy ad hoc breathing "out of turn" which I was not paying enough attention to.) It makes perfect sense now that Im calculating the time without breathing. The ill-advised addition of trying to tumble turn when I was already marginal on oxygen, and likely tumbling inefficiently escalated the situation.

Hi Sclim
I take it you mean you are taking a breath every three strokes. If so, when I was first getting into swimming I read that accomplished swimmers breathed every three strokes so I emulated that pattern. I was very shortly running into 02 deprivation. Although I did improve I was still playing the edge quickly. I tried breathing every second breath and it was the solution. To protect against an uneven stroke I swam one length breathing right and the next to the left as suggested by Terry. As I do very little open water swimming I did not need navigation skills. To this day I still use this pattern except in final sprints in a short race when I will use a breath pattern of every four strokes.

[kurb]

Originally Posted by Danny

I think in running you throw your arm back to counter the motion of the opposite leg moving back. This prevents your body from twisting. In swimming the focus is more on throwing the weight of your recovering arm and shoulder forward, in the line of your body to move past the anchor of the other arm. The motion is in a different direction and that's why the twisting action is different.

Conceprtually running efficiently is much like swimming efficiently. The template for running long distance efficiently in my experience is

1. You run with your aligned core (head/spine/pelvic tilt) leaning into gravity
2. You have tonus in your your core to maintain broomstick alignment
3. You are totally relaxed in your limbs:
4. Your elbow is a pendulum hinged at the shoulders and swings naturally to balance your running. Your hands are soft and relaxed.
5 Your shoulders are not hunched, just relaxed. Your shoulders are part of your core, they do not rotate relative to the core
5. Your legs are totally relaxed, especially your ankle joint (no rigidity at all)
6. You foot lands, subtly on the ball first, before your weight is borne by your aligned core over the entire length of your foot
7.You have steady cadence at about 90
8. You allow your hips to rotate naturally relative to the spine. This increases stride length
9. You lean your broomstick more or less relative to vertical plane (ie relative to gravity) to change gears; your stride length will adjust automatically, still at 90
10. Running is releasing yourself to gravity without the fear of falling

I originally started running trying to follow chi-running guidelines. The subtle shift to landing on the ball took the quality of my running to another level. This came about by accident after I was diagnosed with arthritis, of all places in my midfoot, and I started running without shoes on turf for a while.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by kurb

10. Running is releasing yourself to gravity without the fear of falling.

I think that the key thing to master in order to do this is to have good balance. If your balance is off, you will sense it and that is where the fear starts (as it should). The same is true in swimming. The key to relaxation (for me) is having good balance, although the notion of balance is somewhat different in the two sports. Good balance means you don't have to rush your stroke to control your body position. Of course, the additional challenge in swimming is learning to breath without destroying this balance.

[Zenturtle]

Some surf paddling similarities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwFBojLeUt8

And when you finally can make a good paddle with your arms, the work can really begin: drive that paddle with your torso and with help from the legs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uau86uJwQyU

I was thinking if you could try fist swimming again if you havent done that earlier.
Is it easier now or harder?

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Grant

I take it you mean you are taking a breath every three strokes. If so, when I was first getting into swimming I read that accomplished swimmers breathed every three strokes so I emulated that pattern. I was very shortly running into 02 deprivation. Although I did improve I was still playing the edge quickly. I tried breathing every second breath and it was the solution. To protect against an uneven stroke I swam one length breathing right and the next to the left as suggested by Terry.

Exactly my own thought process and emulation sequence. Except that I hung in that 1 in 3 pattern for all this time, despite the shortness of breath, assuming the problems were all elsewhere. I can't believe it took me so long to figure out the problem was the (insufficient) frequency of breaths!!

[Zenturtle]

I thought this was your sculling thread Sclim.

2 min 25 sec Haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1osIXnoIqxY
The rest isnt a punishment to watch either.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

I thought this was your sculling thread Sclim.

2 min 25 sec Haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1osIXnoIqxY
The rest isnt a punishment to watch either.

You're right!

Fill me in again -- elite swimmers who know how to scull, i.e. already have the skill if necessary, still put sculling in their everyday training routines, even though the sculling motion per se is not used in actual swimming. Why? And what proportion of total distance swum?

For the sake of argument, if she had a snorkel handy, would there be any merit in doing this drill with a snorkel for convenience? Or is the lifting the head to breathe instructive in any way?

[Zenturtle]

Even for elite swimmers the learning never stops.

Another elite swimmer Marleen Veldhuis had a very commen fault, putting on the brakes when extending the arm ( seen at 1 min 54 in her video analysis).
Impossible for an elite to make such a fault you might think. No, and she wasnt really aware of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=267CIzEiSjc

Dont know all their training details.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

Even for elite swimmers the learning never stops.

Another elite swimmer Marleen Veldhuis had a very commen fault, putting on the brakes when extending the arm ( seen at 1 min 54 in her video analysis).
Impossible for an elite to make such a fault you might think. No, and she wasnt really aware of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=267CIzEiSjc

Dont know all their training details.

OK, I understand that even elites should be on guard for the mistakes that they may not have noticed. But what I was getting at was what was the fault that continued sculling skill and practice is intended to correct?