Once Inspired

Posts Tagged ‘Swimming’

Swimming technique, balance, body position and hip rotation are important elements of the freestyle swim stroke. A coach might critique your balance in the water but praise your hip rotation; or he / she might try to tweak your body position and ignore your balance. It is important to understand what each term means so you can make improvements.

First is balance. Your upper body and your legs should share the effort of moving you through the water. Specifically, your arms should make a 50 percent to 70 percent contribution to your forward propulsion while your legs should account for the remaining 50 percent to 30 percent. Swimmers who drag their legs behind their body, with almost no visible kick, are missing out on the potential core power that is derived from the hips. On the other hand, if your legs are tiring long before your upper body, consider lessening your kick to conserve energy. By swimming with a two- or four-beat beat kick (meaning you complete two or four individual kicks per complete arm stroke cycle), athletes can benefit from the power in their legs without tiring too quickly.

Balance in the water also means having the movement of the stroke come easily and naturally. A swimmer with good balance is not fighting the water; she is efficiently working with the water, gravity and her own body. Both sides of her body are making similar movements. And yes, balanced swimming requires bilateral breathing.

In terms of body position, try to maintain a constant position during the entire stroke cycle. Strive for a horizontal position in the water with your face pointing toward the bottom of the pool and your hips near the surface of the water. You can practice floating with a snorkel or streamline kicking to become comfortable in this position. Your position is good if your feet break the surface of the water with each kick.

Next, try to keep your body position in a straight line. Think about being “skewered” from the top of your head, through your neck and down your spine. You can rotate on this skewer but you cannot move any part of your body laterally. Drag and resistance are minimized with a streamlined position.

Finally, there is the fine art of hip rotation, which actually refers to shoulder, torso and hip rotation. To understand rotation correctly, you must first recognize “disconnect.” Rotation occurs from the middle of the neck to the middle of the thigh. The head and legs are disconnected from the rotation. When the hips, torso and shoulders are maximally rotated 45 degrees to the left or right in the water, your head and legs should maintain a horizontal position. This allows your kick to keep a steady beat at the surface of the water and it keeps your head still at the front of the stroke.

Your breathing is also disconnected from hip rotation. Breathe by rotating your neck just enough to get one goggle and your mouth out of the water. While taking a breath, don’t forget that you have been “skewered.” Head movement should be minimal and should not affect your balance, body position or hip rotation.

Open water swimming is a big concern for many beginner and even some seasoned triathletes. They never really get comfortable in open water and therefore never train in open water… and therefore never get comfortable in open water. I’m sure you can see the problem here.

It is important that you get out of the pool and into some open water. There’s a lot to learn about open water swimming and most of which you can only learn though experience. Yes I can tell you what to do and how to do it, but you really need to do it yourself to get it right. It’s not swimming as you have been taught or as you have read. It’s swimming that needs to be tweaked on the day depending on the conditions and the best way to learn this is by getting into the water in all kinds of conditions and finding what works best for you. Being a fair weather open water swimmer is of no use, as pleasant and wonderful as it may be. Get someone who is experienced in open water to go with you and ask them questions as you go. Get them to help you. Their experience is worth more than what you can read.

Different conditions call for different variations in your stroke. In choppy water, shortening the front end and back end of your stroke will accommodate for the chop. Rolling over more in order to get your face slightly higher out of the water when you breathe ensures that you get less water in your mouth. Swimming using unilateral breathing away from the chop makes you more streamline. If you breathe into the chop you will be opening your chest and face up for a slap and gulp of water. If you’re swimming directly into the chop your stroke length will vary with almost every stroke you take. Mastering this take s a lot of time, take every opportunity you get. It also makes you hellish strong.

Open water is full of all kinds of things that can get in your way; weed, plastic packets, stinging creatures and biting animals. In the event of an encounter with weed and plastic packets you need to learn to keep swimming rather than start treading water in frantic fear of your life. Before a race always get into the water or know what you’re dealing with. If the water is occupied by stinging creatures smear Vaseline (Petroleum jelly) over all exposed skin. This forms a layer between stinging tentacles and your skin. It also helps for cold. Once again, try not to stop. More often than not you would have slapped the jellyfish on its head anyway.

Understanding currents and location specifics also plays a part is making your swimming journey as fast and as pleasurable as possible. If you’re swimming somewhere for the first time, consult with a local no matter how tranquil it may seem. One submerged rock or branch is all it takes.

When it comes to dealing with the violence of flailing arms and kicking legs remember that if you stop swimming it’s more than likely that you will get swum over. If you feel you need some space, get your head up and get a little pushy. Swimming in crowded waters requires a fairly high level of assertiveness. There should be no “after you” tactics, rather “back of the line buddy!”

Good day and welcome the final week of the second month of 2010. Thus far I have had much success with my new ventures which will be in full swing from 1 March 2010. If you’d like to know more about that read my previous post, Change and the Opportunities that Await.

Here is a little testimonial-ish piece from one of my clients, a masters swimmer who has made some drastic improvements. Please see below extracts from the emails which he updates me with following a gala.

This gentleman came to me with 1 major problem and several smaller ones. The major problem was that his one leg would give a huge thump of a kick every second stroke… and that was it as far his kicking went. So after 3 weeks this is how it goes:

Day 1 of 3 of WP Masters at UWC

50m Free (long course)

“Warmed up with lotza flutter kicking + then tried to keep focus on the kicking during the event.”

“Was in Heat 5 of 9 (pretty much in the middle of the range of all swimmers taking part) and was wanting to improve on my last gala time of 33.42 secs.(23.01.10)”

“Looks like I was able to take a second 1.05 secs off my last gala time and equal my PB of last year – 32.36 + 32.35 secs.”

Date	Course	Occasion	Time (secs)
24.01.09	Long	Paarl Gala	32.36
25.02.09	Long	UWC Gala	32.35
01.04.09	Short	Long Street Gala	33.39
05.12.09	Long	UWC Gala	32.44
23.01.10	Long	Paarl Gala	33.42
08.02.10	Short	NM Time Trial	33.60
16.02.10	Long	UWC Gala	32.37

And now for an even better part:

Day 3 of 3 of WP Masters at UWC

100m Free (long course)

“Did 4 X 50m length warm-up (in 2 X 100m slow sessions) and did manage OK to get the legs working in the warm-up.”

“Was in Heat 3 of 6 (pretty much in the middle of the range of all swimmers taking part) and was wanting to improve on my last gala time for the 100 m Free event this year of 1 : 17: 56 (23.01.10)”

“Looks like I was able to take 4.17 secs off my last gala time at Paarl-East last month (23.01.10) with a  1 : 13 : 39 and better my PB of 2009 by a bit.”

“During the event itself I could feel I was putting most of my energy into the upper bod and not as much as I should have into the legs.”

“Guess I just went back into the ‘old technique’ with the pressure of the competition itself.”

“The training we have been doing must have some influence on the time though – hence the new PB.”

“So am very happy with this.”

“The next frontier (with your help) on the 100m Free will be to break say 1 : 12 : 0 :”

Date	Course	Occasion	Time (secs)
24.01.09	Long	Paarl Gala	1 : 16 : 93
25.02.09	Long	UWC Gala	1 : 14 : 15
01.04.09	Short	Long Street Gala	1 : 14 : 51

05.12.09	Long	UWC Gala
23.01.10	Long	Paarl Gala	1 : 17 : 56
08.02.10	Short	NM Time Trial	1 : 16 : 00
21.02.10	Long	UWC Gala (Paarl)	1 : 13 : 39

So that’s how it goes. Many swimmers think that watching videos and trying to make improvements on their own will make the difference they’re looking for. Not so. And in other unfortunate news: If you have a bad technique you can train all you want, you will only be able to go so fast.

Get a technique coach. Learn the drills and don’t be afraid to substitute a hardcore session for “technique” session… especially when you’re tired.

Happy swimming. Oh and well done Pete. Proud to be of assistance.

Incase you were wondering…

“Every triathlete knows good technique is critical to swimming performance. But not everything you think you know about effective freestyle technique is true. There are many myths floating around. Here are some of the ones to watch out for:

1. Triathletes don’t need to kick much. While it’s true that triathletes need not rely on a hard kick for propulsion (that’s for pool sprinters), a good, steady kick will greatly enhance your body position and rotation. It will bring your hips closer to the surface of the water, allowing you to be more streamlined and enhancing your stroke efficiency.A“good, steady kick” is a noticeable kick (some would call it a four-beat kick, with four kicks for every stroke rotation) that provides some propulsion, enhances body position and doesn’t noticeably tire your legs. The key is to practice swimming with this kick so your muscles will develop to appropriately support this kick during a race.

2. A wetsuit minimizes the negative impact of stroke deficiencies. First of all, wetsuits are not even allowed in some races, including a little out-of-the-way event called the Hawaii Ironman World Championship. That’s reason enough alone not to depend too much on your wetsuit to make up for inefficiencies in your technique. But the bigger issue is the fact that a wetsuit can’t reallymake up for these inefficiencies. True, a wetsuit helps with buoyancy and body position for most swimmers, but it also helps efficient swimmers in the same way, so you don’t gain anything on them if you’re both suited up. And a wetsuit does nothing to ensure proper rotation, catching, pulling and recovery. It won’t swim for you.

3. You should breathe on both sides (breathe on every third stroke). Alternate breathing is a great way to train your stroke to become balanced, as it develops equal left-right muscular strength and reduces left-right technique asymmetries. However, in a long-distance swim, oxygen is very important, and you get more oxygen when you breathe on one side every second stroke. Over the course of a mile, 1.2 miles, and especially 2.4 miles, this will result in the uptake of significantly more oxygen than would occur if you were to breathe on every third stroke. And that’s more oxygen your body can use to power your working muscles. Analysis of the world’s best long-distance swimmers shows that 95 percent of them breathe on every stroke cycle for this reason. They can sustain a faster pace for a longer distance with more oxygen delivered to their muscles.

4. You should cup your hands to grab more water. Ironically, this results in grabbing less water. The surface area of your hand in a cupped position is much less than it is in a relaxed position. Try it: cup one hand and measure the area presented to the water and put the other hand in a relaxed position. In fact, research has shown that a hand in a relaxed position with fingers at their normal separation actually has a “webbing” effect and pushes more water than a flat hand with the fingers pressed together.

Colleen Kelley, PhD., a chemistry professor at the University of Arizona, is a long-time triathlete and an associate coach of Troy Jacobson’s Triathlon Academy.”

Taken from http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/