Next steps after stroke improvement session

Dave Tallo

I dutifully had a stroke improvement session with a local coach in an Endless Pool a few weeks ago.  PowerPoint version of the recommeded tweaks:  (1) work on a stronger finish - yours is non-existent - and (2) start your pull right away - your hand it just sitting there, extended, doing nothing.   Quote: "Boom - you're now swimming thirty percent more efficiently."   

My question is about putting these into practice: It surprisingly hard to change two things in your stroke that happen simultaneously after swimming a certain way for so long.   So, I've been setting aside the "swimming Addendum" swim sessions for the month, and my sets have been:

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-3 sessions weekly until this is your new way of swimming

-emphasis: try get 100% perfect stroke at all times - keep a nice, sloooooow pull and don't rush

-WU 

-20 x 50 (15') as T-pace to t-pace minus 5 with perfect form - attentive to BOTH finish and early catch

-100 easy as backstroke

-remainder as 6 - 8 x 200 at t-pace minus 5, with emphasis and attention to strong finish - try to keep up with early catch, but if this starts to falter after about 150, just revert back to whatever feels natural with catch, and keep on going with the interval, thinking about a perfect strong finish. 

Let recovery interval be whatever you need to make sure next set will have perfect form.     

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Thoughts?  I'll probably start on the next set of "look fors" once I have a groove - counting strokes per length again, mindfulness of body rotations, etc,  - but I just want to get my mind (and my mind-body connection) around these things first. 

 

Al Truscott

Dave - I may have a thought about how to combine the two goals you have into one mental picture, but as usual, I'll wend my way to it.

I can remember back in the very late 60s, when I was on a college swim team, and in summers, coached little kids (8 & unders) on my local swim team. The legendary Indiana U coach, James "Doc" Counselman had just written a book called "Science of Swimming" (he coached Mark Spitz, Gary Hall Sr, and a slew of other collegiate, national, and olympic champions). One point jumped out at me, his observation that arm speed should be increasing continuously  throughout the stroke - he felt this was how the best swimmers accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of having their bodies move forward faster than their hands/arms were moving back. (Also he attributed this to a non linear, or "S-shaped" pattern the hands would make on their backwards passage underwater.) I pondered how to make this understandable to a 7 year old, and just started telling them to finish their strokes hard and fast. Older kids, I would tell to continuously accelerate the speed of their hands throughout the length of their stroke.

And that's what I would observe to you: don't think of this as two separate tasks. It's only one - once your hand hits the water, you are trying to make it go progressively faster through the course of its journey back to your hip and exit with a little "snap" of the triceps at the end. Of course, to avoid waggling you hips back and forth, your body must be rotating around its central axis (head to toe) as you do this.

mancona

Dave, the tip I would share is leave your watch at home and don't look at the clock for a little while. Type A people with us like to see instant improvement and that can actually hold us back in swimming. The biggest thing that helped me last year was swimming for a full month without every timing anything or counting strokes. I simply did the drills the coach gave me and focused on 100% perfect form the entire month. After that I started to do sets on an interval again.

My problem has alwasy been that to make the interval time I revert back to old habits without knowing it. Therefore taking a month to let the new tips become natural worked wonders for me.

Like running, frequency has been huge for me with swimming. I seem to responed significantly better to swiming 2000 meters 5 days a week, then 3000 meets 3 days a week. Less total swimming but more frequent and my stroke just feels better. When I have a few days off, the first day back just doesn't feel right and it seems like I have to re-learn again every week.

Another great tip I got form Al is to do drills before AND after the main set to really help you build the muscle memory.

ghernand

great advice, Matt and Al.

Al, your advice particularly resonated with me.  although i have been focusing on bike and run so far, since IMAZ 2010, i have been thinking a lot about what i need to improve my swim and your advice i am sure will make a difference...

in fact, i am about to go and knock out a 1000mTT for rich's OS survey and will give it a try!!!

sincerely, GH

bcoop

Some pretty strong advice already, not sure if I can add much to the two wicked smart (and fast) guys above. Just a thought from a newbie here who swam alot a long time ago, but I'm not a swim coach so take it for what's its worth.



I'm not sure I like the "try to keep up with early catch, but if this starts to falter after about 150, just revert back to whatever feels natural with catch, and keep on going with the interval" portion of the workout that you posted above. If you are trying to change/improve, I agree with Matt that its critical that you focus on doing it the new way all the time, not just as long as you can until you get too tired and your form falters.



Instead of letting the form revert back to your old way, I might suggest shorting the distance of the interval so you can keep your form where you want it for the whole workout. Break the last 2 x 200 into 4 x 100 if necessary to hold the form together and get the distance done. Similiar to some of the bike VO2 workout advice I've seen here, if you have to shorten that 2:30 @ 120% FTP bike interval to 2:00 or 1:00 to be able to get the workout done, do it.



Good luck.







 

atasic

 @Dave, I will try to help and answer in bullets. I will  give instruction without much why, you are sharp you will know why.

Everything Al said and Matt added is excellent. I will  just give you a practical perspective as we deal with "your issues frequently".

 

Observations:

1. Many competitive swimmers get diagnosed with both issues you have displayed. Not enough aggressive catch, shortening the stroke/ slowing exit into recovery, this one being a result of fatiguing triceps.

2. In stroke correction, it is recommended, athlete focus on only one element at a time. I do think that you can address both, but will have to slow down and as Matt indicated throw away pace clock for the time being.

3. Stop engraving the wrong movements, I mean now. If the stroke is falling apart, stop before it does. Swimming 200s at T-5sec is VO2max activity and not very conducive to stroke correction. And by the way, very strong swimmers swim 200s as their VO2max sets early in the season. Usually it is 50-75-100s first, than the distance goes to 150-200-250....

In your case, you should reduce the distance and intensity in order to focus on stroke correction.

4. Here is the specific work I would suggest for drills/swims:

    catch correction

   50s as 25 fist drill/ 25 swim focus on aggressive catch/ high elbow, recovery  time however long it takes to perfectly execute the     drill

single arm can be done when you are well under way of correcting, focusing on only positioning your hand aggressively into a catch position, maintaining high elbow during and initiating the pull aggressively, keep your head down and don't look at your hands during, look straight down and wait to see your hands and arms when they are under you.......

  all the swims can be done with thumb scraping your thigh during the late stage of pull toward the exit, it will give you a clue where are you finishing your stroke. This drill is typically prescribed with catch up drill, but in your case, catch up drill may only keep engraving the delayed catch, so don't do that combo

Finally, a clue that you are "catching" properly can be an immediate tension in your lat of the side the hand is catching, happens as you create that leverage. 

If you need, keep asking questions, will keep answering. Keep it up.