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Cr@p Swimmers R Us
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I've just entered the Teesdale tri in July
I have 3 months to improve my swin technique!
How far's the swim DD and is it open water?
In 3 months DD you will have improved so much!
I shall be throwing myself into this swimming malarkey, along with the cycling. I had an x-ray today cos the doc now suspects stress fracture but x-ray inconclusive so booked in for MRI scan on Thursday! Positive side is that swimming is gonna be good to maintain fitness.......right off for yet another beer!!!!!!
I intend to swim after work tomorrow and hoping to have time to swim for an hour and see how I do.
I wish I had four months....
I haven't even got four weeks.
Hellooo, my first post on the cr@p swimmers are us thread. Helloo. I wouldn't call myself a cr@p swimmer, more a moderately cr@p swimmer. But I do have a question for the better swimmers.
When you put your hand in the water and drag back .. this is probably going to sound dumb, but at what point do you put the force into pulling your hand through. Is it better to do one swift pull through or is there a point where you pull harder (oh er missus).
PP
Not a dumb question, but it is a complicated answer. There are three phases to moving the hand back: catch, pull, push. It is one stroke but you are using different muscles in the phases.
In the catch you are setting the hand in the water. The hand is coming down from the horizontal reach. The arm muscles are mostly involved in the catch. The hand and forearm travel relatively slowly in the catch position, you are not exerting much power. It is more about getting the arm and forearm into position.The hand starts in a horizotal position, palm downward. You shouldnt exert most power as this will be in a downward direction.
You exert most of the power in the pull. If you have good rotation you are engaging the large back muscles. As you pull back you are pulling back along the body; you want to move forward so it makes sense that this is when more force is exerted.
In the push phase, as you straighten out the arm behind the triceps get used.This is not as powerful as the pull but it is still propelling you forward.
Personally I think a long slow pull is much better than a swift pull through.
Agreed. Our trainer sometimes makes us do drills based on these separate phases, e.g. pull your arm out of the water after the catch; hold your hand above the water for a second, pull back then drop it in by your hip and push strongly back.
2nd 3km wetsuit swim inside 3 days last night. I'm sore all across the back of my neck from one shoulder to the other, and I never heard the alarm this morning.
Helpful for me too. Thanks Bos and UI and PP for asking the question.
I don't have 4 weeks either, I have the Cleveland sprint tri a week on Sunday
I'm not expecting to see much swim improvement there over last weekend's tri but I'm going to enjoy myself again 
If I swam like I did this morning on Sunday, I would have had no prblem in the pool, everything just fell into place, I wsn't gasping for breath at the end of each length and I felt so relaxed. I only managed 150 metres though as I was still tired from Sunday.
LB the only thing you need to worry about at Nantwick is me, because if you can't see me will be up to no good. There that's taken you mind of the pool swim hasn't it!
Managed to swim after work and before picking up kids. Managed 1250m......although it didn't really seem to flow today. A bit of lane rage didn't help.....two "ladies" swimming in the medium lane chatting.....and trying not to get their faces wet.
I was very tempted to go ask the lifeguard to move them but got in the fast lane instead and hoped that a speedy swimmer didn't turn up.
My first tri is in July but I may have to pull out due to this leg issue.........
Saffers - fingers crossed for then.
Bos1 - that is a really helpful response, thanks. And thanks to PP for asking the question.
I really do like this thread.
I had that too on Monday - when I arrived there were heads up breastrokers in all but the 2 fast lanes, one fast lane look like the guy was going pretty fast, so I hovered over the other (sorting out mp3) and the guy in that said it was his last length - excellent lane to myself
Then two ladies then decided to get into the same lane as me swimming to do their heads up breastroke, having a chat s they passed each other
Some people clearly just don't think about other people, I stress about slowing people down everytime I pick which lane to swim in! So I moved into other fast lane, and the fast person had to keep overtaking me (and another bloke who was slower than me who'd got in that lane), which I felt bad about.
Anyway had a decent session Haile gave me some drills a couple of weeks ago and one had a pyramid of 50/100/150/200/150/100/50 but with challenge of breathing every 2/3/4/5/4/3/2 strokes, he said it was hard so I'd been putting it off, but it was fine.... so tonight I am going to brave tri club!!!!!!!!!
Me too - I've learned lots in a really small space of time and gained confidence quickly.
I worked on bilateral breathing this morning and seem to've cracked it! Just need to see what my coach thinks when I next see him on 14 May.
Tri club night tonight. I have now purchased some fins so will use them for the first time tonight.......although knowing my luck they won't be using fins but paddles.....which are on the list of things to buy!
I've still not mastered that bilateral breathing and tend to put off practising that one......I really should get to grips with it though.
I got stuck in a traffic jam at some roadworks and missed tri club.
Honest......I was all packed and in the car and everyfink.
I thought about turning up 20mins late but it would have been hard to fit in half way through a session.
So go early next time!
(warned you I'm a hard task master didn't I?)
point taken.
Well done on your 3k swim.
Back from tri club and it was hard work.....about 2000m swim! I am knackered and a little disheartened at being soooooo much slower than everyone else. I know it will come together and I am just having a bad day with it.
One of their best swimmers came along for us to watch him doing drills and then we had to copying him.......he did some coaching too but made me feel rushed as he would talk and start the others off but not explain what was going on to me
The other coach took me aside for the last 15mins and had me doing that bilateral breathing.........I wonder if he read this thread earlier!!!! 
My left side is weaker and he had me doing a few lengths breathing to that side.....I managed it but it will take some getting used to. He also said I need to get out of the habit of swimming my one speed and trying to up it. I am thinking perhaps going to the pool Friday for a short session.....maybe 20mins of just trying to swim as fast as I can.
Well done Saffers! 2000m is a long way isn't it? I did my first tri club swim tonight....
They have 5 lanes, there were 4 new people and the coach asked us all roughly what speed we thought we could swim 400m in and allocate a lane (I went in 2nd slowest with another newbie & 2 ohers).
The session went like this:
warm-up: 3x400m (fullstroke, drill of choice, full)
main set: 5x200m 50m fast, 150m recovery, 30s rest,
100m fast, 100m recovery, 30s rest,
150m fast 50m recovery, 30s rest
200m fast, 30s rest
200m recovery
8 x 25m in 40s (15m fast, 10m rec, rest remainer)
cool down: 100m recovery
I'll confess my warm up was not 1200m, basically since we were new we got a quick pep talk and a little extra help with drills etc in that section, so I did 1x 400m and 2x 200m.
I'm really pleased I went - and well chuffed that they timed the 200m fast and I did it in 3:49
It took me 11:34 to swim 500m at Nantwich in September.
I was a head above water breaststroke swimmer until about 6 months ago when I bit the bullet and had some lessons. It was amazing how quickly I learnt to breathe and I am now comfortable doing front crawl too.
Have entered my first tri in August. Only a sprint tri. At the moment I can do the 500m swim in 17 mins front crawl but 14 mins breaststroke. I've booked some more lessons to improve my fc technique as would like to get the swim nearer to 12 mins.
Do any of you less crappy swimmers have advice on a session a week to do to get my speed up? The coach has said my body position is good and technique not too bad but that I have just got into a habit of my one pace.......slooooow!!
Cheers