Make Your Mind Enhance Your Swim Stroke

It's fun to swim parallel with someone in the same lane or adjacent lanes. For me, it inspires me to pull harder and kick stronger. Yesterday I found myself swimming parallel to another swimmer who was using paddles to enhance her pulling muscles. Usually I just give up any thought of trying to keep up with anyone using paddles or flippers. They just enhance the stroke so much, there's usually no way I can keep up if the swimmer has any stamina to speak of. Nevertheless, I tried and without thinking, found myself mirroring the swimming next to me with the paddles. I was reaching further and pulling more water than I usually do. How do I know this? I really don't, but I felt it, and I could tell I was cruising along faster than usual. What was the trick? I guess it was all in my mind. I do have a tendency to mirror people on land (they fold their arms, I fold my arms; they speak with a British accent, I do the same ... I know it's weird and certainly not intentional), so why not in water too? Now I just need to figure out how to make it happen for me independent of others.

Power Stroke

Power is always an issue with me. Either I've got it going or I don't. Today, as fortune would have it, I had it. I generally get it, when I'm swimming in a lane next to another good swimmer. Just the ambition to keep up or pass usually gets me going. Today, it was none of that. I just had it going and for some fortuitous reason, I made note of what I was doing. From time to time, during the swim, I slowed, and made note of that too. What I discerned was that when I forced my body to stretch out to its longest - from toe to fingernail - and when I combined that with a straight (freestyle) pull down to the vertical point (pointing at the bottom of the pool) before making the first move into any sort of s-stroke, was when I got the most power going. The exaggerated stretch made my stroke longer and in effect gave me a larger propeller. I experimented with the s-stroke too, noting that I could start it long before I reached the vertical point. This early s-stroke defeated the available power, while a delayed s-stroke enhanced it. Try it out and see if you get these results.