Excellent Smooth Swimming Video

Here is an excellent video I found on youtube.com which demonstrates what the narrator calls "smooth swimming". He recommends visualizing the perfect stroke. This video shows an Olympic Gold medalist doing the freestyle. The ease of his stroke is what I've been preaching on this blog for some time now. What jumped out at me was this swimmer's torso rotation highlighted by the near perfect perpendicular line that runs from his elbow (out of the water) down his arm to the line in the bottom of the pool. I tried it this AM and getting the back of my arm straight out of the water, perpendicular to the bottom of the pool took a lot of effort, but it eventually came. Try it yourself.

Switch Around Your Muscle Focus

I confessed in a post some months back that when I'm doing freestyle, I occasionally will imagine that as I reach and pull the water, I am pulling the rungs of a ladder, yanking myself along the line in the bottom of the pool. There are of course alternatives. Late last week, I found myself unusually fatigued during my swim. My arms were inexplicably aching. To ease the fatigue - I didn't want to quit - I tried focusing my attention to different muscle groups at different times. First I tried focusing on my shoulders. I straightened out my arms and allowed my shoulder muscles to do the pulling. By doing this, I found my arms relaxing - my upper body took over the work and my arms took on an unintended relaxed, almost whip-like motion that still propelled me sufficiently but lessened the fatigue (it was nice). Next I tried focusing on my elbows. Pointing my elbows back toward my feet, I pulled through with the upper part of my forearm. This didn't lessen my fatigue much, but pulled me through fairly efficiently. Last, I tried focusing on my hands, putting as much pull as I could into the stroke by grabbing and holding the water so little slid past. This promoted the greatest feeling of fatigue but seemed most fast for the short period of time I could support it (remember, I was tired). I suppose a combination of these three approaches is best, but when a muscle group gets tired it's nice to switch around. Experiment and see what works best for you.

Extending My Freestyle Reach

Want to increase your reach so you can pull more water? I've been practicing and noticed that some techniques work better than others. I've mentioned in past posts how stretching one's torso extends one's reach. Today I found myself working on my arm reach. I was focusing on keeping my arm straight and pulling with my shoulder. In doing so found that I could add what I perceived to be significant additional length to my reach. I did this by exaggerating the depth I turned my shoulder into the water (toward the bottom). In doing so I could distinctly feel my deltoid muscle move and extend further than it naturally did. It almost felt as though my reach extended an additional inch or two (which never occurred to me as a possibility). This may be something any skilled swimmer already knows about, but it felt completely new to me. I do have somewhat loose shoulder muscles (I've temporarily dislocated them on several occasions) so the extension shift I felt in my shoulder muscles may not be reproducible by everyone. I'd like to hear comments on these observations.

Is there an Optimal Pull Speed

This morning I noted that at times during my swim I was pulling faster, but making less progress. I slowed down the pace of the stroke and found it more efficient. I didn't change the stroke in any other way and I didn't time myself, but felt like I was making better progress through the water with the slower stroke. Strange. This begs the question, is there an optimal pull speed that works best for the speed the body is traveling through the water? If one's stroke pace exceeds the speed of the water flow, are you defeating yourself by using excessive energy? I'm thinking the right speed is where one catches the water such that you can maximize the pull. But what is that? If you pull too fast, you pull less water and consequently use more energy than you get back in terms of forward momentum. Am I on track to something here or just full or it? Your thoughts dear readers ...

English Channel Swim

Since my posts of late have swung into the adventurous high jinks of swimmers - thanks to Martin Strel (see prior recent posts) - I've been seeking out like-minded sites. Here's a web site I came across that gives some good insight into English Channel swimming. Check out the FAQs page for lots of good info on what a channel swim can entail and the recommended preparation.