10/17/2016 0 Comments Early morning startsGetting up at 0500 on a Sunday to get to the pool and get prepared for my first session can be a bit of challenge sometimes, especially when it's cold and dark outside.
Conversely having a bit of "Sunday" a lie in on a Monday in return is rather pleasant.
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10/12/2016 0 Comments Implementing change to your strokeIt's very easy to get distracted from your focal points if you start doing endurance training whilst trying to make changes.
Ideally don't do any for a while whilst implementing the new changes and remain mindful all the time of what you are trying to do every swim. If you're anything like me, you like to feel you've had a bit of a workout when you go swimming and to do some intervals or a longish steady swim. I strongly advise people (and myself!) to make sure they start and finish their swims with 10 to 20 minutes of good mindful focal point swimming working with no more than three focal points per swim. Be patient and save the other areas you know you need to improve for another week or certainly another session. As Mozart said: “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time.” 10/9/2016 0 Comments Slow Down to Speed UpThe only way to increase speed is to increase cadence, stroke length or both.
Increasing cadence at the expense of stroke length may make you feel like you are swimming faster but won't make you swim faster. Step one is to improve the efficiency and length of your stroke. Step 2 is speed it up without losing the length of your stroke. Then you will swim faster without necessarily increasing effort. Speed is simply a product of stroke length and tempo. 10/1/2016 0 Comments Early morningsThere's something magical about swimming and early mornings.
My Sunday coaching sessions typically start with me getting out of bed at 0500 to get to ready with session plans and on to the pool ready for the first session at 0630. After the initial conversation with myself about actually getting my feet on the floor, I absolutely love it. You get the world to yourself and my first two or three clients are out of the water before a lot of people have even got out of bed. What could be a better way of kicking off a Sunday than to refine your swimming skills Total Immersion style? 9/30/2016 0 Comments September 30th, 2016When exploring your stroke at higher tempos, it's natural for your SPL to tend to increase a bit. What's going on? Generally speaking we tend to flatten out, which causes the stroke count to go up.
I find the first best thing to do is NOT to time the hand entry to the beeps on the Tempo Trainer but instead to time the beeps to the weight shift. This helps keep the whole body in sync with the stroke. Just focussing on hand entry with beep can cause the hands to get ahead of the stroke and eventually the stroke will break down. You will also find that by focusing on weight shift it's easier to maintain the SPL to within a stroke or two. Try it and let me know how you get on. 9/26/2016 0 Comments Stroke CountingThis is a great video by Bob Bowman on the importance of stroke counting for understanding the efficiency of your stroke. 9/18/2016 0 Comments Portsmouth Pier to Pier 2KWell obviously I didn't win but completed the 2K in 31 mins and came first in my age group (out of 3 admittedly!). I wanted to swim it super relaxed and see what happened. Very lumpy as we turned the corner round the castle so sighting was tricky in the troughs. Pushed a little harder in the last 400m or so and had a bit of a fun race with somebody who turned out to be 2nd in my age group! Overall a very comfortable pace. Effort level 2 out of 5 - I definitely could have swum back.
Water temp 19 degrees. Quite pleasant. 9/8/2016 0 Comments Arm Spearing DepthTotal Immersion encourages swimmers to spear deeper than they are used to in order to set up for a great catch. But a deeper arm spear also helps drive more rotation. Playing with it today during a 1000m warm up (having watched the Phelps drills on my Facebook page), I immediately dropped back to 41SPL in the 50m pool. I really enjoyed the feeling of extra forward momentum.
This is defintiely a area wetsuit swimming can get in the way of as an arm in neoprene (no matter how thin the wetsuit) has a tendency to want to float on or near the surface of the water more. 9/4/2016 0 Comments Learning the Two Beat KickLots of people struggle with the timing of the two beat kick. Ideally you kick into streamline and forward extension and not as the hand enters the water. This is something you can adjust over time but it's really helpful to focus on contralateral lengthening through the leg as the opposite arm spears to help this timing or before even attempting it to help build the connections.
The Summer is nearly gone and I did my final morning acclimatisation swim at the 67m Portsmouth open air pool this morning. I have done no sea swimming this year apart from the Arun 3K river race and it's an experiment to see if I can use this pool as preparation for open water swimming with the Southsea 2k Pier to Pier race on 18th September as the test.
An effortless 1800 metres focussing on swimming in a relaxed Total Immersion style with neutral head, using the Two Beat Kick and noticing how well timed my kick has become when I breathe left and how I still have a fair bit of work to do unravelling what changes when I breathe to the right. I appear to be swimming pretty straight when breathing left (surely no coincidence that this is not the case when breathing right) and can remain on track sighting only once or twice per lap. In the sea it will be a different matter of course. I am talking to the trustees of the pool about some one day workshops in this pool next year. Let me know if you are interested please. |
JamesI am a certified level 3.0 Total Immersion Swim Coach. |