In-goggles swim coaching

This could be a game changer (a phrase I very really use)

first comment from Mrs FB - a swim teacher - “I’m sceptical”. She thinks you’d be better off getting a proper analysis in a pool and 1:1 coaching.

Did you watch?

Doesn’t have to be better than a personal coach to change the game imo. There are obvious limitations so it doesn’t replace coaching either.

Yes, we did watch and looked at the Form website. It’s like a lot of new tech - promises a lot but in reality is only replicating what can be done by other means and often FOC or a lot cheaper. Too many of these new ideas work on the “we can revolutionise your swimming/running/biking/whatever” when in reality they either can’t or don’t.

Some of the reviews on the website are less than great as well.

I’m sure it has a place for some people

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I’ve just had the update so I’ll do a review after a few weeks swimming. The pre-existing tech in the goggles has been very reliable these last three months so I am assuming it won’t be a total fail.

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First try, works really well: head roll and head angle. I could immediately get my score to near the top. Working that into everyday swimming is the lengthy piece I guess.

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No. It won’t.

The end.

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was chatting to someone yesterday who had form goggles. She said that when she races her arms seem to co into chop mode. the turnover increases but overall speed goes down. she said she can somehow see that information in real time using this goggle sorcery & adjust her stroke accordingly? Sounded pretty good. There’s no way I’d sneak that past the financial controller though sadly. Plus I’d probably drop them or sit on them or something

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Vague recollection that this kind of tech is technically banned to competition, although that may be the ones that claim to give you course guidance not pace and technique feedback.

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Hang on.
Wind that back.

You mean they can tell you to swim in a straight line to the buoy???

That, my friend, is how the game is changed :exploding_head:

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Just been approved at all events. I think it’s more important in training than racing.

So three months with Form scores tracking up and down:

The overall score I think is basically predicated on how fast you’re going - No one would expect this to change massively in three months so I don’t know if a few points is good, bad or meh

Head Pitch initially went up really high as I was doing head pitch training and using the Headcoach, but keeping it in mind over the last few months has seen improvement

Peak head roll - another one affected by environment I think. I have tried to work on this but I just get a load of water in my mouth, I’ve not had a coach complain about this so I’m a little doubting.

Interval pacing I think is affected by other people in the pool, so as I used a crappy pool more recently the numbers dived.

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I’ve not got 3 months of data to go by, and tbh, my interpretation of the main form score is fairly similar to yours. Swim faster generally means swim better, and so as I’ve started swimming again a lot more regularly (2023: 22 swims total for 22k, and most of that was no arms and kicking due to a shoulder/back/neck issue, versus 2024: 16 swims and 27k already), it’s logically going up. I have dug into the numbers a bit more on occasion, and when we do super disciplined sets of DPS focus (I’d generally swim roughly 20spl, but if I focus can get as low as 15/16) then the form score for that interval does jump (it’s not much different to swolf in that regard though).

I tried the head coach stuff. Expected it to be quite easy from what DCR reviewed. Really didn’t like it tbh. The few times early on that I tried head pitch, I just got worse! :person_shrugging: There’s something about where the hud is, that to try and see the dot constantly made me adversely move my head. The actual scores I have “naturally” though seem OK, so I don’t see there’s much need to focus on them (especially when my core technique needs work after nearly 15 months off).


My pacing scores are terrible. But then I’ve not done many, if any, sessions of repeats of the same type of intervals at, say, CSS. A lot of our club sessions are varied sets and variable pacing by design. It probably is a reflection of my current fitness though. I am getting better each week, but I’m still tailing off quite significantly over anything more than a couple of hundred metres. I have also certainly noticed what you’ve described before. The autostart isn’t responsive enough, and the first length of any interval is always roughly a second too short. So that probably impacts its perception of interval pacing. Other than that, the goggles are decent. And I can factor that 1s in easily enough.

They are beginning to fog already though, which is rather concerning. And I’ve followed the advice rigorously.

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