Swimming for Hammers and Spoons

Did some more filming today after a few weeks of drills

What great hand entry I have on the left :roll_eyes:

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Lovely splash with the right as well

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Did a pass with fins on and doing catch up.

Not AS bad but still work to do

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I lose swimming pace incredibly fast. A month ago in Spain, I started swimming at 2:20 pace and got to 2:00 after 20km in the sea. In Kona, my first swim as 2:27, got it down to 2:10 after 5 swims, and did 2:01 on race day.

It’s clear to me that I have to swim min 3 times, ideally 4 times a week, the issue is how do I make it stick?

I am actually delighted with my Kona Swim. It was 10 mins faster than my swim in Lanza in 2021 on a harder course, without wetsuit. I came 395th on the swim out of 577, this is the World Championship, so expect that most are pretty decent swimmers.

I’ve made great progress this year, and occasionally I am seeing some breakthrough swim sessions, the problem is I don’t know why.

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It’s your subconscious wanting you to maximise the number of Mauten moves on the Ventum bike course before putting a down payment on an electric car in T2 and more Maurten Moves in the Hoka run course.

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:joy: :joy:

Spoons is addicted to the Maurten moves.

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Its true. I am getting FOMO i want to race tomorrow for more Maurten Moves

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@funkster – Hopefully, if I start the video reviews off…

Some people who know what they are talking about will join in. :wink:

Context:
I am not a swim coach
I haven’t even swum in a pool since February, due to an injury :roll_eyes:

However, the first time I was filmed, I did exactly the same thing as you pushing off the wall.
But I was told not to breathe on the ‘break out’ from the streamlined position.
Instead, take your first stroke/s before taking your first breath, simples.

Your left-hand entry is much better in the second video, compared to the first.
As your hand should be reaching full extension under the water, not over it.

Unfortunately, my guess is that your already know this, as you reference your left arm.

Obviously, there is something not quite right, but I can’t put my finger on it.

My first thought when I watched your first video was how big/heavy are your paddles?

As it looked like your left hand was ‘weighed down’ – muscle memory perhaps?

Hope some better feedback comes along.

Good luck, Paul. :slight_smile:

Correct dont breath into or out of the turns, but breathing on the way out can be done , but its rare it doesnt bring you to a dead stop!

My take, you are swimming nearly catch up drill. timing is all out should almost be starting the pull when the hand enters so get that EVF and search for the catch whilst the opposite arm is recovering

This is also having knock on effects to balance, and breathing so sort that out and the rest could well follow.

oh your stroke rate is way too low :wink: (ok only kidding but it could be due to above)

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Your left elbow hits the water before your hand I think because you are reaching too far, you’ve a very straight arm before the spear even though the hand is ready for the catch.
We can’t see under water but it’s hard to imagine the forearm isn’t pushing down on the water before a full catch is started.

I think it would help you to align your hand with your forearm @ spear to bring the elbow up.

Here you’ve done most of the rotation but the hand hasn’t yet entered so some timing issue.

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Are you talking about the first or second video?

Paddles are the Finis ones, so not that big.

I think a lot might be down as well to my shocking shoulder flexibility

Oh no, it’s not looking good under the water either

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Oh err, second i think

The reason it looks like catch up, is because I was doing catch up to see what my entry was like :smiley:

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Stop me if I’ve asked this before - how hard is it to get to break the hour for 3.8km, like from under 1h10 to under 1h?

Or is it entirely dependant on the swimmer and their flaws. I suspect it is. Like running though, I’ve heard that below a certain volume you’re not playing the game, so can volume more-or-less alone sort it?

Not ignoring Matts recent experience shaving several minutes of with just more volume.

I’d say if you are around 65-66 minutes already an increase in volume and intervals would probably just about get you there, maybe a few specific drills.

Slower than that and you probably have a couple of flaws to overcome or lack flexibility etc

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Id target a sub 6 / 400 first. Break it down, get to a point you are targeting 16x25 off 30 holding 20, then 8 x 50 off 50 holding 40s, build to 4 x 100 holding 1.25 off 1.40 etc

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Completely, there’s no one size fits all in how easy or hard anything in life is! As always, it depends.

Some people chose their parents well. Someone with good training background has less scope for improvement than a novice.

Example of an outlier: My club had a triathlete go from new swimmer at just about 2min 100s to elite in 18 months - - > 100x100 long course off 1:30 turnaround and he went 66 on the last one just to see what he could do.

As for yourself, yes you can improve on a 65 minute swim. Go through the process and the outcome will be what it will be.

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1.09 to 1.03 swim in 12 months on same swim course and conditions. Volume pretty similar however I did have another 12 months of that volume in bank. I did amend one of the swims to what is best called the ‘Funkster’ swim on here - 4km of paddle/buoy work. That strength in back end allowed me to convert pool pace more across to Ironman swim pace I feel. Don’t get the wrong picture though- it was 1 of my swims a week with 2-3 other including squads at least once. Would it work without the other swims- unlikely I feel.

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